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137-635: Tolkien derived Elves from mentions in the ancient poetry and languages of Northern Europe, especially Old English . These suggested to him that Elves were large, dangerous, beautiful, lived in wild natural places, and practised archery. He invented languages for the Elves, including Sindarin and Quenya . Tolkien-style Elves have become a staple of fantasy literature . They have appeared, too, in film and role-playing game adaptations of Tolkien's works. The framework for J. R. R. Tolkien 's conception of his Elves, and many points of detail in his portrayal of them,

274-613: A definite article ("the"), a demonstrative adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun . Other demonstratives are þēs ("this"), and ġeon ("that over there"). These words inflect for case, gender, and number. Adjectives have both strong and weak sets of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive determiner is also present. Verbs conjugate for three persons : first, second, and third; two numbers: singular, plural; two tenses : present, and past; three moods : indicative , subjunctive , and imperative ; and are strong (exhibiting ablaut) or weak (exhibiting

411-600: A parallel world . They can make themselves visible at will. Konrad von Maurer cites a 19th-century Icelandic source claiming that the only visible difference between normal people and outwardly human-appearing huldufólk is, the latter have a convex rather than concave philtrum (Icelandic: vuldulág ) below their noses. In Faroese folk tales, hidden people are said to be "large in build, their clothes are all grey, and their hair black. Their dwellings are in mounds, and they are also called Elves." Some Icelandic folk tales caution against throwing stones, as it may hit

548-538: A "Hidden Worlds tour", a guided walk of about 90 minutes. It includes a stroll through Hellisgerdi Park, where the paths wind through a lava field planted with tall trees and potted bonsai trees in summer, and said to be peopled with the town's largest elf colony. Stokkseyri has the Icelandic Wonders museum, where "Museum guests will walk into a world of the Icelandic elves and hidden people and get

685-398: A back vowel ( /ɑ/ , /o/ , /u/ ) at the time of palatalization, as illustrated by the contrast between fisċ /fiʃ/ ('fish') and its plural fiscas /ˈfis.kɑs/ . But due to changes over time, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty (for details, see palatalization ). In word-final position, the pronunciation of sċ

822-466: A beast they took nor slew, and where they went he never knew". Shippey comments that Tolkien took many suggestions from this passage, including the horns and the hunt of the Elves in Mirkwood ; the proud but honourable Elf-king; and the placing of his elves in wild nature. Tolkien might only have had broken fragments to work on, but, Shippey writes, the more one explores how Tolkien used the ancient texts,

959-598: A commentary on the texts themselves or their actual influence on his writing, and cites evidence to this effect in her essay "'Mad' Elves and 'elusive beauty': some Celtic strands of Tolkien's mythology". Fimi proposes that some of the stories Tolkien wrote as elven history are directly influenced by Celtic mythology. For example, "Flight of The Noldoli " she argues, is based on the Tuatha Dé Danann and Lebor Gabála Érenn , and their migratory nature comes from early Irish/Celtic history. John Garth states that with

1096-575: A common part of the holiday festivities on Twelfth Night (January 6). There are many Icelandic folktales about elves and hidden people invading Icelandic farmhouses during Christmas and holding wild parties. It is customary in Iceland to clean the house before Christmas, and to leave food for the huldufólk on Christmas. On New Year's Eve, it is believed that the elves move to new locations, and Icelanders leave candles to help them find their way. On Midsummer Night , folklore states that if you sit at

1233-523: A couple instances." Terry Gunnell notes that hidden people legends recorded in the 18th and 19th centuries showed them to be "near mirror-images of those humans who told stories about them—except they were beautiful, powerful, alluring, and free from care, while the Icelanders were often starving and struggling for existence. The huldufólk seem in many ways to represent the Icelander's dreams of

1370-425: A crossroads, elves will attempt to seduce you with food and gifts; there are grave consequences for being seduced by their offers, but great rewards for resisting. Several scholars have commented on the connections between hidden people and the Icelandic natural environment. B.S. Benedikz, in his discussion of Jón Árnason 's grouping of folktales about elves, water-dwellers, and trolls together, writes: "The reason

1507-406: A dental suffix). Verbs have two infinitive forms: bare and bound; and two participles : present and past. The subjunctive has past and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person and number. The future tense , passive voice , and other aspects are formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but are often after their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in

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1644-517: A following ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ . Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions. The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including ⟨g⟩ instead of insular G , ⟨s⟩ instead of insular S and long S , and others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably ⟨e⟩ , ⟨f⟩ and ⟨r⟩ . Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, where usually no distinction

1781-467: A friction that led to the erosion of the complicated inflectional word endings. Simeon Potter notes: No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength. The strength of

1918-474: A glimpse of their life." Information boards at Dverghamrar state that the local variety of dwarf is 20-30 cm tall. During road construction in Kópavogur in 1971, a bulldozer broke down. The driver placed the blame on elves living in a large rock. Despite locals not having been aware of any elves living in the rock, newspapers ran with the story, thus starting the myth that Icelandic road construction

2055-545: A great and mighty people, and that as Men took over the world, these Elves had "diminished" themselves. This theme is shared especially by the god-like and human-sized Ljósálfar of Norse mythology , and medieval works such as Sir Orfeo , the Welsh Mabinogion , Arthurian romances and the legends of the Tuatha Dé Danann . The name Inwe or Ingwë (in the first draft Ing ), given by Tolkien to

2192-415: A green axe-wielding giant, an aluisch mon ("elvish man", translated by Shippey as "uncanny creature"). Christian sources from Iceland knew and disapproved of the tradition of offering sacrifices to the elves, álfa-blót . Elves were directly dangerous, too: the medical condition " elf-shot ", described in the spell Gif hors ofscoten sie , "if a horse is elf-shot", meaning some kind of internal injury,

