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This article is about the mythical creature. For Tolkien's fictional version, see Elf (Middle-earth). For Other uses, see Elf (disambiguation).

Elf
Ängsälvor (Meadow Elves), a Swedish painting from 1850 by Nils Blommér
GroupingLegendary creature
RegionEurope

An elf (plural: elves) is a type of supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore.[1] Reconstructing the early concept of an elf depends almost entirely on texts in Old Norse (see Norse mythology) and Old English.[2] Later evidence for elves appears in diverse sources such as medical texts, prayers, ballads, and folktales.

Recent scholars have emphasised, in the words of Ármann Jakobsson, that

the time has come to resist reviewing information about álfar en masse and trying to impose generalizations on a tradition of a thousand years. Legends of álfar may have been constantly changing and were perhaps always heterogeneous so it might be argued that any particular source will only reflect the state of affairs at one given time.[3]

However, some generalisations are possible. In medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, elves seem generally to have been thought of as a group of beings with magical powers and supernatural beauty, ambivalent towards everyday people and capable of either helping or hindering them. However, the precise character of beliefs in elves across the Germanic-speaking world has varied considerably across time, space, and different cultures. For examples, Old Norse mythological texts tend to portray ‘elves’ (Old Norse Alfar, Old Icelandic Álfar) more positively, as sacred alongside the Æsir, while Medieval German texts tend to portray them more negatively as monstrous and harmful and relating to nightmares.

Elves are prominently associated with sexual threats, seducing people and causing them harm. For example, a number of early modern ballads in the British Isles originating in the medieval period, describe human encounters with elves.

In English literature of the Elizabethan era, elves became conflated with the fairies of Romance culture, in the sense of a ‘magical’ (fairie) being, so the two terms began to be used interchangeably. German Romanticist writers were influenced by this notion of the 'elf', and reimported the English word elf in that context into the German language. In Scandinavia, elves and dwarves often came to be known as (or were conflated with) the beings called the Norwegian hulder who mainly derive from the ‘giant’ (Risi), who is beautiful and sometimes of human size, or the Icelandic huldufólk who tend toward the diminutive size of the English fairy. Meanwhile, German folklore tend to see the conflation of elves with dwarves, since the Early Medieval Period.[4]

The "Christmas elves" of contemporary popular culture are of relatively recent tradition, popularized during the late nineteenth-century in the United States. Elves entered the twentieth-century high fantasy genre in the wake of works published by authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, for which, see Elf (Middle-earth).

Etymology

A chart showing how the sounds of the word 'elf' have changed in the history of English. The chart cites Richard M. Hogg, A Grammar of Old English, Volume 1: Phonology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). It has also been published in Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity, Anglo-Saxon Studies, 8 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), p. 178 (fig. 7).

The English word elf is from the Old English word most often attested as ælf (whose plural would have been *ælfe). Although this word took a variety of forms in different Old English dialects, these converged on the form elf during the Middle English period.[5] During the Old English period, separate forms were used for female elves (such as ælfen, putatively from common Germanic *ɑlβ(i)innjō), but during the Middle English period the word elf came routinely to include female beings.[6]

The main medieval Germanic cognates of elf are Old Norse alfr, plural alfar, and Old High German alp, plural alpî, elpî (alongside the feminine elbe).[7] These words must come from Common Germanic, the ancestor-language of languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages: the Common Germanic forms must have been *ɑlβi-z and ɑlβɑ-z, depending on regional dialects.[8]

The Proto-Germanic *ɑlβi-z~*ɑlβɑ-z is usually supposed to derive from the Proto-Indo-European base *albh-, meaning ‘white’, thus relating to the cognates, Latin albus (matt 'white'), Old Irish ailbhín (‘flock’); Albanian elb (‘barley’); and Germanic words for ‘swan’ such as Modern Icelandic álpt. The Germanic word presumably originally meant 'white person'. Jakob Grimm thought that whiteness implied positive moral connotations, and, noting Snorri Sturluson's ljósálfar, suggested that elves were divinities of light. However, the cognates suggest matt white associating with both elves and beauty may indicate their beauty gives elves their name.[9]

However the possibility of an alternative etymology persists. If so, the Proto-Germanic *alβiz derives instead from a Proto-Indo-European base relating to Sanskrit Rbhu, who in Hindu tradition are a race of artisans, whose name mean ‘clever, skillful, creative’, who seasonally inhabit the sun and descend to visit humans to bless them, and who joined to become Devas. Note, Old Norse Æsir and Tivar are cognates with Sanskrit Asura and Deva, respectively, adding to the probability Old Norse Alfar and Dvergar are cognates with Sanskrit Rbhu and Dhvaras, respectively. This same Proto-Indo-European stem relating to Alfar and Rbhu may also relate to Latin labor and Gothic arb, meaning ‘labor’.[10] Originally suggested by Kuhn, in 1855,[11][12] the etymology is often acknowledged as possible, yet is not widely accepted.[13]

Elves in names

Throughout the medieval Germanic languages, elf was one of the nouns that was used in personal names, almost invariably as a first element. These names may have been influenced by Celtic names beginning in Albio- such as Albiorix.

Alden Valley, Lancashire, possibly a place once associated with elves

Personal names provide the only evidence for elf in Gothic, which must have had the word *albs (plural *albeis). The most famous such name is Alboin. Old English names in elf- include the cognate of Alboin Ælfwine ('elf-friend', m.), Ælfric ('elf-powerful', m.), Ælfweard (m.) and Ælfwaru (f.) ('elf-guardian). The only widespread survivor of these in modern English is Alfred (Old English Ælfrēd). German examples are Alberich, Alphart and Alphere (father of Walter of Aquitaine)[14][15] and Icelandic examples include Álfhildur. It is generally agreed that these names indicate that elves were positively regarded in early Germanic culture. Other words for supernatural beings in personal names almost all denote members of the Æsir, suggesting that elves were in a similar category of beings.[16]

In later Old Icelandic, alfr ('elf') and the personal name which in Common Germanic had been *Aþa(l)wulfaz both coincidentally became álfr~Álfr.[17] This seems to have led people to associate legendary heroes called Álfr with the elves.

