H R Ellis Davidson
Biographic Data
| ID | 386630 |
|---|---|
| NAME | H R Ellis Davidson |
| GIVEN NAMES | H R Ellis |
| FAMILY NAME | Davidson |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIDSON H R E |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Folklore Society |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1953 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Myths & Symbols in Pagan Europe
Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe
Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe
Excerpt The aim of the author has been to examine the pre-Christian records of Scandinavia and the Celtic world (primarily Ireland and Wales, but also including Continental evidence), as well as the later literary and folk material of these peoples, in an effort to reconstruct their original world- views. Needless to say, this is a very ambitious project, yet Davidson has been quite successful in carrying it out. Well known to students of Scandin…
Obituary
Short Reviews
Obituary
The Viking Road to Byzantium
Folklore Notes
Folklore and Myth
HE relationship of myth to folklore is a subject which arises inevitably out of my two earlier presidential addresses. In the first of these, Folklore and History, I indicated certain repetitive patterns in popular traditions concerning historical persons and events: the generous donor, the monster of destruction, the king returning to inaugurate a golden age. In the second, on Folklore and Literature, I was again dealing with repetitive patterns…
A Letter from the President
Folklore and Literature
IT is my intention today to look back, as I did last year, to recent work published in our journal and elsewhere, to discover the main lines along which progress in folklore studies is being made. The subject of folklore in literature has come well into the forefront in recent issues, and for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, the word folklore has appeared in the English faculty lecture list at Cambridge, where Dr Derek Brewer has been…
Folklore and History
IN choosing this subject, I found I was following in the footsteps of a former President, Dr Margaret Murray, who gave an address on 'Folklore in History' in I955. It has been instructive to look back to this. Dr Murray found ingenious ways to explain folklore traditions by fitting them into a simple historical framework, as when here she suggests that stories of West Country giants might have originated in early invasions of peoples from south-e…
Progress on the northern front
Obituaries
The Smith and the Goddess. Two Figures on the Franks Casket from Auzon
The Legend of Lady Godiva
THE legend of Godiva was recalled to our minds and flared up for a while in the press in 1967, when the City of Coventry celebrated the 9ooth anniversary of her death. It is a legend which offers a challenge both to historian and folklorist, for the problem it presents is that of the relationship between historical events, written records and popular tradition. It is the more complicated and the more interesting for us because the folklore does n…
The Chariot of the Sun
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
This title surveys the pre-Christian beliefs of the Scandinavian and Germanic people. It provides an introduction to this subject, giving basic outlines to the sagas and stories, and helps identify the character traits of not only the well known but also the lesser gods of the age
Thor's Hammer
The Finglesham Man
The buckle (PL. Iva) was found during the latest season of excavation on the site of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Finglesham [I]. It has not yet been sent for laboratory treatment, but though some of its constructional details are obscured by the corrosion of the bronze backplate, all its other surfaces, including the underside of the loop and tongue and the edges of the ornamental plate, have been protected during the long centuries underground b…
Folklore and Man's Past
WE realize now that folklore is not merely a study of survival fossilized pieces of quaint tradition from a hypothetical past. Yet it does provide a link with the past, and as a student of early literature, archaeology and religion, this is the aspect of folklore studies with which I am most concerned. What kind of light does it throw on the customs and beliefs of men of long ago ? The work of Sir James Frazer and other giants of the early twenti…
The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England. Its Archaeology and Literature
This book is an invaluable exploration of the significance of the sword as symbol and weapon in the Anglo-Saxon world, using archaeological and literary evidence. The first part of the book, a careful study of the disposition of swords found in peat bogs, in graves, lakes and rivers, yields information on religious and social practices. The second is concerned with literary sources, especially Beowulf.
