The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe

The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe by Hilda Ellis Davidson (1993) does contain a lot of interesting information, but it is not always packaged in an easy to follow way. Focusing largely on Scandinavian, Icelandic, and Celtic peoples, but also touching on the Germanic, Davidson surveys the archaeological, literary, and folkloric evidence to attempt to elucidate the religious beliefs of pre-Christian northern Europe. While many of us might think we know about Norse religion, especially, from Marvel and entertaining books like Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, Davidson complicates that picture, pointing out that many myths are contradictory, layered in poetic language that makes their meaning difficult to grasp, and that they might not reflect how ordinary people actually thought about and worshipped their deities. To me, the book was at its most interesting when analyzing archaeological and iconographic evidence and when attempting to lift the veil of Christian interpretation to glimpse the pre-Christian beliefs, while acknowledging that this project is full of guesswork. On the downside, the book is 30 years old, and thus lacks more recent archaeological discoveries. It also tends to throw many pieces of information at the reader without forming a coherent, well-organized narrative. And if you’re reading this book to inform your own religious beliefs, you should know: Davidson takes an unnecessary swipe at reconstructionist Pagans in the conclusion, literally comparing them to Nazis. However, for those with a deep interest in pre-Christian European religion, this book will provide you with plenty of information to add to your repertoire.

The accompanying image is © The Trustees of the British Museum, released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. The image depicts a golden bracteate pendant, a type of object discussed in the book, from 6th century CE Gotland.

The image depicts a golden bracteate pendant, a type of object discussed in the book, from 6th century CE Gotland.