2,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 2,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 2,49 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Elves and Heroes," Donald A. Mackenzie delves into the rich tapestry of folklore and mythology, exploring the captivating interplay between elves and heroic figures across various cultures. The book exhibits a scholarly yet accessible literary style, weaving together historical accounts, mythological narratives, and critical analyses. Mackenzie artfully juxtaposes tales of valor and enchantment, offering readers insights into how these archetypes illuminate human experience and societal values, particularly during the early 20th century'—a time of burgeoning interest in national identity through folk traditions. Donald A. Mackenzie was a pioneering Scottish folklorist whose works often sought to bridge the gap between ancient myths and contemporary understanding. His profound interest in Celtic folklore and mythology, combined with a broader fascination with the narratives shaping human culture, inspired him to undertake this ambitious exploration. Mackenzie's background in archaeology and anthropology profoundly influenced his approach, as he sought to contextualize folklore within the meanings of everyday life. "Elves and Heroes" is recommended for those interested in an innovative approach to folklore that resonates with contemporary themes. Scholars and casual readers alike will find pleasure in Mackenzie's insightful interpretations and elegant prose, which breathe life into ancient tales, making them relevant for the modern world. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Ähnliche
Elves and Heroes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Where the mortal world brushes the shimmer of the unseen, Elves and Heroes traces how wonder, courage, and memory shape human lives at the edge of legend.
Elves and Heroes by Donald A. Mackenzie is a collection of mythic poetry that draws on Scottish and broader Celtic folklore, first appearing in the early twentieth century. Mackenzie, a Scottish writer and folklorist best known for accessible studies of world mythologies, turns here to verse to evoke ancestral landscapes and legendary figures. Emerging amid currents often grouped with the Celtic Revival, the book belongs to a period when writers sought to preserve and reanimate traditional tales. Its setting is not a single mapped place but a tapestry of glens, seashores, and otherworldly thresholds rooted in cultural memory.
Readers encounter a sequence of lyrics and narrative pieces that balance the immediacy of ballad-telling with a reflective, almost incantatory voice. The mood moves between austere grandeur and intimate pathos, inviting a reading experience that is both visionary and grounded in the textures of weather, water, and stone. Mackenzie’s style favors clear storytelling contours enriched by musical phrasing, so the poems feel made to be heard as much as read. Without depending on prior knowledge of specific legends, the book offers a guided walk through an imagined past where the marvelous is treated as part of the day’s reckonings.
A central preoccupation is the porous boundary between human communities and the otherworld—how gifts, warnings, and temptations cross that line, and how mortals respond. Elves, heroes, and figures of fate are less ornaments than tests of character, exploring loyalty, pride, endurance, and loss. The poems dwell on the costs of renown and the weight of obligation, suggesting that bravery is as much a form of patience as it is of daring. Time, too, is thematic: cycles of season and tide counterpoint the brief flare of personal glory, asking what outlasts a single life and what must be relinquished.
Mackenzie’s craft leans on vivid natural imagery and the cadences of oral tradition. There is a felt delight in sound—repetition, alliteration, and wave-like stanza movements—that echoes communal storytelling by the hearth or along the shore. Diction skews ceremonious without becoming opaque, and the pacing alternates between swift, scene-driven episodes and slow meditative turns that allow atmosphere to accumulate. Landscape is active rather than decorative: mist, heather, cliffs, and ocean convey mood and moral pressure. By merging folkloric motifs with disciplined musicality, the book seeks a durable shape for tales that had long lived in performance.
For contemporary readers, the collection resonates as an inquiry into how cultures remember and renew themselves. It models a way of honoring tradition that neither freezes it nor dilutes it, instead treating inherited stories as working tools for thought and feeling. The poems also register an ecological attentiveness: human fates unfold in concert with weather and terrain, reminding us that belonging to a place carries responsibilities. Beyond nostalgia, Elves and Heroes asks enduring questions about valor, community, and the unseen dimensions of experience—questions that speak to identity, continuity, and the meanings we draw from shared narratives.
Approached on its own terms, the book rewards unhurried reading and, especially, reading aloud, where rhythm and resonance clarify shape and intent. Those drawn to folklore, myth-inflected poetry, or the atmospheres of northern landscapes will find an inviting gateway here—rich enough for close study yet open to readers new to the material. Mackenzie’s authority as a student of myth undergirds the imaginative weave without turning the poems into glossaries, leaving space for wonder. In balancing austerity with lyric lift, Elves and Heroes offers a dignified, stirring encounter with the old stories as living companions rather than museum pieces.
Synopsis
Elves and Heroes is a collection of poems by Donald A. Mackenzie that gathers Scottish and Norse folklore, legend, and landscape into a single volume. The book is organized to move from encounters with the uncanny toward ballads of martial deed, reflecting two strands promised by its title. It opens with pieces grounded in Highland glens, island shores, and quiet crofts, where natural detail frames hints of an unseen world. Rather than a continuous narrative, the volume presents discrete poems that together outline a cultural map, allowing readers to meet familiar figures and motifs from oral tradition in a controlled sequence.
The initial poems dwell on the fair folk and kindred presences associated with knolls, moors, and hearths. Scenes of twilight and moonlit clearings introduce dances, music across corries, and footfalls that vanish at the edge of vision. Customs and cautions from tradition appear—iron charms, thresholds, and bargains best avoided—while the poems keep outcomes understated. Household helpers, solitary wanderers, and watchful guardians are suggested rather than named, keeping the emphasis on atmosphere and observance. Across these pieces, the possible crossing between human and otherworld is a recurring situation, handled as momentary meetings that leave ordinary places altered but not fully explained.
