Stuffo

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Stuffo is the name of an alleged Germanic deity from the legend of Saint Boniface . After he felled the Donariche in Geismar, he is said to have moved to the Harz Mountains , where he destroyed an "oracle image" of the god Stuffo on the step mountain. At the moment of destruction, the portrait is said to have driven under steam and flames into a hole that is still called Stuffel's Hole today. In a church in Eichsfeld , in Küllstedt , there is a portrait from 1756 depicting Boniface pushing Stuffo off a wooden plinth.

The German Romantics of the 18th and 19th centuries wanted to recognize a drinking deity in stuffo and derived its name from the word Stuvo or Stauf for a particular cup, and wanted more evidence of a Germanic stuffo cult in family and place names such as Stauffenberg recognize . But since the legend of the saints and extremely uncertain pseudo-etymologies are the only indications of the existence of such a god, the actual existence of a god named Stuffo is now disputed by most researchers and relegated entirely to the realm of legend.

Stuffo as a figure of folklore

In the three bailiwick of Oberdorla, Niederdorla and Langula, the “Stuffo” is the name of the local variant of the leaf man and part of the local Whitsun festival . For example, a child is placed under a robe-like funnel made of fir branches about three meters high and driven through the respective village on a wagon, with the attendees shouting "Stuffo whistle", whereupon "Stuffo" has to whistle to prove himself actually someone is within the branches. A figure by the name of Stuffo is also mentioned in the Frisian saga of “Feuer-Pütz”, but apparently it was borrowed from the Bonifatiussage here.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Lyncker: Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in Hessischen Gauen , ISBN 978-3-487-06104-7
  2. ^ Ludwig Bechstein, Deutsches Sagenbuch, Leipzig (Georg Wigand) 1853

literature

  • Ludwig Bechstein: Collected Works , Volume 11
  • Christian August Vulpius: Concise dictionary of the mythology of the German, related, neighboring and Nordic peoples