Elves appear in some place-names, though it is hard to be sure how many as a variety of other words, including personal names, can appear similar to elf. The clearest English example is Elveden ('elves' hill', Suffolk); other examples may be Eldon Hill ('Elves' hill', Derbyshire); and Alden Valley ('elves' valley', Lancashire). These seem to associate elves fairly consistently with woods and valleys.[18]

Relationship of elves to Christian cosmologies

Almost all of our textual sources about elves were produced by Christians — whether Anglo-Saxon monks, medieval Icelandic poets, early modern ballad-singers, nineteenth-century folklore collectors, or even early twentieth-century fantasy authors. As with the Irish Aos Sí, beliefs in elves have, therefore, been a part of Christian cultures throughout their recorded history and there is a complex relationship between ideas about elves and mainstream Christian thought.[19]

Historically, people have taken three main approaches to integrating elves into Christian cosmology (though of course there are no rigid distinctions between these):

  1. Viewing elves as being more or less like people, and more or less outside Christian cosmology.[20]
    • The people who copied the Poetic Edda do not seem to have attempted to integrate elves into Christian thought.
    • In medieval Iceland, Snorri Sturluson in his Prose Edda mentions ljósálfar and døkkálfar. The ‘luminous elves’ (ljósálfar) dwelling in the sky and associating with the sun contrast the ‘dark elves’ (døkkálfar) dwelling underground and evading the light of the sun. Compare the ‘Álfr’ known for healing who lives underground in a mound, according to Kormáks saga, with a ‘dark elf’. The consensus in current scholarship is ‘luminous’ versus ‘dark’ refer to the Alfar versus the Dvergar, respectively. Elsewhere Snorri calls the Dvergar ‘black elves’ (svartálfar), likely using the term álfar as an honorific poetic kenning referring to these Dvergar as the artisans of famous magic items of the Æsir. The Dvergar are ‘dark’ and ‘black’ because they turn stone in the light of the sun and must evade it by living in darkness underground and traveling at night, according to Alvíssmál. Note however, some scholars see the distinction of ‘light’ versus ‘dark’ as based on angels versus demons, under the influence of Christian cosmology.[21]
    • Likewise, the early modern Scottish people who, when prosecuted as witches, proudly agreed to encountering elves but rejected the accuser’s view of dealing with the Devil.[22]
    • Nineteenth-century Icelandic folklore about elves mostly presents them as a human agricultural community parallel to the visible human community, that may or may not be Christian.[23] It is even possible that stories were sometimes told from this perspective to subvert the dominance of the Church.[24]
  2. Identifying elves with the demons of Judaeo-Christian-Mediterranean tradition.[25] For example:
    • In English-language material, in the Royal Prayer Book from c. 900, elf appears as a gloss for 'Satan';[26] in the late fourteenth-century Wife of Bath’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer equates male elves with incubi.[27]
    • In the early moden Scottish witchcraft trials, confessions by people accused of witchcraft to encounters with elves were often interpreted by the prosecutors as evidence of encounters with the Devil.[28] In these contexts, the feminine form of ‘elf’ − Scottish eluen, Old English ælfe, and Latinized as aelfa − when referring to the ‘Queen of Elves’, seem to be understood by the prosecutors as a feminine aspect of the devil, and synonymous with the ‘devil’.[29]
    • Elves appear as demonic forces widely in medieval and early modern English, German, and Scandinavian prayers.[30]
  3. Integrating elves into Christian cosmology without demonising them.[31] The most striking examples are serious (if unusual) theological treatises: the Icelandic Tíðfordrif (1644) by Jón Guðmundsson lærði or, in Scotland, Robert Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies (1691). This approach also appears in the Old English poem Beowulf, which lists elves among the monstrous races springing from Cain’s murder of Abel.[32] The late thirteenth-century South English Legendary and some Icelandic folktales explain elves as angels that sided neither with Lucifer nor with God, and were banished by God to earth rather than hell. One famous Icelandic folktale explains elves as the lost children of Eve.[33]

Elves in medieval texts and post-medieval folk-belief

Our earliest substantial evidence for elf-beliefs comes in medieval texts from England (particularly Anglo-Saxon England), Scandinavia (mostly Iceland), with a scatter of texts from the German-speaking world. However, some general themes are apparent: elves were human(-like); were once pagan divinities of some kind; and were dangerous: they could cause harm to people or livestock, or might seduce people into sexual relationships with them.

After the Middle Ages, the word elf tended to be replaced by other terms, becoming archaic, dialectal, or surviving only in fossilised terms.

Medieval English-language sources

Old English

The earliest surviving manuscripts mentioning elves are from Anglo-Saxon England. Here elves are most often attested in Old English glosses which translate Latin words for nymphs. The masculine elves and the feminine nymphs have their supernatural beauty in common.[34] Conveying an Old English negativity toward the elves, medical texts attest to elves afflicting humans and livestock with illnesses: apparently mostly sharp, internal pains and mental disorders. The most famous of the medical texts is the metrical charm Wið færstice ('against a stabbing pain'), from the tenth-century compilation Lacnunga, but most of the attestations are in the tenth-century Bald's Leechbook and Leechbook III. However, contrast the Scandinavian traditions that lack the concept of ‘elf shot’, but have an analogous concept called ‘Finn shot’, attributed to the shamans of the arctic Finnr, [35] who relate to modern Sami.

The Eadwine Psalter, f. 66r, detail: Christ and demons attacking the psalmist.

