H.R. Ellis Davidson
Born
in Bebington, Wirral, Cheshire, England
October 01, 1914
Died
January 01, 2006
Genre
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Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
44 editions
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published
1964
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Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions
8 editions
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published
1988
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The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature
5 editions
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published
1943
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Scandinavian Mythology
10 editions
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published
1969
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The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe
10 editions
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published
1993
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Roles of the Northern Goddess
16 editions
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published
1998
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The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England: Its Archaeology and Literature
11 editions
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published
1962
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Viking and Norse Mythology
3 editions
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published
1969
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A Companion to the Fairy Tale
5 editions
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published
2002
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Pagan Scandinavia
5 editions
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published
1967
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“In spite of this awareness of fate, or perhaps because of it, the picture of man's qualities which emerges from the myths is a noble one. The gods are heroic figures, men writ large, who led dangerous, individualistic lives, yet at the same time were part of a closely-knit small group, with a firm sense of values and certain intense loyalties. They would give up their lives rather than surrender these values, but they would fight on as long as they could, since life was well worth while. Men knew that the gods whom they served could not give them freedom from danger and calamity, and they did not demand that they should. We find in the myths no sense of bitterness at the harshness and unfairness of life, but rather a spirit of heroic resignation: humanity is born to trouble, but courage, adventure, and the wonders of life are matters of thankfulness, to be enjoyed while life is still granted to us. The great gifts of the gods were readiness to face the world as it was, the luck that sustains men in tight places, and the opportunity to win that glory which alone can outlive death.”
― Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
― Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
“When in the seventh century King Redwald of East Anglia provided one altar in his church to sacrifice to Christ, and another small one to offer victims to devils,1 he was not behaving childishly, or cunningly hoping to get the best of both worlds, but merely acting according to normal heathen custom, since acceptance of one god did not mean that one wholly rejected one’s neighbour’s deity. This indeed must have been one of the most difficult lessons for the new converts to Christianity to learn, and while they gained in single-mindedness, it is to be feared that they lost much of their old spirit of tolerance. The”
― Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
― Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
“The mythology of a people is far more than a collection of pretty or terrifying fables to be retold in carefully bowdlerized form to our schoolchildren. It is the comment of the men of one particular age or civilization on the mysteries of human existence and the human mind, their model for social behaviour, and their attempt to define in stories of gods and demons their perception of the inner realities. We can learn much from the mythologies of earlier peoples if we have the humility to respect ways of thought widely differing from our own. In certain respects we may be far cleverer than they, but not necessarily wiser. We cannot return to the mythological thinking of an earlier age; it is beyond our reach, like the vanished world of childhood. Even if we feel a nostalgic longing for the past, like that of Jon Keats for Ancient Greece of William Morris for medieval England, there is now no way of entry. The Nazis tries to revive the myths of ancient Germany in their ideology, but such an attempt could only lead to sterility and moral suicide. We cannot deny the demands of our own age, but this need not prevent us turning to the faith of another age with sympathetic understanding, and recapturing imaginatively some of its vanished power. It will even help us view more clearly the assumptions and beliefs of our own time”
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Topics Mentioning This Author
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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Heathens, Pagans ...: Anglo-Saxon Heathenism | 39 | 184 | May 21, 2014 12:57PM | |
Where to go with Norse Mythology after this? | 13 | 376 | Dec 01, 2018 07:48AM | |
Netherlands & Fla...:
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89 | 52 | Jun 20, 2019 02:04PM |