Comprehensive information and links about Elf

Elf is a mythical creature of Norse mythology which survived in northern European folklore. Originally a race of minor gods of nature and fertility, elves are often pictured as youthful-seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and other natural places, underground, or in wells and springs. They have been portrayed to be long-lived or immortal and they have magical powers attributed to them. Following the success of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic in various later folklore strongly suggests that the belief in elves were common among all the Germanic tribes, and not limited solely to the ancient Scandinavians.

Elves make various appearances in Norse mythology. Although the concept itself is never clearly defined in our sources, elves appear to have been understood as powerful and beautiful human-sized beings. They are commonly referred to collectively as semi-divine beings associated with fertility as well as the cult of the ancestors. As such, elves appear similar to the animistic belief in spirits of nature and of the deceased, common to nearly all human religions; something that, on a side note, is true also for the Old Norse belief in are the Germanic equivalent to the nymphs of Greek and Roman mythology, as well as the vili and rusalki of Slavic mythology.

); this usage has often been connected with elves' etymological connection with whiteness. Snorri describes their differences like so:

dlThere are many magnificent dwellings. One is there called Alfheim. There dwell the folk that are called light-elves; but the dark-elves dwell down in the earth, and they are unlike the light-elves in appearance, but much more so in deeds. The light-elves are fairer than the sun to look upon, but the dark-elves are blacker than pitch.

Evidence for elves in Norse mythology outside Snorri's work, and in earlier evidence, comes from Skaldic poetry, the and legendary sagas. Here elves are linked with the Æsir, particularly through the common phrase "Æsir and the elves", which presumably means "all the gods".span The elves have been compared or identified with the Vanir (fertility gods) by some scholars (e.g. Hall 2004, pp. 43-46). However, in the ("The Sayings of All-Wise"), the elves are considered distinct from both the Vanir and the Æsir, as revealed by a series of comparative names in which Æsir, Vanir, and elves are given their own versions for various words in a reflection of their individual racial preferences. Possibly, the words designate a difference in status between the major fertility gods (the Vanir) and the minor ones (the elves). relates that a large group of Æsir and elves had assembled at Ægir's court for a banquet. Several minor forces, the servants of gods, are presented such as Byggvir and Beyla, who belonged to Freyr, the lord of the elves, and they were probably elves, since they were not counted among the gods. Two other mentioned servants were Fimafeng (who was murdered by Loki) and Eldir.

Some speculate that Vanir and elves belong to an earlier Nordic Bronze Age religion of Scandinavia, and were later replaced by the Æsir as main gods. Others (most notably Georges Dumézil) argue that the Vanir were the gods of the common Norsemen, and the Æsir those of the priest and warrior castes (see also Nerthus).

A poem from around 1020, the ('Eastern-journey verses') of Sigvatr Þorðarson, mentions that, as a Christian, he was refused board in a heathen household, in Sweden, because an ("elves' sacrifice") was being conducted there. However, we have no further reliable information as to what an but like other blóts it probably included the offering of foods, and later Scandinavian folklore retained a tradition of sacrificing treats to the elves (see below). From the time of year (close to the autumnal equinox) and the elves' association with fertility and the ancestors, we might assume that it had to do with the ancestor cult and the life force of the family.

accounts for how a sacrifice to elves was apparently believed able to heal a severe battle wound:

dlÞorvarð healed but slowly; and when he could get on his feet he went to see Þorðís, and asked her what was best to help his healing."A hill there is," answered she, "not far away from here, where elves have their haunt. Now get you the bull that Kormák killed, and redden the outer side of the hill with its blood, and make a feast for the elves with its flesh. Then thou wilt be healed."

The Scandinavian elves were of human size. Full-sized famous men could be elevated to the rank of elves after death, such as the petty king Olaf Geirstad-Elf, and the smith hero Völund (titled as "ruler of elves" in the ). Even crossbreeding was possible between elves and humans in the Old Norse belief. One case appears in , where the Danish king Helgi finds an elf-woman clad in silk who is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. He rapes her and later she bears the daughter Skuld, who married Hjörvard, Hrólf Kraki's killer. Another case was the hero Högni, whose mother was a human queen, and whose father, according to the (though it should be noted that this text is largely translated from German material).

There are also in the accounts of a line of local kings who ruled over Álfheim, corresponding to the modern Swedish province Bohuslän, and since they had elven blood they were said to be more beautiful than most men.

dlThe land governed by King Alf was called Alfheim, and all his offspring are related to the elves. They were fairer than any other people ..."Little älvor, playing with Tomtebobarnen. From Children of the Forest (1910) by Swedish author and illustrator Elsa Beskow."

In Scandinavian folklore, which is a later blend of Norse mythology and elements of Christian mythology, an in Swedish (the first is masculine, the second feminine). The Norwegian expressions seldom appear in genuine folklore, and when they do, they are always used synonymous to , a category of earth-dwelling beings generally held to be more related to Norse dwarves than elves.