Because of elves' association with illness, in the second half of the twentieth century, most scholars imagined that elves in the Anglo-Saxon tradition were small, invisible, demonic beings, causing illness with arrows. Scholars, but not the primary texts, labelled the illnesses elves caused as 'elf-shot'.[36] This was encouraged by the idea that 'elf-shot' is depicted in the Eadwine Psalter, in an image which became well known in this connection.[37]

However, the image proves to be a conventional illustration of God's arrows and of Christian demons.[38] Though there is good evidence that they were associated with the succuba-like mære[39] and could cause illness, recent scholarship suggests Anglo-Saxon elves, like elves in later evidence from Britain and Scandinavia or the Irish Aos Sí, were like people.[40] Like words for gods and men, the word elf is used in names where words for monsters and demons are not.[41] Just as álfar are associated with Æsir in Old Norse, Wið færstice associates elves with ēse; whatever this word meant by the tenth century, etymologically it denoted pagan gods.[42] In Old English, the plural ælfe is grammatically an ethnonym (a word for an ethnic group).[43]

While they may have been thought to cause disease with weapons, elves are more clearly associated in Old English with a kind of magic denoted by Old English sīden and sīdsa, cognate with Old Norse seiðr relating to charm and delusion, and also paralleled in the Old Irish Serglige Con Culainn.[44] This fits well with the use of Old English masculine ælf and its feminine derivative ælbinne to gloss words for nymphs and with the word ælfscȳne, which meant 'elf-beautiful' and is attested in biblical poetry to describe seductively beautiful women.[45]

Middle English

Later in medieval English evidence, while still appearing as causes of harm and danger, elves appear more clearly as human-like beings, and increasingly as females rather than males, which may reflect developments in elf-beliefs during the medieval period.[46] They became associated with medieval romance traditions of fairies and particularly with the idea of a Fairy Queen. Sexual allure becomes increasingly prominent in the source material.[47] Elves are also associated with the arcane wisdom of alchemy.[48]

Post-medieval folk belief in Britain

By the end of the medieval period, elf was increasingly being supplanted by the French loan-word fairy,[49] as in Geoffrey Chaucer's satirical Sir Thopas where the title character sets out in quest of the 'elf-queen', who dwells in the 'countree of the Faerie'.[50]

However, beliefs in elves remained prominent in early modern Scotland: elves are most prominent in English-language sources in Lowland Scotland, where the early modern Scottish witchcraft trials produced many depositions of people who believed themselves to have been given healing powers or to know of people or animals made sick by elves.[51] The similarities with Old English material, and particularly Wið færstice are close.[52] It seems clear that elves were viewed as being supernaturally powerful people who lived invisibly alongside everyday rural people.[53]

It is in sixteenth-century Scotland that the term 'elf-shot' is first attested. It may not always have denoted an actual projectile as there is evidence that 'shot' could mean 'a sharp pain', but it and terms like elf-arrow(head) are sometimes used of neolithic arrow-heads, apparently thought to have been made by elves, and in a few witchcraft trials people attest that these were used in healing rituals, and occasionally alleged to be used by witches (and perhaps elves) to injure people and cattle.[54] Compare with the following excerpt from an 1750 ode by Willam Collins:

There every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,
Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.[55]

However note, the Norse texts lack the concept of elf-shot.

Old Norse texts

Evidence for elf-beliefs in medieval Scandinavia outside Iceland is very sparse, but the Icelandic evidence is uniquely rich.

Eddas

For a long time, views about elves in Old Norse mythology were defined by Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, which talks about the álfar and the dvergar, using terms such as svartálfar, døkkálfar and ljósálfar. However, these terms are only attested in the Prose Edda and texts based on it, and it is generally agreed they reflect the systematization by Snorri himself. Some scholars suggest, they reflect traditions of dwarves, demons, and angels, partly showing Snorri's 'paganisation' of a Christian cosmology learned from the Elucidarius.[56]

One possible semantic field diagram of words for sentient beings in Old Norse, schematising their relationships (Hall 2009, 208 fig. 1).

Scholars of Old Norse mythology now focus on references to elves in Old Norse poetry, particularly the Elder Edda. The only character explicitly identified as an elf in the classical Eddaic poetry, if any, is Völundr, the protagonist of Völundarkviða.[57] However, elves are frequently mentioned in the alliterating formulaic collocation Æsir ok Álfar ('Æsir and elves') and its variants. This shows a strong tradition of associating elves with the Æsir, or sometimes even of not distinguishing between the two groups.[58] The collocation is paralleled in the Old English poem Wið færstice;[59] in the Germanic personal name system;[60] and in Skaldic verse the word elf is used in the same way as words for gods.[61] Sigvatr Þórðarson’s skaldic travelogue Austrfaravísur, composed around 1020, mentions an álfablót (‘elves' sacrifice’) in what is now southern Sweden.[62] There does not seem to have been any clear-cut distinction between humans and gods; like the Æsir, then, elves were presumably thought of as being human(-like) and existing in opposition to the giants.[63] Many commentators have also argued for conceptual overlap between elves and dwarves in Old Norse mythology, which may fit with trends in the medieval German evidence.[64]

There are hints that Freyr was associated with elves, particularly that Álfheimr (literally 'elf-world') is mentioned as being given to Frey as a tooth-gift in Grímnismál. Because Snorri Sturluson identified Freyr as one of the Vanir when that word is rare in Eddaic verse, very rare in Skaldic verse, and is not generally thought to appear in other Germanic languages, it has long been suggested that álfar and Vanir are, more or less, different words for the same group of beings, and even that Snorri invented the Vanir.[65] However, this is not uniformly accepted.[66]

A kenning for the sun, álfrǫðull, is of uncertain meaning but is suggestive of the elves' close link to the sun.[67]

Although the relevant words are of slightly uncertain meaning, it seems fairly clear that Völundr is described as one of the elves in Völundarkviða.[68] As his most prominent deed in the poem is to rape Böðvildr, the poem associates elves with being a sexual threat to maidens. The same idea is present in two post-classical Eddaic poems, which are also influenced by romance or Breton lais, Kötludraumur and Gullkársljóð and in later traditions in Scandinavia and beyond, so may be an early attestation of a prominent tradition.[69] Elves also appear in a couple of verse spells, including a rune-stave from among the Bryggen inscriptions.[70]

