elf

Elves are fun because there are so many vastly different interpretations. Everything from Santa’s toymakers to Elrond and his court qualify into our concept of elven forms.

Generally speaking, we might define elfas being a “spirit, sprite, fairy or goblin; some kind of usually mischievous supernatural creature.” This same definition existed for the Middle English term elf,alternately recorded as alfeorelfe.In Old English, the word was ælf,still retaining its meaning of “sprite, incubus or fairy,” but specifically with a masculine connotation. The feminine version of the word was ælfen, which interestingly is the predecessor to our modern adjectival form elven.

The word branches out of the Germanic family, and we can point to some other connected words in Old High German, like alp which meant “nightmare.” There is actually an Old English cognate which is ælfádl, also meaning “nightmare,” but more literally, “elf-disease.” Another interesting elf-induced sickness was though to be hiccups, which is reflected in the OE translation ælfsogoða.

Beyond this era of the Old English and German there is some debate about where the words originally sprouted from. The trail may be related to albusoralphoúsἀλφούς, the Latin and Ancient Greek terms for “white” respectively. The cultural theory implies that elves were considered beings of light, brightness and beauty, and thus as this concept evolved from those ideas, so did the English form out of the adjectives.