In Denmark and Sweden, the elves appear as beings distinct from the vetter, even though the border between them is diffuse. The insect-winged fairies in the folklore of the British Isles are often called "älvor" in modern Swedish or "alfer" in danish, although the correct translation is "feer." In a similar vein, the by Danish author H. C. Andersen is so tiny that he can have a rose blossom for home, and has "wings that reached from his shoulders to his feet". Yet, Andersen also wrote about . The elves in this story are more alike those of traditional Danish folklore, who were beautiful females, living in hills and boulders, capable of dancing a man to death. Like the in Norway and Sweden, they are hollow when seen from the back. Small wingless elves of British folklore also appear distinct thus Santa's Elves at called "tomte" in Swedish or "nisse" in Danish.

The elves of Norse mythology have survived into folklore mainly as females, living in hills and mounds of stonesspan (cf. Galadriel's account of what would happen to the Elves who remained in Middle-Earth). The Swedish ) were stunningly beautiful girls who lived in the forest with an elven king. They were long-lived and light-hearted in nature. The elves are typically pictured as fair-haired, white-clad and like most creatures in the Scandinavian folklore can be really nasty when offended. In the stories, they often play the role of disease-spirits. The most common, though also most harmless case was various irritating skin rashes, which were called (elven blow) and could be cured by a forceful counter-blow (a handy pair of bellows was most useful for this purpose). (elven mills), pointing to their believed usage. One could appease the elves by offering them a treat (preferably butter) placed into an elven mill – perhaps a custom with roots in the Old Norse

The elves could be seen dancing over meadows, particularly at night and on misty mornings. They left a kind of circle were they had danced, which were called (elf circles), and to urinate in one was thought to cause venereal diseases. Typically, it consisted of a ring of small mushrooms, but there was also another kind of elf circle:

dlOn lake shores, where the forest met the lake, you could find elf circles. They were round places where the grass had been flattened like a floor. Elves had danced there. By Lake Tisaren, I have seen one of those. It could be dangerous and one could become ill if one had trodden over such a place or if one destroyed anything there.

If a human watched the dance of the elves, he would discover that even though only a few hours seemed to have passed, many years had passed in the real world. (This time phenomenon is retold in Tolkien's when the Fellowship of the Ring discovers that time seems to have run more slowly in elven Lothlórien. It also has a remote parallel in the Irish sídhe.) In a song from the late Middle Ages about Olaf Liljekrans, the elven queen invites him to dance. He refuses, he knows what will happen if he joins the dance and he is on his way home to his own wedding. The queen offers him gifts, but he declines. She threatens to kill him if he does not join, but he rides off and dies of the disease she sent upon him, and his young bride dies of a broken heart.span ) arrives in the end and saves the heroine, Little Rose, on condition that the king's cattle no longer graze on her hill. She is described as an old woman and by her aspect people saw that she belonged to the

German elves

What remained of the belief in elves in German folklore was that they were mischievous pranksters that could cause disease to cattle and people, and bring bad dreams to sleepers. The German word for nightmare, means "elf pressure"; it was believed that nightmares are a result of an elf sitting on the dreamer's chest. This aspect of German elf-belief largely corresponds to the Scandinavian belief in the

As noted above, an elven king occasionally appears among the predominantly female elves in Denmark and Sweden. In the German middle-age epic the literally translates as "elf-sovereign", further contributing to the elf–dwarf confusion observed already in the Younger Edda. Via the French (see below).

The legend of Der Erlkönig appears to have originated in fairly recent times in Denmark and Goethe based his poem on "Erlkönigs Tochter" ("Erlkönig's Daughter"), a Danish work translated into German by Johann Gottfried Herder.

The Erlkönig's nature has been the subject of some debate. The name translates literally from the German as "Alder King" rather than its common English translation, "Elf King" (which would be rendered as mean "elf king".

According to German and Danish folklore, the Erlkönig appears as an omen of death, much like the banshee in Irish mythology. Unlike the banshee, however, the Erlkönig will appear only to the person about to die. His form and expression also tell the person what sort of death they will have: a pained expression means a painful death, a peaceful expression means a peaceful death. This aspect of the legend was immortalised by Goethe in his poem help a shoemaker in his work. When he rewards their work with little clothes, they are so delighted, that they run away and are never seen again. Even though , (probably due to the similarity of the henzelmannchen to Scottish brownies) and is echoed in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories (see House-elf).

, by Victorian era illustrator Richard Doyle depicts the traditional view of an elf from later English folklore as a diminutive woodland humanoid.

Although our early English evidence is slight, there are reasons to think that Anglo-Saxon elves () were similar to early elves in Norse mythology: human-like, human-sized supernatural beings, capable of helping or harming the people who encountered them. In particular, the pairing of ).

In relation to the beauty of the Norse elves, some further evidence is given by old English words such as Although elves could be considered to be beautiful and potentially helpful beings in some sections of English-speaking society throughout its history, Anglo-Saxon evidence also attests to alignments of elves with demons, as for example in line 112 of , presumably originally referring to a changeling or to someone stupefied by elvish enchantment.