As the sequence proceeds, attention turns to waters—wells, burns, lochs, and the open sea—where boundaries feel thinner. Fisherfolk and travelers speak in simple statements of respect, and boats move through mist while calls and songs carry farther than expected. Creatures linked with Scottish water lore are implied by hoofprints at fords, sudden ripples, and shapes along reedy margins. Invitations, warnings, and slowed heartbeats are presented without explicit moralizing, keeping focus on ritual and restraint. Storms rise and pass, and safe harbors are reached or missed, but the poems generally avoid final judgments, preferring to mark how people live with risk and wonder.
Midway, transitional poems link the otherworld to human endeavor. A charm sewn into a scabbard, a tune remembered before battle, and a dream that fixes a journey all suggest continuity between elf-lore and action. Seers speak sparsely; omens are noted in flight and flame; and a few episodes record the giving or withholding of aid by figures not quite mortal. These moments do not resolve mysteries; instead, they set conditions for later deeds. Through them, the book pivots from private thresholds to public tests, preparing readers for a shift in measure and subject without discarding the earlier emphasis on place and custom.
The second half emphasizes heroes, chiefs, and bands whose names are presented as types rather than as detailed biographies. Marches over braes, assemblies on shore, and forays between glens supply a backdrop for oaths, feasts, and the signaling of kinship. Trials of endurance, practice at the weapons, and single combats proceed according to customs repeatedly cited—honor between foes, the right to challenge, and the duty to keep faith. The poems recount causes and consequences in outline, depicting the movement of men and banners, the striking of shields, and the brief stillness of decision, while holding back from exhaustive chronicle.
A substantial group of pieces follows ships along firths and into northern waters. Rowers count time, steersmen read sky and swell, and raiders or traders weigh the reward against exposure to cold, hunger, and sudden storm. Hints of runic lots, distant fire, and uncanny guidance link these seaways to earlier otherworld themes, without asserting a single source. Shores of skerries, fjords, and wide bays mark contacts between Gael and Northman, and the poems note exchange as well as conflict. Returns are sometimes successful, sometimes uncertain, with the emphasis falling on the habit of voyaging rather than on singular exploits.
Where battles and journeys disrupt settlement, woven throughout are laments and quiet domestic scenes that record consequences. Farewells at doorways, the watch beside cairns, and counting days by the loom stand beside restrained victory songs. The poems present kinship obligations and pledges between lovers and friends as facts that shape choices, not as occasions for extended commentary. Names of places carry weight as repositories of memory. Singing and recitation inside halls reframe events for those who did not travel, and time is measured by seasons and rites. The overall effect is to balance outward action with continuity at home.
Toward the end, the collection returns to still spaces, tracing how the land holds both the light tread of unseen beings and the marks of passing warriors. Autumn fields, winter hills, and spring rivers repeat images from the opening, suggesting a cycle rather than a conclusion. Brief visionary pieces look beyond known borders but maintain the earlier restraint. A few final lyrics gather the book’s principal threads—custom, caution, courage, and memory—without imposing a single verdict. The arrangement thus closes by placing person and place together again, with the otherworld proximate and the human world attentive to inherited rule.
Read in sequence, Elves and Heroes presents a compact survey of two interwoven strands of northern tradition: encounters with beings outside ordinary law and the conduct of those who face tests in war and journey. Without direct analysis, the poems relay practices, phrases, and scenes that preserved meaning in oral culture, from charms and taboos to oaths and welcomes. The volume’s overall message emphasizes continuity: the land and sea sustain both mystery and duty, and stories pass between generations to guide behavior under uncertainty. The book functions as a curated path through that material, concise in utterance and scope.
Historical Context
Elves and Heroes (1909) is set in a mythicized Scotland whose geography is recognizably Highland and Insular: the glens and bens of the mainland north, the Hebrides and Inner Isles, and the Norse-influenced archipelagos of Orkney and Shetland. Time in the book ranges from the deep past—echoing Iron Age brochs and Pictish shadowlands—through the medieval era of sea-kings and clan lordships. Although timeless in mood, its publication in Edwardian Scotland situates it amid rapid industrial change and cultural anxiety. The poems map legendary cycles onto real coasts and straths, allowing historical memories—raids, risings, and clearances—to permeate a landscape where elves and heroes are emblems of older communal orders and martial virtues.
From the late 8th century, Norse seafarers raided and settled Scotland’s northern and western seaboards. The Earldom of Orkney arose in the late 9th century under Norwegian suzerainty, memorialized in the Orkneyinga Saga, while Magnus Barefoot’s 1098 campaign secured the Hebrides and Kintyre for Norway. The Treaty of Perth (1266) ceded the Hebrides and Isle of Man to Scotland under Alexander III; Orkney and Shetland passed to Scotland in 1468–69 as security for Margaret of Denmark’s dowry. Mackenzie’s poems repeatedly invoke sea-roads, skerries, and fate-haunted voyages that mirror this Norse-Scottish maritime frontier. The book’s heroic ethos and supernatural agencies recall saga traditions adapted to Gaelic shorelines and Scottish place-names.
