SOURCE: Beyer, Jürgen. “On the Transformation of Apparition Stories in Scandinavia and Germany, c. 1350-1700.¹” Folklore 110 (1999): 39-47.

In the following essay, Beyer outlines some major changes in the use of apparitions in Scandinavian and German literature, establishing a connection between this transformation and the advent of the Reformation.

Largely unnoticed by English-speaking folklorists, Central European scholars engaged in historical narrative research have in recent years reached important conclusions about the history of storytelling. Their findings undermine the very foundations on which the study of folklore hitherto has rested. The most important contributions have without doubt flowed from the pen of Rudolf Schenda.

The purpose of this essay is not to review these publications but rather to show avenues for future research. I shall therefore only give a simplified summary of the new history of storytelling from the late Middle Ages until the early-nineteenth century, when the ground...