Lutz Röhrich (9 October 1922 – 29 December 2006)[1] was a German folklorist and scholar studying topics relating to literature, oral stories, and similar types of media.
[1][2] His peers as well as those that he taught referred to him as "ein lebendiges lexikon", "the living encyclopedia", due to his deep knowledge and friendliness in discussing many different aspects of his work.
[1] Röhrich is perhaps best known internationally for writing the book Märchen und Wirklichkeit (English: Folktales and Reality), a work first published in 1956, and thereby introducing many students to studying fantastical tales in a social science setting.
The shadow of Nazi Germany, and political extremism more generally, provided the backdrop for his efforts to look at folktales through a more analytical lens, emphasizing the sense of time and space, rather than the traditional nationalist, race-based lenses.
His doctoral thesis, "Demonic Figures in the Folk Narratives of Swabia", involved an investigation of approximately 2000 traditional images drawn primarily from archive sources.