The Sword at the Wedding
FROM the close of the Roman period in North-western Europe, the long two-edged sword was the weapon of princes and adventurers, the warrior's most cherished possession which must always be ready to hand. The sword was carried by kings and leaders and given out by them to their followers in return for service in battle, and consequently it became a powerful emotive symbol in prose and poetry, the pledge of loyalty between the warrior and his lord.…
The road to Hel
The history of the Danes
first nine books of Saxo Grammaticus's The History of the Danes, dealing with the legendary kings and heroes of Denmark have long been recognized as one of the major sources for the heroic and mythological traditions of Northern Europe, including the earliest known account of the Hamlet story. However, they present many problems, because of the complexity of Saxo's Latin style and of the material he brought together from many different fields. Th…
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
This title surveys the pre-Christian beliefs of the Scandinavian and Germanic people. It provides an introduction to this subject, giving basic outlines to the sagas and stories, and helps identify the character traits of not only the well known but also the lesser gods of the age
The Finglesham Man
The buckle (PL. Iva) was found during the latest season of excavation on the site of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Finglesham [I]. It has not yet been sent for laboratory treatment, but though some of its constructional details are obscured by the corrosion of the bronze backplate, all its other surfaces, including the underside of the loop and tongue and the edges of the ornamental plate, have been protected during the long centuries underground b…
The Chariot of the Sun
Folklore and History
IN choosing this subject, I found I was following in the footsteps of a former President, Dr Margaret Murray, who gave an address on 'Folklore in History' in I955. It has been instructive to look back to this. Dr Murray found ingenious ways to explain folklore traditions by fitting them into a simple historical framework, as when here she suggests that stories of West Country giants might have originated in early invasions of peoples from south-e…
Folklore and Literature
IT is my intention today to look back, as I did last year, to recent work published in our journal and elsewhere, to discover the main lines along which progress in folklore studies is being made. The subject of folklore in literature has come well into the forefront in recent issues, and for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, the word folklore has appeared in the English faculty lecture list at Cambridge, where Dr Derek Brewer has been…
Folklore and Man's Past
WE realize now that folklore is not merely a study of survival fossilized pieces of quaint tradition from a hypothetical past. Yet it does provide a link with the past, and as a student of early literature, archaeology and religion, this is the aspect of folklore studies with which I am most concerned. What kind of light does it throw on the customs and beliefs of men of long ago ? The work of Sir James Frazer and other giants of the early twenti…
The Legend of Lady Godiva
THE legend of Godiva was recalled to our minds and flared up for a while in the press in 1967, when the City of Coventry celebrated the 9ooth anniversary of her death. It is a legend which offers a challenge both to historian and folklorist, for the problem it presents is that of the relationship between historical events, written records and popular tradition. It is the more complicated and the more interesting for us because the folklore does n…
Thor's Hammer
The Sword at the Wedding
FROM the close of the Roman period in North-western Europe, the long two-edged sword was the weapon of princes and adventurers, the warrior's most cherished possession which must always be ready to hand. The sword was carried by kings and leaders and given out by them to their followers in return for service in battle, and consequently it became a powerful emotive symbol in prose and poetry, the pledge of loyalty between the warrior and his lord.…
Weland the Smith
WHEN King Alfred was translating Boethius from Latin into Anglo-Saxon and reached the phrase 'the bones of the faithful Fabricius', his mind seems to have jumped from the hero's name to the Latin word faber, 'smith', and from there again to the name which for him stood for the most famous of smiths, Weland. Boethius had said that death levelled rich and poor alike, and Alfred here inserted a thought of his own
Folklore and Myth
HE relationship of myth to folklore is a subject which arises inevitably out of my two earlier presidential addresses. In the first of these, Folklore and History, I indicated certain repetitive patterns in popular traditions concerning historical persons and events: the generous donor, the monster of destruction, the king returning to inaugurate a golden age. In the second, on Folklore and Literature, I was again dealing with repetitive patterns…
Shorter Bibliographical Notices
Weland the Smith
WHEN King Alfred was translating Boethius from Latin into Anglo-Saxon and reached the phrase 'the bones of the faithful Fabricius', his mind seems to have jumped from the hero's name to the Latin word faber, 'smith', and from there again to the name which for him stood for the most famous of smiths, Weland. Boethius had said that death levelled rich and poor alike, and Alfred here inserted a thought of his own
The Sword at the Wedding
FROM the close of the Roman period in North-western Europe, the long two-edged sword was the weapon of princes and adventurers, the warrior's most cherished possession which must always be ready to hand. The sword was carried by kings and leaders and given out by them to their followers in return for service in battle, and consequently it became a powerful emotive symbol in prose and poetry, the pledge of loyalty between the warrior and his lord.…
The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England. Its Archaeology and Literature
This book is an invaluable exploration of the significance of the sword as symbol and weapon in the Anglo-Saxon world, using archaeological and literary evidence. The first part of the book, a careful study of the disposition of swords found in peat bogs, in graves, lakes and rivers, yields information on religious and social practices. The second is concerned with literary sources, especially Beowulf.