Little documentation exists on English rustic beliefs and terminology before the 19th century, but it seems that the term was used, at least on some occasions or in some places, for various kinds of uncanny wights, either human-sized or smaller. But other terms were also used.

of about the last quarter of the 16th century. Although first attested in the sense 'sharp pain caused by elves', it is later attested denoting Neolithic flint arrow-heads, which by the 17th century seem to have been attributed in Scotland to elvish folk, and which were used in healing rituals, and alleged to be used by witches (and perhaps elves) to injure people and cattle.span

The elf makes many appearances in ballads of English and Scottish origin, as well as folk tales, many involving trips to Elphame or Elfland (the of Norse mythology), a mystical realm which is sometimes an eerie and unpleasant place. The elf is often portrayed in a positive light, such as the Queen of Elphame in the ballad , in which the Elf-Knight bears away Isabel to murder her. In none of these cases is the elf a spritely character with pixie-like qualities.

English folktales of the early modern period typically portray elves as small, elusive people with mischievous personalities. They are not evil but might annoy humans or interfere in their affairs. They are sometimes said to be invisible. In this tradition, elves became more or less synonymous with the fairies that originated from native British mythology, for example, the Welsh ""To make my small elves coats; and some keep back." One of Arthur Rackham's illustrations to William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. [1] " , and so forth. These terms, like their relatives in other European languages, are no longer clearly distinguished in popular folklore.

Significant for the distancing of the concept of elves from its mythological origins was the influence from literature. In Elizabethan England, William Shakespeare imagined elves as little people. He apparently considered elves and fairies to be the same race. In for very small beings the norm. In Victorian literature, elves usually appeared in illustrations as tiny men and women with pointed ears and stocking caps. An example is Andrew Lang's fairy tale (1884), illustrated by Richard Doyle, where fairies are tiny people with butterfly wings, whereas elves are tiny people with red stocking caps. There were exceptions to this rule however, such as the full-sized elves who appear in Lord Dunsany's "Tony Cox as Marcus in the movie Bad Santa, who is working as an elf assisting Santa Claus at a supermarket."

In USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the modern children's folklore of Santa Claus typically includes diminutive, green-clad elves as Santa's assistants. They wrap Christmas gifts and make toys in a workshop located in the Arctic. In this portrayal, elves slightly resemble nimble and delicate versions of the dwarves of Norse mythology.

The vision of the small but crafty Christmas elf has come to influence modern popular conception of elves, and sits side by side with the fantasy elves following Tolkien's work (see below). The American cookie company Keebler has long advertised that its cookies are made by elves in a hollow tree, and Kellogg's, who happens to now be the owner of Keebler, uses the elves of Snap, Crackle, and Pop as mascots of Rice Krispies cereal, and the role of elves as Santa's helpers has continued to be popular, as evidenced by the success of the movie "Hugo Weaving portrays Elrond the half-elf, lord of Rivendell, in one film interpretation of The Lord of the Rings."

Modern fantasy literature has revived the elves as a race of semi-divine beings of human stature. Fantasy elves are different from Norse elves, but are more akin to that older mythology than to folktale elves – they are unlikely to sneak in at night and help a cobbler mend his shoes. The grim Norse- from 1954 are one of the first precursors to modern fantasy elves, although they are overshadowed by the Elves of the twentieth-century philologist and fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkein had little use for Shakespearean fairy portrayals or for Victorian diminutive fairy prettiness and whimsy, aligning his elves with the god-like and human-sized of Norse mythology. His Elves were conceived a race of beings similar to humans but fairer and wiser, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, and a closer empathy with nature. They are great smiths and fierce warriors on the side of good. Tolkien's Elves of Middle-earth may in one view be seen as a representation of what human beings might have become, had they not committed the original sin, and they are very much human, though Unfallen and immortal.

Tolkien's (1954-1958) became astoundingly popular and was much imitated. In the 1960s and afterwards, elves similar to those in Tolkien's novels became staple non-human characters in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games. Tolkien's Elves were enemies of goblins (orcs) and had a longstanding quarrel with the Dwarves; these motifs often reappear in Tolkien-inspired works. Tolkien is also responsible for reviving the older and less-used terms role-playing game) tend to be beautiful, fair, slender, human-sized or only slightly smaller than humans, and possess unearthly speed and agility. A hallmark of fantasy elves is also their long and pointed ears. The length and shape of these ears varies depending on the artist or medium in question. For example, while most elves in Western fantasy have ears only slightly longer than humans', elves depicted in anime tend to have very long ears that stand out at dramatic angles from their faces. half-elves and divergent races of elves, such as high elves and dark elves, were also popularized at this time; in particular, the evil drow of An Ode On The Popular Superstitions Of The Highlands Of Scotland, Considered As The Subject Of PoetryHall, Alaric. 2005. 'Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials',