author
David MacRitchie
1851–1925
Best known as a Scottish folklorist and antiquarian, he explored how old legends might preserve traces of real peoples and customs. His books on fairies, early Britain, and Romani history made him a distinctive voice in late 19th-century folklore studies.
2 Audiobooks
The Testimony of Tradition
by David MacRitchie
Fians, Fairies and Picts
by David MacRitchie
About the author
Born in Edinburgh on April 16, 1851, David MacRitchie became known as a Scottish folklorist and antiquarian with a strong interest in how tradition, history, and anthropology overlap. He studied in Edinburgh and went on to write widely on early Britain, folklore, and the history of Romani communities.
MacRitchie is especially remembered for arguing that fairy traditions may have grown from memories of an earlier, small-statured people living in the British Isles. That idea is most closely linked with works such as The Testimony of Tradition and helped make him a recognizable figure in discussions of folklore, even though his theories are now mainly of historical interest.
He also wrote books including Ancient and Modern Britons and Scottish Gypsies under the Stewarts, and he was involved with learned societies concerned with antiquarian and folklore research. He died on January 14, 1925, leaving behind a body of work that offers a vivid glimpse into the ways Victorian and Edwardian scholars tried to connect legend with the distant past.