Norse Sagas

The appearance of Alfar in sagas is closely defined by genre. 'In the more realistic Sagas of Icelanders, Bishops' Sagas, and Sturlunga saga, álfar are rare. When seen, they are distant.'[71] These texts include a fleeting mention of elves seen out riding in 1168 (in Sturlunga saga); mention of an álfablót in Kormáks saga, relating to the sacredness of the Alfar; and the existence of the euphemism álfrek ('driving away the elves') for 'going for a poo' in Eyrbyggja saga, relates to the purity of the Alfar.[72]

The Kings' sagas include a rather elliptical account of an early Swedish king being worshipped after his death and being called Ólafr Geirstaðaálfr ('Ólafr the elf of Geirstaðir') and the Alfr as ‘a kind of spirit’ able to dematerialize, whose prophecy causes Nornagestr to convert to Christianity, at the beginning of Norna-Gests þáttr, which is a portion of the Greatest Saga of Olaf Tryggvason.[73]

The Legendary sagas tend to focus on elves as legendary ancestors or on heroes' sexual relations with elf-women. Mention of the land of Álfheimr is found in the Heimskringla and in The Saga of Thorstein, Viking's Son accounts of a line of local kings who ruled over Álfheim, and since they had elven blood they were said to be more beautiful than most men.[74] According to Hrólfs saga kraka, Hrolf Kraki's half-sister Skuld was the half-elven child of King Helgi and an elf-woman (álfkona). Skuld was skilled in witchcraft (seiðr). Accounts of Skuld in earlier sources, however, do not include this material. The Thidrekssaga version of the Nibelungen (Niflungr) describes Högni as the son of a human queen and an elf, but no such lineage is reported in the Eddas, Völsunga saga, or the Nibelungenlied.[75] The relatively few mentions of elves in the Chivalric sagas tend even to be whimsical.[76]

Both Continental Scandinavia and Iceland have a scattering of mentions of elves in medical texts, most of them with Low German connections.[77]

Post-medieval developments

Although the term elf was sustained in some Scandinavian traditions, during and after the medieval period it largely disappears in favour either of euphemisms or unrelated terms, such as huldufólk ('hidden people', Icelandic), huldra ('hidden people', Norwegian and Swedish, along with terms like skogsfru and skogsrå), vetter, nisse (Denmark, along with bjærgfolk) and tomte (Sweden).

Medieval and early modern German texts

Main article: Alp (folklore)

Old High German alp is attested only in a small number of glosses. These underpin their definition in the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch as a 'nature-god or -demon, equated with the Fauns of Classical mytholology ... regarded as eerie, ferocious beings ... as the nightmare he messes around with women'.[78] There is also evidence associating them with illness, specifically epilepsy, and in the word Alpdruck ('elf-oppression') with the nightmare.

Accordingly, elves appear in Middle German most often associated with deception or bewildering people 'in a phrase that occurs so often it would appear to be proverbial: "die elben/der alp trieget mich" (the elves/elf is/are deceiving me)' and are often associated with the mare.[79] Elves appear as a threatening, even demonic, force widely in later medieval prayers. The most famous is the fourteenth-century Münchener Nachtsegen, a prayer to be said at night, which includes the lines:[80]

alb vnde ł elbelin
Ir sult nich beng’ bliben hin
albes svestir vn vatir
Ir sult uz varen obir dē gatir
albes mutir trute vn mar
Ir sult uz zu dē virste varē
Noc mich dy mare druche
Noc mich dy trute zciche
Noc mich dy mare rite
Noc mich dy mare bescrite
Alb mit diner crummen nasen
Ich vorbithe dir aneblasen
elf, or also little elf,
you shall remain no longer (reading lenger)
elf’s sister and father,
you shall go out over the gate;
elf’s mother, trute and mare,
you shall go out to the roof-ridge!
Let the mare not oppress me,
let the trute not ?pinch me (reading zücke),
let the mare not ride me,
let the mare not mount me!
Elf with your crooked nose,
I forbid you to blow on [people]

In early modern sources, the German alp is also described as "cheating" or "deceiving" (Template:Lang-gmh, Template:Lang-de) its victims.[81][82] In the early modern period, elves are attested in north Germany doing the evil bidding of witches; Martin Luther believed his mother to have been afflicted in this way.[83]

Elves in German tradition also show the seductive side apparent in English and Scandinavian material, however, possibly under the influence of French romance but possibly from local traditions.[84] Most famously, the early thirteenth-century Heinrich von Morungen's fifth Minnesang begins 'Von den elben virt entsehen vil manic man | Sô bin ich von grôzer lieber entsên' ('full many a man is bewitched by elves | thus I too am bewitched by great love').[85] As in earlier English, elbe is attested translating words for nymphs.[86]

As in Old Norse, however, there are few characters identified as elves. It seems likely that elves were to a significant extent conflated with dwarves (Template:Lang-gmh).[87] Some dwarfs that appear in German heroic poetry have been seen as relating to elves, especially when the dwarf's name is Alberich, construed as "Elf-king".[88] Of Alberich, Grimm thinks this name echoes the notion of the king of the nation of elves or dwarfs.[89] The Alberich in the epic Ortnit is a dwarf of childlike-stature who turns out to be the real father of the titular character, having ravished his mother. There is an incubus motif here,[90] that recurs in the Þiðreks saga version of the parentage of Hagen (ON Högni), who was the product of his mother Oda being impregnated by an elf (ON álfr) while she lay in bed; Þiðreks saga was translated from a lost German text.[91] The Alberich who aids Ortnit is paralleled by the French Auberon, who aids Huon de Bordeaux. Both figures occur in 13th-century works, but commentators typically regard Auberon as the derivative form.[92] Auberon entered English literature through Lord Berner's translation of the chanson de geste around 1540, then as Oberon, the king of elves and fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (see below).

As the apparent convergence with gezwerc suggests, the word alp declined in use in German after the medieval period, though it still occurs in some fossilised uses, most prominently the word for 'nightmare', Alptraum ('elf dream').[93] Variations of the German elf in later folklore include the moss people[94] and the weisse frauen ('white women').[95] As in English, however, twentieth-century fantasy fiction has helped to reinvigorate the term.

Early modern ballads

Thomas the Rhymer in Walter Scott's The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

Elves have a prominent place in a number of closely related ballads which must have originated in the Middle Ages, which are first attested in the early modern period, many in Karen Brahes Folio, a Danish manuscript from the 1570s. They circulated widely in Scandinavia and northern Britain. Because they were learned by heart, they sometimes mention elves when that term had otherwise become unusual, and have played a major role in transmitting traditional ideas about elves in post-medieval cultures. Some of the early modern ballads, indeed, are still quite widely known, whether through school syllabuses or modern folk music. They therefore give people an unusual degree of access to ideas of elves in older traditional culture.

The ballads are characterised by sexual encounters between everyday people and human(-like) beings referred to in at least some variants as elves (the same characters also appear as mermen, dwarves, and other kinds of supernatural beings). The elves pose a threat to the everyday community by luring people to into the elves' world, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. Much the most popular example is Elveskud and its many variants (paralleled in English as Clerk Colvill), where a woman from the elf-world tries to tempt a young knight to join her in dancing, or simply to live among the elves; sometimes he refuses and sometimes he accepts, but in either case he dies, tragically. As in Elveskud, sometimes the everyday person is a man and the elf a woman, as also in Elvehøj (much the same story as Elveskud but with a happy ending), Herr Magnus og Bjærgtrolden, Herr Tønne af Alsø, Herr Bøsmer i elvehjem, or the Northern British Thomas the Rhymer. Sometimes the everyday person is a woman and the elf is a man, as in the northern British Tam Lin, The Elfin Knight, and Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, in which the Elf-Knight bears away Isabel to murder her, or the Scandinavian Harpans kraft. In The Queen of Elfland's Nourice, a woman is abducted to be a wet-nurse to the elf-queen's baby, but promised that she may return home once the child is weaned.

Post-medieval conceptions of elves

Early modern Europe saw the emergence for the first time of a distinctive elite culture, while the Reformation encouraged new scepticism and opposition to traditional beliefs, while subsequently Romanticism encouraged their fetishisation by intellectual elites. The effects of this on writing about elves are most apparent in England and Germany, with developments in each country influencing the other. In Scandinavia, Romanticism is also prominent and literature was the main context for continued use of the word elf, but oral traditions about beings like elves remained prominent into the early twentieth century.

England and Germany

Illustrations to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream By Arthur Rackham.

From around the Late Middle Ages, the word elf began to be used as a term loosely synonymous with the French loan-word fairy and other beings; in elite culture, at least, it became associated with diminutive supernatural beings like Puck, hobgoblins, Robin Goodfellow, the English and Scots brownie, and the Northumbrian English hob. In Elizabethan England, Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590-) used 'fairy' and 'elf' interchangeably of human-sized beings, but they are complex imaginary and allegorical figures; his aetiology of the "Elfe" and "Elfin kynd" as being made and quickened by Prometheus is entirely his invention.[96]

William Shakespeare also imagined elves as little people. He apparently considered elves and fairies to be the same race. In a speech in Romeo and Juliet (1592) an 'elf-lock' (tangled hair) is not caused by an elf as such, but Queen Mab, who is referred to as 'the fairies' midwife'.[97] In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the elves are almost as small as insects.[dubious – discuss] The influence of Shakespeare and Michael Drayton made the use of elf and fairy for very small beings the norm, and had a lasting effect seen in fairy tales about elves collected in the modern period.

Illustration of Der Erlkönig by Albert Sterner

Shakespearean and later English notions of elves became influential in eighteenth-century Germany. The Modern German Elf (m) (Elfe (f)) was introduced as a loan from English in the 1740s[98][99] and was prominent in Christoph Martin Wieland's 1764 translation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.[100]

As German Romanticism got underway and writers started to seek authentic folklore, Jacob Grimm rejected Elfe as a recent Anglicism, and promoted the reuse of the old form Elb (plural Elbe or Elben).[101][99] In the same vein, Johann Gottfried Herder translated the Danish ballad Elveskud in his 1778 collection of folk songs, Stimmen der Völker in Liedern, as "Erlkönigs Tochter" ("The Erl-king's Daughter"; it appears that Herder introduced the term Erlkönig into German through a mis-Germanisation of the Danish word for elf). This in turn inspired Goethe's poem Der Erlkönig. Goethe's poem then took on a life of its own, inspiring the Romantic concept of the Erlking, which was enormously influential on literary images of elves in the nineteenth century and afterwards.

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

English and German literary traditions both influenced the British Victorian image of the elf, appearing in illustrations as tiny men and women with pointed ears and stocking caps. An example is Andrew Lang's fairy tale Princess Nobody (1884), illustrated by Richard Doyle, where fairies are tiny people with butterfly wings, whereas elves are tiny people with red stocking caps. These conceptions remained prominent in twentieth-century children's literature, for example Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree series, and were influenced by German Romantic literature. Accordingly, in the first story of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Die Wichtelmänner (literally 'the little men'), the title protagonists are two tiny naked men who help a shoemaker in his work. Even though Wichtelmänner are akin to beings such as kobolds, dwarves and brownies, the tale was translated into English by Margaret Hunt in 1884 as The Elves and the Shoemaker This both shows how the meanings of elf had changed, and was in itself influential: the usage is echoed, for example, in the House-elf of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories. In his turn, J. R. R. Tolkien recommended using the older German form Elb in his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings (1967) and Elb, Elben was consequently introduced in the 1972 German translation of The Lord of the Rings, having a role in repopularising the form in German.

Scandinavia

Little älvor, playing with Tomtebobarnen. From Children of the Forest (1910) by Swedish author and illustrator Elsa Beskow.

