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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Review Our Directory for Free Elf Clip Art
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Our Best Web Links For Free Elf Clip Art
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