She specialized in the interdisciplinary study of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse religion and folklore, on which she was the author of numerous influential works.

[1] Davidson received a First Class Honours degree in English, archaeology and anthropology from Newnham College, Cambridge.

[2] Davidson would eventually become proficient in many languages, including Old Norse, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Russian, Latin and German.

[1] Davidson began her academic career as an assistant lecturer in English at Royal Holloway, University of London (1939–1944).

[1] Although encountering a significant amount of opposition to her attempt at combining archaeological and philological evidence for the study of Old Norse and wider Germanic religion, Davidson continued with her research.

In subsequent years, she published a number of influential works, including The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England (1962), Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (1964), Pagan Scandinavia (1967), and Scandinavian Mythology (1969).

During this time, Davidson contributed many papers to scholarly journals, where she often drew on her knowledge of myth, legend and folklore to interpret archaeological finds.

[6] During this time she also published several influential works, including The Viking Road to Byzantium (1976) and The History of the Danes: Saxo Grammaticus (1979–1980).

As a leading member of the Society, she played an active role in restoring the field of folklore studies as a scientific discipline.

In the subsequent years, Davidson was publications officer of the society, supervised the newly formed Mistletoe Books series, organized conferences, and edited or co-edited the papers that were produced as a result.

Davidson helped endow the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 1982, which she herself received in 1988 for her Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe (1988).

Her efforts to encourage interdisciplinary research combining archaeology, literature, folklore and history was highly important.