A Story of the North

Edward Burne-Jones

General Description

Date: 1856
Genre: Short story

Bibliography

◦ Georgiana Burne–Jones, Memorials.

Scholarly Commentary

Guest Editor: PC Fleming

Introduction

This story, one of the many medieval period stories in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, is by Edward Burne-Jones. As the title indicates, the story is set in Northern Europe, and Burne-Jones builds in references to Norse mythology, ultimately overcome by Christianity in the story’s closing pages. The story is clearly influenced by Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, which had captivated Burne-Jones and Morris the year before. Georgiana Burne-Jones writes, “the book never can have been loved as it was by those two men. With Edward it became literally a part of himself” (Memorials 116).

Burne-Jones circulated this story among the other members of the Brotherhood, as he had his earlier story, “The Cousins”. It did not receive as favorable reviews from his friends; Dixon found it “too fierce (in style) for the matter; and more laboured than ‘The Cousins’ ” (Memorials 125).

Printing History

First printed in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine , February, 1856.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1