author
Ernst Ludwig Rochholz
1809–1892
A lively 19th-century folklorist and historian, he devoted much of his work to legends, myths, and popular traditions from Switzerland and the German-speaking world. His writing helped preserve a rich body of regional storytelling that might otherwise have faded away.
1 Audiobook
Drei Gaugöttinnen
by Ernst Ludwig Rochholz
About the author
Born in Ansbach on March 4, 1809, Ernst Ludwig Rochholz was a German-born scholar who later built his career in Switzerland. He studied philosophy, philology, and law in Munich, but political troubles forced him to leave Bavaria in the early 1830s, and he settled in Switzerland.
From 1836 to 1866 he taught at the cantonal school in Aarau. He became known as a historian, folklorist, and researcher of myths and legends, with a special interest in Swiss traditions, popular belief, and old narrative material. His work brought together scholarship and a strong curiosity about how ordinary people remembered the past.
Rochholz died in Aarau in 1892. He is still remembered for collecting and interpreting folklore at a time when regional songs, tales, and customs were being taken seriously as part of cultural history.