#thank you so so much for your amazing passion and research
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.
I think Calvert Watkins maybe specifically theorised that it came down to the Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European *albho- (white), rather than being borrowed from a sister language family.
Still not sure how well this light/brightness/beauty theory plays with svartálfar and all the hostile qualities of elves, though. That makes me a little hesitant, idk
I’m actually soing my thesis on elves!
Re: origins, the most accepted theory is the one with *albho- for brightness. There’s another hypothesis (actually the only theory cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, even though it’s more of a stretch) that links them to Vedic deities through the word *rbhu (with a sonant r, but I’m typing from a phone). See Kazanas for a paper on the subject, I believe it was called Indo-european deities and the Rg Veda.
As for svartalfar and such: kee in mind that the main source of that classification is Snorri Sturluson, who was writing from a Christian perspective and trying to make elves more similar to angels and devils. There is no mention of dark elves in earlier Scandinavian sources.
Most early Scandinavian evidence points to elves being seen as minor deities, possibly linked to fertility and prosperity. They received some sort of sacrifice (not much detail on this in Skaldic poetry, but an “alfablót” is mentioned once and Kormaks saga talks about pouring bull’s blood on a mound where elves live) AND were linked to the sun through the poetic metaphor alfrodhull (literally “elf’s wheel” or “elf’s glory”, meaning sun. Again, missing accents here, sorry). Human warriors and kings were also described as metaphorical elves in poetry, most notably Norwegian king Olafr Geirstadhalfr “the Elf of Geirstadhir”, named after his burial site, who was also sacrificed to in order to secure prosperity.
Also, the meaning of alfr (the Old Norse elf) is a lot less clear than it looks. It was probably not a “race” of beings as we might conceptualise today. More likely it had a range of meanings, possibly as wide as “any being capable of giving supernatural blessings” or at least “any semi-divine creature”. Medievam folk did not have a concept of taxonomy and as such did not classify things the way we do.
In the elder Edda, elves are routinely paired with the Aesir in poetic formulae, possibly with the meaning of “all divine creatures, from gods to elves”. In at least a few songs (esp. Lokasenna) they seem to be synonymous with the Vanir (Freya is said to have slept with “all Aesir and elves”, which Loki says is incest, apparently because she’s an elf and her brother is too?). Freyr especially is linked to the elves through Alfheimr, the elf-realm which he is said to have been gifted with. This association is however not present in other songs, where vanir and elves are mentioned side by side as though they were different groups (see for instance Skirnismal and Alvissmal).
The only elf character in the Edda may be Volundr, who is said to be alfa ljodhi (ambiguous, possibly “of the elf-people”) and visi alfa (leader of the elves)in Volundarkvida. This is weird because Volundr is a very popular character with equivalents in Anglo-Saxon Weyland and German Wieland, but this is the only source calling him an elf. Here the term may have been a way to classify him as an ethnic Other (being a Sami prince) and carries implications of dangerous beauty. There’s a very good paper on him, called The extreme emotional life of Volundr the Elf.
The earliest of these sources date back to the Ninth century. Note that nowhere are elves described as being specifically diminutive in size, invisible or whatever. That is likely the product of later shifts in meaning or belief, possibly linked to Christianization and merging with other supernatural beings, such as dwarves (as in the aforementioned svartalfar, which are described as being black as coal and are also apparently dwarves, at least according to Snorri), and landvaettir (nature spirits). Terry Gunnell has done a lot of work on this, check out How Elvish were the Alfar? (2007).
Anoyher good source is the work of Alaric Hall, esp. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England (2007). The book focuses on old english but also goes over Scandinavian evidence.
Might share more sources later once I get to my computer if anyone is interested.
Oh my gosh, please please please share sources! I got so excited over this that it literally raised my heart rate. Thank you for sharing all this knowledge!
The tags warm my heart. Thank you for giving me an excuse to write up my bibliography for this chapter, which I was neglecting to do.
So! Be warned, these are all academic studies so they can be a bit dry to sift through if you’re not familiar with the topics discussed.
Books to check out:
- R. Simek, 1993. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. (pages 73-74 are about Elves but this is generally a great source to look things up and get a broad overview).
- T.A. Shippey et al. The Shadow-Walkers. Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous. (a collection of essays about re-examining Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, which was a foundational work for modern mythography. The introduction is great to understand why early philological efforts relied on biased assumptions, and the essay about elves, also by Shippey, looks at English and Scandinavian folklore as seen through a Christian light).
- A. Hall. 2007. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England. (As I mentioned above, a very in-depth look at the meaning shift of the Elf-word in English. The book is an update and expansion of Hall’s PhD dissertation, which is free online if you can’t find the published version.)
Papers and articles (links are all open access, except maybe the one to JSTOR, but I can access it with a student account ay my uni):
- On the alternate etymology of “elf”, ṛbhu: N.D. Kazanas. 2001. Indo-European deities and the Rgveda. Journal of IndoEuropean Studies. (x)
- On the shifts in meaning of “alfar” in Norse folklore: T. Gunnell, 2007. How Elvish were the Álfar? in A. Wawn et al., Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth. Essays in Honour of T.A. Shippey. (No link, but I mailed Dr. Gunnell and he was very happy to share the material with me. Here’s his website with all his articles)
- On Volundr and elves in the Edda in general: Á. Jakobsson. 2006. The Extreme Emotional Life of Vǫlundr the Elf. Scandinavian Studies. (x)
- On why it’s a bad idea to categorise medieval supernatural creatures with modern taxonomy: Á. Jakobsson. 2013. The Taxonomy of the Non-existent: Some Medieval Icelandic Concepts of the Paranormal (x)
Go forth and read about elves!
This is incredible, thank you so much!
Oh my goodness, I love you all so so incredibly much, this is so amazing and absolutely fascinating!!!!