Folklore and Man's Past
WE realize now that folklore is not merely a study of survival fossilized pieces of quaint tradition from a hypothetical past. Yet it does provide a link with the past, and as a student of early literature, archaeology and religion, this is the aspect of folklore studies with which I am most concerned. What kind of light does it throw on the customs and beliefs of men of long ago ? The work of Sir James Frazer and other giants of the early twenti…
Thor's Hammer
The Finglesham Man
The buckle (PL. Iva) was found during the latest season of excavation on the site of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Finglesham [I]. It has not yet been sent for laboratory treatment, but though some of its constructional details are obscured by the corrosion of the bronze backplate, all its other surfaces, including the underside of the loop and tongue and the edges of the ornamental plate, have been protected during the long centuries underground b…
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
This title surveys the pre-Christian beliefs of the Scandinavian and Germanic people. It provides an introduction to this subject, giving basic outlines to the sagas and stories, and helps identify the character traits of not only the well known but also the lesser gods of the age
The Smith and the Goddess. Two Figures on the Franks Casket from Auzon
The Legend of Lady Godiva
THE legend of Godiva was recalled to our minds and flared up for a while in the press in 1967, when the City of Coventry celebrated the 9ooth anniversary of her death. It is a legend which offers a challenge both to historian and folklorist, for the problem it presents is that of the relationship between historical events, written records and popular tradition. It is the more complicated and the more interesting for us because the folklore does n…
The Chariot of the Sun
Obituaries
Folklore and History
IN choosing this subject, I found I was following in the footsteps of a former President, Dr Margaret Murray, who gave an address on 'Folklore in History' in I955. It has been instructive to look back to this. Dr Murray found ingenious ways to explain folklore traditions by fitting them into a simple historical framework, as when here she suggests that stories of West Country giants might have originated in early invasions of peoples from south-e…
Progress on the northern front
A Letter from the President
Folklore and Literature
IT is my intention today to look back, as I did last year, to recent work published in our journal and elsewhere, to discover the main lines along which progress in folklore studies is being made. The subject of folklore in literature has come well into the forefront in recent issues, and for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, the word folklore has appeared in the English faculty lecture list at Cambridge, where Dr Derek Brewer has been…
Folklore and Myth
HE relationship of myth to folklore is a subject which arises inevitably out of my two earlier presidential addresses. In the first of these, Folklore and History, I indicated certain repetitive patterns in popular traditions concerning historical persons and events: the generous donor, the monster of destruction, the king returning to inaugurate a golden age. In the second, on Folklore and Literature, I was again dealing with repetitive patterns…
The Viking Road to Byzantium
Folklore Notes
Short Reviews
Obituary
Obituary
Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe
Excerpt The aim of the author has been to examine the pre-Christian records of Scandinavia and the Celtic world (primarily Ireland and Wales, but also including Continental evidence), as well as the later literary and folk material of these peoples, in an effort to reconstruct their original world- views. Needless to say, this is a very ambitious project, yet Davidson has been quite successful in carrying it out. Well known to students of Scandin…
Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe
Myths & Symbols in Pagan Europe
History (25 works) · Art (18 works) · History (16 works) · Historical and Archaeological Studies (9 works) · Literature (9 works) · Ancient history (8 works) · Classics (8 works) · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies (7 works) · Archaeology (7 works) · Mythology (7 works)