Elves
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Elves Everywhere you look these days in popular culture, you aren’t surprised to come across some elves. Spurred by the recent success of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series as a motion picture trilogy, interest in elves has skyrocketed. But elves are far from a recent literary invention. Elves have been present in cultural mythologies all over the world for centuries. The depiction of elves throughout history Elves can traditionally be found in the mythologies of northern European Germanic cultures. The earliest descriptions of elves are found in Norse mythology. In Norse mythology, elves are beautiful human-sized beings with special powers who are somehow semi-divine. Some scholars write that elves in Norse mythology were closely related to the god Vanir, the god of fertility. Elves can also be found in Scandinavian folklore, which is a combination of Norse mythology and Christian mythology. In Scandinavian folklore, elves are primarily beautiful women who dance in meadows in the evening and morning. Elves lived long lives, and were generally friendly; however, you would do well to never insult an elf. If an elf was offended, they were known to bring diseases upon the person who offended them, with the consequences ranging from a slight skin rash to a full on fatal disease. For this reason, epidemics and other sicknesses in Scandinavian society were often blamed on vengeful elves. This vengeful streak can be seen in a muted manner in German elves. In German folklore, elves are small pranksters who give diseases to people and cattle, and are the source of bad dreams. Indeed, the German word for nightmare, Albtraum, actually means ‘elf dream’. A similar conception of elves is seen in English folklore, although elves in English folklore have lost most of their nasty edge, being mainly known as pranksters and grouped in with fairies. Elves in modern culture As stated above, elves reemerged in popular culture with the remarkable success of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1950s. In Tolkien’s work, the elves resemble the elves from Norse mythology: human-sized with god-like powers. Missing from the elves in Tolkien’s work is the mischievousness of elves in German and English folklore, or the vengefulness of elves from Scandinavian folklore. Instead, the elves in Tolkien’s work are firmly on the side of good in the great battles with evil forces. The elves from Tolkien’s work were taken up in Dungeons & Dragons, the popular fantasy role playing game, in the 1970s. From there, elves became a staple of fantasy worlds, both in print and on television and in movies, along with dwarves and dragons and other mythical creatures found in Tolkien’s work. |
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