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Title: Roles of the Northern Goddess by Hilda Ellis Davidson ISBN: 0-415-13611-3 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $37.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Overall, well worth reading
Comment: I found this book to be well-researched and full of fascinating and detailed information. However, the Heathen reader will have to get past some of the terminology used in order to benefit from these books. By this I specifically mean the repeated use of such terms as "the Northern Goddess." (The italics are mine in both cases). I do not believe that their use is meant to be taken in the ultimately non-polytheistic sense in which Robert Graves or Wiccans might use them. Nevertheless, I found their use to be somewhat annoying.
Roles of the Northern Goddess needs no other introduction to gain the attention of the serious modern Heathen than the fact that it is written by Dr. Hilda (Roderick) Ellis Davidson, one of the most renowned scholars of Germanic religion. Her first substantial work on the subject is The Road to Hel, which, I believe, was her doctoral dissertation. Published a couple of years after World War II, it is still a useful source of information on the many, complex and often contradictory viewpoints of the Afterlife held by the old-time Heathens. Amazingly, the last I heard, she is still alive, well and an active scholar!
This book is less Freya-centered than is Näsström's book, but she still appears with great frequency. Ellis Davidson compares the Northern Goddesses with Goddesses from other, related cultures, especially Celtic ones. The book explores the Goddesses by functions, including "Mistress of the Animals," "Mistress of the Grain," "Mistress of Distaff and Loom," "Mistress of the Household," (these last two are more functions of Frigga), and "Mistress of Life and Death."
In her concluding chapter, the author discusses the cults (organized worship) of the Northern Goddesses and the rituals associated with them. She stresses that Norse Goddesses (and for that matter Norse Gods) tend to be multi-functional, with considerable areas of overlap. The book as a whole is greatly enriched by sketches of ancient images of Goddesses and other relevant finds.
Rating: 2
Summary: Faulty premise leads to faulty conclusions
Comment: This is quite likely the worst book HRED has written. That said, there is still much of value. To find it though, one must wade through the author's agenda- she was in her One Great Goddess phase- and incomplete as well as unconnected examples of, well, sometimes one can't be quite sure just what she is trying to say or prove.
If your starting point is the premise that there was One Great Goddess, fine, you will love this book. If you want a scholarly evalution of Germanic goddesses, you will need to go elsewhere.
Rating: 3
Summary: Long and winding evidence to support goddess worship
Comment: The tenor of this book is one of attempting to peer through centuries of Christian influence to show what the religion of the goddess may have been like. But in almost every of its presentations often is too loose in character to be truly fulfilling and abounds in conditional statements. It probably fails most in how it presents the subject in categories and then presents examples from the observations and works of others in an attempt to bring things to light. In doing so it tends to lose your appreciateion of variation in perceptions over time and place, which is understandable due to the scarcity of hard and sure information. But then it is this lack of certainty that makes it a book of possitbilites rather than information. However, if it were not for the obvious continuation of goddess worship into the Christian age with the Virgin Mary, I might doubt that there were any widespread goddess cults simply from the arguments this book provides.
It might have been better to have divided the book up by region, rather as History of Pagan Europe does. Instead the dearth of hard evidence is supplemented by comparisons to notions of goddess worship much further south of north. At best it is a collection of what can be said in a scholarly manner, but is rather too dull of a presentation to be an exceptional read.
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Title: Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions by H.R. Ellis Davidson ISBN: 0815624417 Publisher: Syracuse University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1988 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in North European Paganism by Jenny Blain ISBN: 0415256518 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (Middle Ages) by Thomas A. Dubois ISBN: 0812217144 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe by Hilda Ellis Davidson ISBN: 0415049377 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $37.95 |
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Title: Women in the Viking Age by Judith Jesch ISBN: 0851153607 Publisher: Boydell Press Pub. Date: 28 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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