The priest of the manor … is absorbed with his position on the estate and manipulates everyone, lord, lady, and serf, alike, to better his station and to tighten the Church’s grip on the society. There resides, however, in a hut of sticks beyond the fringe of the village, another kind of priest, a wise old man called a shaman. The shaman lives outside the social system, refusing to have any part of it. Yet, he seems to connect the populace to the heavens and the earth far more directly than the priest. Perhaps that is why the priest despises him.

From Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins