What caused Goethe’s near-lifelong interest and obsession with Faust? Johann Georg (or Johannes) Faust has long been a strange entity in German folklore. Wilson notes that “Faust would pass through so ...

It might help if we stopped calling them ‘the Brothers Grimm’, which always makes them sound like characters in one of their ...

As his bemused colleagues soon realize, Belsnickel is no figment of Dwight’s overactive imagination, but a real figure from German folklore. Indeed, Belsnickel has been celebrated by the ...

German folklore held that storks found babies ("stork stones") in caves or marshes and brought them to households in a basket on their backs or in their beaks. The babies would then be given to ...