In Scandinavian folklore, an elf is called elver in Danish, alv in Norwegian, alv (as a learned borrowing from Old Norse) or älva in Swedish, and álfur in Icelandic. After the medieval period, these terms generally were less prominent than alternatives like huldufólk ('hidden people', Icelandic), huldra ('hidden people', Norwegian and Swedish, along with terms like skogsfru and skogsrå), vetter, nisse (Denmark) and tomte (Sweden): the Norwegian expressions seldom appear in genuine folklore.

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 British folklore are often called "älvor" in modern Swedish or "alfer" in Danish, although the more formal translation is feer. In a similar vein, the alf found in the fairy tale The Elf of the Rose 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 elvere in The Elfin Hill. 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 huldra in Norway and Sweden, they are hollow when seen from the back.

The "Elf cross" which protected against malevolent elves.[102]

The elves of Norse mythology have survived into folklore mainly as females, living in hills and mounds of stones.[103] The Swedish älvor, (sing. älva) were stunningly beautiful girls who lived in the forest with an elven king.[104][105] In Romantic art and literature, elves are typically pictured as fair-haired, white-clad, and (like most creatures in the Scandinavian folklore) nasty when offended. In folk-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 älvablåst (elven blow) and could be cured by a forceful counter-blow (a handy pair of bellows was most useful for this purpose). Skålgropar, a particular kind of petroglyph found in Scandinavia, were known in older times as älvkvarnar (elven mills), pointing to their believed usage. One could appease the elves by offering them a treat (preferably butter) placed into an elven mill.

In order to protect themselves against malevolent elves, Scandinavians could use a so-called Elf cross (Alfkors, Älvkors or Ellakors), which was carved into buildings or other objects.[102] It existed in two shapes, one was a pentagram and it was still frequently used in early 20th-century Sweden as painted or carved onto doors, walls and household utensils in order to protect against elves.[102] As the name suggests, the elves were perceived as a potential danger against people and livestock.[102] The second form was an ordinary cross carved onto a round or oblong silver plate.[102] This second kind of elf cross one was worn as a pendant in a necklace and in order to have sufficient magic it had to be forged during three evenings with silver from nine different sources of inherited silver.[102] In some locations it also had to be on the altar of a church during three consecutive Sundays.[102]

Älvalek, "Elf Play" by August Malmström (1866).

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

On 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,[106] 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.[103]

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. Human being invited or lured to the elf dance is a common motif carried over from older Scandinavian ballads.

Elves were not exclusively young and beautiful. In the Swedish folktale Little Rosa and Long Leda, an elvish woman (älvakvinna) 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 a beautiful old woman and by her aspect people saw that she belonged to the subterraneans.[107]

In Iceland, expression of belief in the cognate huldufólk or "hidden folk", the elves that dwell in rock formations, is still common. If the natives do not explicitly express their belief, they are often reluctant to express disbelief.[108] A 2006 and 2007 study on superstition by the University of Iceland’s Faculty of Social Sciences supervised by Terry Gunnell (associate folklore professor), reveal that natives would not rule out the existence of elves and ghosts (similar results of a 1974 survey by Professor Erlendur Haraldsson, Fréttabladid reports). Gunnell stated: "Icelanders seem much more open to phenomena like dreaming the future, forebodings, ghosts and elves than other nations." His results were consistent with a similar study conducted in 1974.[109]

With industrialisation and mass education, traditional folklore about elves waned, but as the phenomenon of popular culture emerged, elves were reimagined, in large part on the basis of Romantic literary depictions and associated medievalism.

Christmas elf

Main article: Christmas elf

As American Christmas traditions crystallized in the nineteenth century, the 1823 poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' (widely known as '’Twas the Night before Christmas') characterized St Nicholas himself as 'a right jolly old elf' (line 45), but it was the little helpers that were later attributed to him to whom the name stuck. Thus in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland the modern children's folklore of Santa Claus typically includes green-clad elves with pointy ears, long noses, and pointy hats as Santa's helpers or hired workers. They make the toys in a workshop located in the North Pole. In this portrayal, elves slightly resemble nimble and delicate versions of the elves in English folktakes in the Victorian period from which they derived. The role of elves as Santa's helpers has continued to be popular, as evidenced by the success of the popular Christmas movie Elf.

Fantasy fiction

Main article: Elves in fantasy fiction and games
Typical illustration of a female elf in the high fantasy style.

The fantasy genre in the twentieth century grew out of nineteenth-century Romanticism. Nineteenth-century scholars such as Andrew Lang and the Grimm brothers collected "fairy-stories" from popular folklore and in some cases retold them freely.

A pioneering work of the fantasy genre was The King of Elfland's Daughter, a 1924 novel by Lord Dunsany. Elves played a central role in Tolkien's legendarium, notably The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings; this legendarium was enormously influential on subsequent fantasy writing. Tolkien's writing has such popularity that in the 1960s and afterwards, elves speaking an elvish language similar to those in Tolkien's novels (like Quenya, and Sindarin) became staple non-human characters in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games. Post-Tolkien fantasy elves (popularized by the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game) tend to be more beautiful and wiser than humans, with sharper senses and perceptions. They are said to be gifted in magic, mentally sharp and lovers of nature, art, and song. They are often skilled archers. A hallmark of many fantasy elves is their pointed ears.

