Elfriede Moser-Rath

Who was Elfriede Moser-Rath?

Elfriede Moser-Rath was an Austrian ethnologist specializing in folk tales, and early modern literature.

Moser-Rath received her doctorate in 1949 from the University of Vienna with the publication of her thesis: Studien zur Quellenkunde und Motivik obersteirischer Volksmärchen aus der Sammlung Pramberger, which was an analysis of the narratives in Irish fairytales. She took her first job at the Austrian Folkculture Museum.

In 1955 she married Hans Moser, who was the Director of the Bavarian Folk Museum in Munich, but who was also an Austrian native. In 1969 she went to the University of Göttingen as an assistant professor to work under Professor Rolf Wilhelm Brednich on the Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. In 1982 she became a full professor there.

She is know primarily for the quality of her work on the Encyclopedia of Fairytales, and her analysis of literature from early modern times, and especially of Catholic sermons from the baroque period.