Old Thiess, a Livonian werewolf : a classic case in comparative perspective

Author / Creator

Ginzburg, Carlo, author

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Summary

"The topic of werewolves has flared in the popular imagination in recent years, but the case of Thiess-a self-admitted werewolf who claimed that, thrice yearly, he transformed and battled Satan and...

"The topic of werewolves has flared in the popular imagination in recent years, but the case of Thiess-a self-admitted werewolf who claimed that, thrice yearly, he transformed and battled Satan and his witches as a protector of humanity and the forest-is as baffling today as it was in seventeenth-century Livonia. At first, the judges in 1691 dismissed the 80-year-old was just a senile old man. But after protracted questioning and the testimonies of witnesses who knew Thiess as a werewolf, the judges delivered a guilty verdict a year-and-a-half later on Halloween. The sentence: flogging and banishment for stealing livestock. Even at the end, Thiess maintained that he "and a few other" werewolves were not servants of the Devil and refuted the inquisitors' accusations. This unusual and entertaining book is an attempt by two distinguished scholars from different methodological perspectives to wrestle with the case over the years. It is a hybrid work, at once a source text of the trial (reproduced in full in English for the first time); a glimpse at Nazi appropriation of the werewolf tale prior to WWII; a summary of Carlo Ginzburg's thoughts on the case (which he first encountered in the 1960s) using microhistorical analytic methods; Bruce Lincoln's analysis (from the 1970s), which he viewed from the perspective of comparative religion; their subsequent exchange of ideas and differing conclusions; and ending with an informal conversation. The result is a rare opportunity for students to attain an insight into the "modus operandi" of scholars who have left a great impact on the field, the merits and pitfalls of different interpretive approaches to the same historical materials, and an example of how scholarly exchange happens in the academic world, a debate not solely restricted to the exchange of formal articles in journals and conference papers"--

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