David MacRitchie
Biography
David MacRitchie (1851–1925) was a Scottish folklorist, antiquarian, and accountant whose unconventional theories about the origins of fairy legends sparked vigorous debate in Victorian scholarship. Born in Edinburgh, he was educated at Edinburgh University and qualified as a chartered accountant, but devoted his true energies to folklore and ethnology. In 1888 he co-founded the Gypsy Lore Society, and he served on the Council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 1914 until his death. MacRitchie is best remembered for his euhemeristic hypothesis — advanced in The Testimony of Tradition (1890) and Fians, Fairies and Picts (1893) — that fairy stories preserved memories of a pre-Celtic aboriginal race who once inhabited the British Isles. While modern scholars have moved beyond his specific claims, his insistence on treating folklore as historical evidence helped establish folklore studies as a serious academic discipline.
