| Edward
Davies |
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| Nationality - Welsh |
Profession - Author |
| Date of birth - 1756
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Date of death - 1831 |
| Place of birth
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Edward Davies, born in 1756 known as a Davies of 'Celtic' origin, was a Welsh writer involved in the recovery and re-invention of druidic tradition. He was alo the curator of Olveston, Gloucestershire.
Davies, author of Mythology and Rites of British Druids, was one of those who, with Job Morganwg, regarded the Arkite theory as having its foundation in Genesis. But, as Professor Rhys says, "when one turns to Davies's authorities for his unhesitating statements of the kind, no doubt one is a little dismayed at first, and not a little inclined to doubt him altogether, and, in disposing of his Helio-Arkite absurdity, dispose of the Druids with them."
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D. Ellis Evans notes in the Oxford DNB, that “ Davies is remembered today chiefly for his extensive works the Celtic Researches and the British Druids. Yet his ability to cope with a complex range of sources relating to ancient mythology, patriarchal religion, and linguistic variation was too limited for tackling the tasks on which he worked so assiduously. However, even though his knowledge Edward Davies, on looking at a 16th century history of Ireland called Ogygia by one Ruairí Ó Flaitheartaigh, suddenly decided that the Celts had a thirteen month calendar named for trees.
Now, Edward Davies was one of Iolo Morgannwg's partners in the "Druidic Revival" of the late 18th/early 19th centuries, in which unforunately many documents were forged as ancient. This Ogygia, however, was not a forgery - Ó Flaitheartaigh's history (which names Ireland after a mythical island in the Odyssey so as to avoid persecution by the English) does contain a discussion of ogham, ultimately derived from the ogham tract in the Book of Ballymote. However, Ó Flaitheartaigh does not mention calendars, only trees.
It was Davies who insinuated there might be a calendar, and Graves who devised this calendar based on the 13 consonants and 5 vowels of Ó Flaitheartaigh. (Ogham actually contains 25 letters, but the last 5 are considered "extra" letters for foriegn words, and likely point to a foreign origin for the alphabet.)
was too inadequate for producing a reliable interpretation of early and medieval Welsh poetry, his enthusiastic activity was important for the transmission, publication, and study of much of this literature.” language antiquities prose language |
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Edward Davies
bibliography - 2
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