The Legend of Lady Godiva1 by H.R. Ellis Davidson (1969)

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 900th  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 …

The Chariot of the Sun1 by H.R. Ellis Davidson (1969)

FOLKLORE may be viewed as a long road leading back into the remote past. It is not a direct road, as early folklorists tended to think; there are many twists and turns in it and many breaks, and yet its winding course establishes a kind of continuity between the men of prehistoric times and our …

Reviews of “The Chariot of the Sun and Other Rites and Symbols of the Northern Bronze Age” by Peter Gelling, Hilda Ellis Davidson (1969)

Review by: Jacqueline Simpson, Folklore, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Summer, 1970), pp. 152-153. THE aim of this book, which will prove indispensable to students of ancient European religions, is to analyse the meanings of Scandinavian rock-engravings in the Bronze Age (roughly between 1500 and 500 B.C.), and to trace the subsequent history of religious symbols …

Everyday Life in the Viking Age by Jacqueline Simpson, reviewed by H. R. Ellis Davidson (1968)

This book on the life of the Viking Age stands out from many of this type in that the author throughout has used first-hand sources and the most recent scholarly authorities, many of them inaccessible to the reader without a knowledge of the Scandinavian languages. She has drawn widely on recent archaeological work in the …

The Giant of Cerne Abbas by H. S. E. Dewar reviewed by Hilda R. Ellis Davidson (1968)

This new series of small monographs on West Country Folklore under the editorship of Miss Theo Brown will be warmly welcomed by all who are interested in the subject, and it may be hoped that other regions will now follow the lead of the West Country. In her foreword Miss Brown stresses the need for …

Thor’s Hammer by H. R. Ellis Davidson (1965)

Even in our sophisticated, urban civilization, we can still feel something of the terror and marvel of a thunderstorm. 'That is God's voice speaking', I was solemnly told by my grandmother when I was a small child. When the thunder breaks, as it seems, directly overhead, it is either an inspiring or an intimidating experience, …

Loki in Scandinavian Mythology by Anna Birgitta Rooth, reviewed by H.R. Ellis Davidson (1962)

LOKI is one of the most puzzling figures in Scandinavian mythology. Was he originally god, giant, dwarf, the embodiment of evil, a fire or water spirit, or, as scholars are now inclined to think, a being resembling the Trickster in North American Indian folktales? Out of the many books attempting to find an answer, one …

Folklore and Man’s Past by H.R. Ellis Davidson (1963)

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 …

The Hill of the Dragon: Anglo-Saxon Burial Mounds in Literature and Archaeology by Hilda R. Ellis Davidson (1950)

A Paper read before a meeting of the Society on October I9th, 1949.1 THE idea of raising an imposing mound of earth to guard the bones or ashes of the dead is one which has roots deep in antiquity. " Man " said Sir Thomas Browne " is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and …

IN MEMORIAM: Hilda Ellis Davidson (1914-2006) by Jacqueline Simpson

  Dr Hilda Ellis Davidson, who died in January 2006, had for many decades been a distinguished scholar in the field of Scandinavian mythology and religion, whose books reached a wide readership and whose enthusiasm for her subject was an inspiration to many-myself included. Time and again, over the years, one would hear Hilda gleefully …