German Folklore: A Key to History
8:00 a.m., Friday, Sept. 5, 2008
Webster Hall Auditorium
Admission: free

Although it is common to look at legends for their universal attributes, Dr. Beverley Eddy will examine them instead for their basis in fact, showing how most German legends about dragons and devils actually relate to specific historical events that occurred at specific sites in the Rhine river valley.

Beverley Driver Eddy has a Ph.D. in German from Indiana University, studied for two years at the Freie Universität Berlin, worked for a time as a bi-lingual tour guide at a German castle, and taught at Middlebury and Dickinson colleges (she is currently professor emerita at Dickinson). She specializes in German and Scandinavian literary relations, but has a strong secondary interest in German folklore, and has published on the folk history of the Rhine river valley and on the historical Dracula. She is presently writing a biography of “Bambi” author Felix Salten.