Roles of the Northern Goddess [Paperback]

Dr Hilda Ellis Davidson (Author), Hilda Ellis Davidson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0415136113 | ISBN-13: 978-0415136112

While much work has been done on goddesses of the ancient world and the male gods of pre-Christian Scandinavia, the northern goddesses have been largely neglected. Roles of the Northern Goddess presents a highly readable study of the worship of these goddesses by men and women. With its use of evidence from early literature, popular tradition, legend and archaeology, this book investigates the role of the early hunting goddess and the local goddesses who were involved in all aspects of the household and the farm. What emerges is that the goddess was both benevolent and destructive, a powerful figure closely concerned with birth and death and with destiny of individuals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dr. Davidson's welcome latest book is attracting a broader readership... This is a book whose marketing and potential use, because of its crossover potential between academia and postmodern neo-paganism, might possibly be of greatest interest from a social-anthropological point of view, since its content seems to have been carefully selected with that bifurcated potential audience in mind. Scandanavian Studies, Volume 71, Issue 3, Fall 1999.

About the Author

Hilda Ellis Davidson was Vice President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge and President of the London Folklore Society. She is author of Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (1964) and The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (1991).

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (May 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415136113
• ISBN-13: 978-0415136112
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #989,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Outstanding, January 16, 1999

By 

Bryn Neacail ([e-mail]) (Calgary, Alberta/Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roles of the Northern Goddess (Paperback)

I'm a typically quite cynical of 'Religion' and 'Women's Studies' books that contain the word 'Goddess' in the title. I have seen far to many horrible goddess orientated books that are simply geared to make money off of a relatively gullible and uneducated few. Hilda Ellis Davidson has constructed a modern masterpiece within the pages of 'Roles of the Northern Goddess.' This work is a rare find for those who are interested in the goddesses and women of ancient Northern Europe. It is extremely well researched and cited. Her bibliography contains approximately three hundred entries. Though I have purchased the paperback, I should have bought the hardcover: it is a valuable edition to my library.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comparative Study Yields Solid Information, June 21, 2001

By 

Elderbear (Loma Linda, Aztlan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Roles of the Northern Goddess (Paperback)

Davidson has produced a useful book on Northern European Goddess history and tradition. She draws on early literature, legend, folk traditions (and records of now extinct folk traditions), and archaelogy to construct several categories of functioning for the Goddesses. She discovers Goddesses who are both nurturing and demanding, healing and destructive, revered and feared. Davidson includes Celtic, Norse, Finnish, and Latvian Goddesses, and frequently compares them to Mediterranean and Near Eastern Goddess roles.

She first considers the Goddess as Mistress of the animals, examining her roles as Hunting Goddess, Ruler of the Wild, Guardian of the diary [sic] herds, as Dog and Horse Goddess.

Next, she examines the Goddess as Mistress of the Grain, considering the most ancient roots associating Goddesses with fertility of the earth, the connection between Goddess and plough, the possibility of Goddess as Corn Spirit, and how the Grain Goddess of the North differed from Grain Goddesses of more temperate regions.

Davidson then takes up the Goddess as Mistress of the Distaff and Loom, looking both the context of Goddess and weaving in the ancient world as well as the differences in Northern Europe. She considers the Oseberg wall-hagnings, retrieved from a burial site, and illuminates Goddess figures found there. She also examines the interplay between weaving and destiny, the Goddess as Weaver of Fate.

In addition, she considers the domestic role of the Goddess as Mistress of the Household. She discusses Guardians of the home, the association between Goddess and fire and water, and the role of the Goddes in the birth and nurturing of children.

Finally, she examines the Goddess as Mistress of Life and Death, writing of her role as healer and in the realm of death. She also considers Northern European funeral rites and how they help us understand the roles of the Goddess.

Davidson points out that when we sentimentalize the Goddess, as so many white-light-bunny-fluff-goddess-of-the-week books do, we lose a great deal. She draws on Jung in her synthesis that the Goddess is both attractive and nurturing as well as repulsive and frightening. In her conclusion she points out that the Goddess was much more than simply the "Great Mother."

The book has a useful index and an excellent bibliography. It was poorly copy edited, however, with several typos. I also wish that Davidson had done a better job of separating out the layers of history through which she excavates. The meaning of stone-age evidence is poorly differentiated from the meanings of myths recorded in the middle ages or folk practices recorded in the 17th century. This is a significant problem which the book poorly addresses.

Five stars for depth and breadth, but knocked down to four stars for the failure to explicitly consider the impact of various historical contexts on the available evidence and on her interpetation of it.

(If you'd like to discuss this book or review, click on the "about me" link above and drop me an email. Thanks!)

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Long and winding evidence to support goddess worship, July 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Roles of the Northern Goddess (Paperback)

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.