In works where elves are the main characters, such as The Silmarillion or Wendy and Richard Pini’s comic book series Elfquest, elves exhibit a similar range of behaviour to a human cast, distinguished largely by their superhuman physical powers. However, where narratives are more human-centered, as in The Lord of the Rings, elves tend to sustain their role as powerful, sometimes threatening, outsiders.[110]

Constructing racial others in urban legends and video games

Timothy Tangherlini has argued that folk-stories about elves are still told in modern Denmark and Sweden, but featuring ethnic minorities in places of elves in an essentially racist discourse:

In early legends, in which the ethnic homogeneity of Danish society was not threatened by outside cultures, threat was assigned to supernatural forces—trolls, elves, and witches ... With the advent of scientific scepticism, universal education and the move away from rural lifestyles, folk belief concerning trolls, elves, and witches declined. Concomitantly, the need for actants to assume the newly vacated legend functions appeared. With the marked change in Danish demographics, primarily the influx of large numbers of Asians and southern Europeans in the 1960s and 1970s ... the immigrant and minority populations were the logical culturally relevant replacement. Like the bjærgfolk, immigrants lead a life hidden from the native population. They have a separate culture and language. They work the least popular jobs, and there is minimal chance for assimilation into Danish culture. Often, physical characteristics set them apart from ethnic Danes. Finally, the separation of these people from Danish society is intensified by the isolation of large minority populations in communities such as Ishøj. The result is a group easily identified as Other, which lives and works outside the bounds of the ethnic Dane's sphere, in much the same way that trolls and elves lived and worked outside of the human sphere—the farm.[111]

Likewise, Poor has argued that elves function to encode racial others in video games.[112]

