After the Bronze Age: Goat by Hilda Ellis Davidson (1969)

Source: ‘Part II: After the Bronze Age,’ Chariot of the Sun and Other Rites and Symbols of the Northern Bronze Age, 1969, pp. 166. Some of the figures on gold bracteates of the Migration period have been identified as goats, but it is difficult to make a clear distinction between goats and horned horses or …

After the Bronze Age: Farm Animals by Hilda Ellis Davidson (1969)

Source: ‘Part II: After the Bronze Age,’ Chariot of the Sun and Other Rites and Symbols of the Northern Bronze Age, 1969, pp. 163-166. The Bull The bull loses his ancient importance in later heathen times in the north, and is replaced by the horse. The same seems to be true of Celtic paganism where …

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 …

Gods and Heroes in Stone by H.R. Ellis Davidson (1950)

To seek for illustrations of the legends and myths of the pagan past carved on the memorial stones and crosses of Anglo-Saxon is to embark on a subject which has provided wilder flights of interpretative fancy than perhaps any branch of Anglo-Saxon studies. On such a topic thought is indeed free, and the vague, often …