Dancing with the hangman : symbol, myth and ritual in the medieval German legend, the Schelmensage

Klein, Marie Bastienne

Dancing with the hangman : symbol, myth and ritual in the medieval German legend, the Schelmensage

Master Thesis

2005

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Religious Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Dancing with the hangman is an investigation into the medieval German legend known as the Schelmensage, which has its location in Bergen-Enkheim in Frankfurt, Germany - the town where I was born. It is a legend that concerns the manner in which a hangman became knighted by the emperor Barbarossa. I received the legend from my mother. My initial research question was to find out why the legend was being told for over a period of 900 years. The thesis investigation reveals the legend to be a German trickster myth, achieving this analysis using various theories to define it as myth. The work of Paul Ricoeur on mimesis, is cast in an arc of the prefigured world of action, the act of configuration and the ability of a person to reconfigure a situation or a life, which is applied so as to understand the structures which underlie the legend's meaning. Regarding the word Schelm as the symbolic core of this legend the thesis analyses this symbolism through its etymology, a structural analysis of its five different versions and its ritual performance in the play, Der Schelm von Bergen. The thesis considers the impact of being personally involved with the subject matter. The analysis is woven with personal episodes and this is defended as a reflexive methodolgy.

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