Footnotes

Citations

  1. ^ Lass 1994, p. 205; Lindow 2002, p. 110; Hall 2007.
  2. ^ Hall 2007.
  3. ^ 2006, 230-31; cf. Shippey 2005; Hall 2007, 16-17; Gunnell 2007.
  4. ^ Hall 2007, 32-33.
  5. ^ Hall 2007, 176-81.
  6. ^ Hall 2007, 75-88, 157-66.
  7. ^ Hall 2007, 5.
  8. ^ Hall 2007, 5, 176-77.
  9. ^ Hall 2007, 54-55.
  10. ^ Oxford English Dictionary.
  11. ^ Kuhn, Adalbert (1855). Die sprachvergleichung und die urgeschichte der indogermanischen völker. Vol. 4. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help), "Zu diesen ṛbhu, alba.. stellt sich nun aber entschieden das ahd. alp, ags. älf, altn . âlfr"
  12. ^ in K. Z., p.110, Schrader, Otto (1890). Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples. Frank Byron Jevons (tr.). Charles Griffin & Company,. p. 163.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link).
  13. ^ Hall 2007, 54-55 fn. 1.
  14. ^ Paul, Hermann (1900). Grundriss der germanischen philologie unter mitwirkung. K. J. Trübner. p. 268.
  15. ^ Althof, Hermann, ed. (1902). Das Waltharilied. Dieterich. p. 114.
  16. ^ Hall 2007, 55-62.
  17. ^ De Vreis 1962, s.v. Álfr.
  18. ^ Hall 2007, 64-66
  19. ^ The seminal statements of this theme are Jolly 1996 and Shippey 2005.
  20. ^ e.g. Hall 2007, 172-75.
  21. ^ Hall 2007, 23-26; Gunnell 2007, 127-28; Shippey 2005, 180-81.
  22. ^ Hall 2004. The Meanings of Elf and Elves in Medieval England. p. 157-167.
  23. ^ Shippey 2005, 161-68; Alver and Selberg 1987.
  24. ^ Ingwersen 1995, 83-89.
  25. ^ e.g. Jolly 1992, p. 172
  26. ^ Hall 2007, 71-72.
  27. ^ Hall 2007, 162.
  28. ^ Hall 2005, 30-32.
  29. ^ Cf. Hall 2004. The Meanings of Elf and Elves in Medieval England. p. 79-80, etc.
  30. ^ Hall 2007, 69-74, 106 n. 48 and 122 on English evidence; Hall 2007, 98 fn 10 and Schulz 2000, 62–85 on German evidence; Haukur Þorgeirsson 2011, 54-58 on Icelandic evidence.
  31. ^ e.g. Shippey 2005.
  32. ^ Hall 2007, 69-74.
  33. ^ Hall 2007, 75; Shippey 2005, 174, 185-86.
  34. ^ Hall 2004. The Meanings of Elf and Elves in Medieval England. p. 83-86.
  35. ^ Reimund Kvideland, Henning K. Sehmsdorf 1988. Scandinavian Folkbelief and Legend. p. 142.
  36. ^ Hall 2007, 96-118.
  37. ^ J. H. G. Grattan and Charles Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine Illustrated Specially from the Semi-Pagan Text ‘Lacnunga’, Publications of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, New Series, 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), frontispiece.
  38. ^ Jolly, Karen Louise, ‘Elves in the Psalms? The Experience of Evil from a Cosmic Perspective’, in The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey B. Russell, ed. by Alberto Ferreiro, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions, 6 (Lieden, 1998), pp. 19–44.
  39. ^ Hall 2007, 124-26, 128-29, 136--37, 156.
  40. ^ Shippey 2005, 168-76; Hall 2007, esp. 172-75.
  41. ^ Hall 2007, 55-62.
  42. ^ Hall 2007, 35-63.
  43. ^ Hall 2007, 62-63.
  44. ^ Hall 2007, 119-56.
  45. ^ Hall 2007, 75-95.
  46. ^ Hall 2007, 157-66; Shippey 2005, 172-76.
  47. ^ Shippey 2005, 175-76; Hall 2007, 130-48.
  48. ^ Hall 2007, 88-89, 141; Green 2003; Hall 2006.
  49. ^ Hall 2005, 20.
  50. ^ Keightley 1850, p. 53
  51. ^ Purkiss 2000, 85-115; Henderson and Cowan 2001; Hall 2005.
  52. ^ Hall 2007, 112-15.
  53. ^ Henderson and Cowan 2001; Hall 2005.
  54. ^ Hall 2005.
  55. ^ Collins, Willam. 1775. An Ode On The Popular Superstitions Of The Highlands Of Scotland, Considered As The Subject Of Poetry.
  56. ^ Hall 2007, 23-26; Gunnell 2007, 127-28; Shippey 2005, 180-81.
  57. ^ Dumézil 1973, 3.
  58. ^ Hall 2007, 34-39; Haukur Þorgeirsson 2011, 49-50.
  59. ^ Hall 2007, 35-63
  60. ^ Hall 2007, 55-62.
  61. ^ Hall 2007, 28-32.
  62. ^ Hall 2007, 30-31.
  63. ^ Hall 2007, 31-34, 42, 47-53.
  64. ^ Hall 2007, 32-33.
  65. ^ Simek 2010; Hall 27, 35-37; Frog and Roper 2011.
  66. ^ e.g. Ármann Jakobsson 2006; Tolley 2009.
  67. ^ Motz 1973, p. 99; Hall 2004, p. 40.
  68. ^ Ármann Jakobsson 2006; Hall 2007, 39-47.
  69. ^ Haukur Þorgeirsson 2011, 50-52.
  70. ^ Hall 2007, 133-34.
  71. ^ Ármann Jakobsson 2006, 231.
  72. ^ Ármann Jakobsson 2006, 231.
  73. ^ Ármann Jakobsson 2006, 231-32; Hall 2007, 26-27.
  74. ^ The Saga of Thorstein, Viking's Son[dead link‍] (Old Norse original: Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar). Chapter 1.
  75. ^ Ármann Jakobsson 2006, 232.
  76. ^ Haukur Þorgeirsson 2011, 52-54.
  77. ^ Hall 2007, 132-33; Haukur Þorgeirsson 2011, 54-58.
  78. ^ 'Naturgott oder -dämon, den Faunen der antiken Mythologie gleichgesetzt ... er gilt als gespenstisches, heimtückisches Wesen ... als Nachtmahr spielt er den Frauen mit'; Karg-Gasterstädt and Frings 1968–, s.v. alb.
  79. ^ Edwards 1994, 16-17, at 17.
  80. ^ Hall 2007, 125--26.
  81. ^ (Stallybrass tr.) Grimm 1883, p. 463 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFGrimm1883 (help)
  82. ^ In Lexer's Middle High German dictionary under alp, alb is an example: Pf. arzb. 2 14b= Pfeiffer 1863, p. 44 (Pfeiffer, F. (1863). "Arzenîbuch 2= Bartholomäus" (Mitte 13. Jh.)". Zwei deutsche Arzneibücher aus dem 12. und 13. Jh. Wien.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)): "Swen der alp triuget, rouchet er sich mit der verbena, ime enwirret als pald niht;" meaning: 'When an alp deceives you, fumigate yourself with verbena and the confusion will soon be gone'. The editor glosses alp here as "malicious, teasing spirit" (Template:Lang-de)
  83. ^ Edwards 1994, 21-22.
  84. ^ Edwards 1994.
  85. ^ Edwards 1994, 13.
  86. ^ Edwards 1994, 17.
  87. ^ Motz 1983, esp. 23–66.
  88. ^ Weston, Jessie Laidlay (1903). "The legends of the Wagner drama: studies in mythology and romance". C. Scribner's sons: 144. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  89. ^ (Stallybrass tr.) Grimm 1883, Vol. 2, p.453 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFGrimm1883 (help)
  90. ^ Gillespie 1973, p.3, note3, citing Hempel, Heinrich- (1926). Nibelungenstudien: Nibelungenlied, Thidrikssaga und Balladen (snippet). C. Winters universitätsbuchhandlung. pp. 150-.
  91. ^ Thidrekksaga. Unger, Carl Rikard (1853). Saga Điðriks konungs af Bern. Feilberg & Landmarks Forlag. p. 172.; Hayme's tr., ch. 169
  92. ^ Keightley 1850, p. 208, citing Grimm says Auberon derives from Alberich by a usual l→u change.
  93. ^ Karg-Gasterstädt and Frings 1968–, s.v. albe; Edward 1994, 17.
  94. ^ Thistelton-Dyer, T.F. The Folk-lore of Plants, 1889. Available online by Project Gutenberg. File retrieved 3-05-07.
  95. ^ Marshall Jones Company (1930). Mythology of All Races Series, Volume 2 Eddic, Great Britain: Marshall Jones Company, 1930, pp. 221-222.
  96. ^ Keightley 1850, p. 57
  97. ^ "elf-lock", OED Online (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, 1989, retrieved 26 November 2009; "Rom. & Jul. I, iv, 90 Elf-locks" is the oldest example of the use of the phrase given by the OED.
  98. ^ Thun, Nils (1969). "The malignant Elves:Notes on Anglo‐Saxon Magic and Germanic Myth". Studia Neophilologica. 41 (2): 378–396. doi:10.1080/00393276908587447. (p.378).
  99. ^ a b (Stallybrass tr.) Grimm 1883, vol. 2, p. 443 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFGrimm1883 (help)
  100. ^ "Die aufnahme des Wortes knüpft an Wielands Übersetzung von Shakespeares Sommernachtstraum 1764 und and Herders Voklslieder 1774 (Werke 25, 42) an;Kluge, Friedrich (1899). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (6th improved and expanded ed.). Strassbourg: K. J. Trübner. p. 93.
  101. ^ Grimm and Grimm 1854–1954, s.v. Elb.
  102. ^ a b c d e f g The article Alfkors in Nordisk familjebok (1904).
  103. ^ a b Hellström (1990). En Krönika om Åsbro. p. 36. ISBN 91-7194-726-4.
  104. ^ For the Swedish belief in älvor see mainly Schön, Ebbe (1986). "De fagra flickorna på ängen". Älvor, vättar och andra väsen. ISBN 91-29-57688-1.
  105. ^ Cf. Keightely's chapter on Scandinavia: Elves (Keightley 1833, pp. 135-Keightley 1850, pp. 78-, Keightley 1870, pp. 78-)
  106. ^ "Google Maps". Maps.google.com. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  107. ^ "Lilla Rosa och Långa Leda". Svenska folksagor. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell Förlag AB. 1984. p. 158.
  108. ^ "Novatoadvance.com, Chasing waterfalls ... and elves". Novatoadvance.com. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  109. ^ "Icelandreview.com, Iceland Still Believes in Elves and Ghosts". Icelandreview.com. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  110. ^ Bergman 2011.
  111. ^ Tangherlini 1995, 34; cf. Ingwersen 1995, 78-79, 81.
  112. ^ Poor 2012.

References

Look up elf in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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