2329-454: A more perfect and happy existence." Anthropologist Jón Haukur Ingimundarson claimed that hidden people tales told by 19th-century Icelandic women were a reflection of how only 47% of women were married, and "sisters often found themselves relegated to very different functions and levels of status in society... the vast majority of Icelandic girls were shunted into supporting roles in the household." He goes on to say that these stories justified

2466-530: A period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion . While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language . Perhaps around 85% of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are

2603-474: A production of J. M. Barrie 's Peter Pan in Birmingham in 1910, and his familiarity with the work of Catholic mystic poet, Francis Thompson which Tolkien had acquired in 1914. O! I hear the tiny horns Of enchanted leprechauns And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming! In his The Book of Lost Tales , Tolkien develops a theme that the diminutive fairy-like race of Elves had once been

2740-677: A revolt in heaven, the people who were not siding with him, but also not against him were sent down to Earth. They would live in, “knowles, hills, and rocks” and “cannot live with other people.” These people are the Huldifolk or Elves. A survey of Icelanders born between 1870 and 1920 found that people did not generally believe in hidden people and that when they had learned about supernatural beings in their youth, those lessons had mostly been made for amusement. About 10% seemed to actually believe in hidden people. A survey from 1974 showed that among those born between 1904 and 1944, 7% were certain of

2877-534: A threshold According to Scandinavian Author Ármann Jakobsson, “In the Eyrbyggja saga", we find the familiar idea that people are expected to relieve themselves at a safe distance from a sacred spot, and the word used (dlfrek) indicates that the alfar be expected to get angry.” In her book, Icelandic Folktales and Legends , Jacqueline Simpson provides two origins stories for the Huldufolk. The first story says

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3014-571: A weird way, quite unlike the elves in any other adaptation, not even resembling the film's depiction of Elrond. Gilkeson describes them as "like Troll dolls that have been left out in the rain too long, and a little like Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove . They have gray skin, pug faces, and blond hair. It’s frankly bizarre". In Peter Jackson 's Lord of the Rings film series (2001–2003), Elves are shown as physically superior to Men in eyesight, balance, and aim, but their superiority in other ways

3151-505: Is "never really made clear". Fimi compared Jackson's handling of Elves with Tolkien's. Tolkien's Elves are rooted as firmly as possible in Anglo-Saxon , Middle English , and Norse tradition, but influenced also by Celtic fairies in the Tuatha Dé Danann . Jackson's Elves are however "Celtic" in the romanticised sense of the Celtic Revival . She compares Jackson's representation of Gildor Inglorion's party of Elves riding through

3288-552: Is also sparse early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case: the locative . The evidence comes from Northumbrian Runic texts (e.g., ᚩᚾ ᚱᚩᛞᛁ on rodi "on the Cross"). Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number, and can be either strong or weak. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case, gender, and number. First-person and second- person personal pronouns occasionally distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article sē and its inflections serve as

3425-422: Is as follows. The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not considered to be phonemes : The above system is largely similar to that of Modern English , except that [ç, x, ɣ, l̥, n̥, r̥] (and [ʍ] for most speakers ) have generally been lost, while the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including /ʒ/ ) have become independent phonemes, as has /ŋ/ . The open back rounded vowel [ɒ]

3562-477: Is dangerous to mortals because time there is distorted , as in Tolkien's Lothlórien . Shippey comments that it is a strength of Tolkien's "re-creations", his imagined worlds, that they incorporate all the available evidence to create a many-layered impression of depth , making use of "both good and bad sides of popular story; the sense of inquiry, prejudice, hearsay and conflicting opinion". Shippey suggests that

3699-621: Is evidenced by the continued variation between their successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact, what would become the standard forms of Middle English and of Modern English are descended from Mercian rather than West Saxon, while Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect. It was once claimed that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in

3836-668: Is followed by Middle English (1150 to 1500), Early Modern English (1500 to 1650) and finally Modern English (after 1650), and in Scotland Early Scots (before 1450), Middle Scots ( c.  1450 to 1700) and Modern Scots (after 1700). Just as Modern English is not monolithic, Old English varied according to place. Despite the diversity of language of the Germanic-speaking migrants who established Old English in England and southeastern Scotland, it

3973-835: Is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system , but from about the 8th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet . Englisċ , from which the word English is derived, means 'pertaining to the Angles '. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in many parts of Britain in the 5th century. By the 9th century, all speakers of Old English, including those who claimed Saxon or Jutish ancestry, could be referred to as Englisċ . This name probably either derives from Proto-Germanic *anguz , which referred to narrowness, constriction or anxiety, perhaps referring to shallow waters near

4110-548: Is no wonder that the native people have assigned some secret life to the landscape. There had to be some unseen powers behind such unpredictability, such cruelty." Alan Boucher writes: "Thus the Icelander's ambivalent attitude towards nature, the enemy and the provider, is clearly expressed in these stories, which preserve a good deal of popular—and in some cases probably pre-christian—belief." Robert Anderson writes that syncretism "is active in Iceland where Christianity, spiritism, and Icelandic elf lore have syncretized in at least

4247-552: Is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles , Saxons and Jutes . As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain : Common Brittonic , a Celtic language ; and Latin , brought to Britain by

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4384-495: Is of course perfectly clear. When one's life is conditioned by a landscape dominated by rocks twisted by volcanic action, wind and water into ferocious and alarming shapes... the imagination fastens on these natural phenomena." Ólina Thorvarðardóttir writes: "Oral tales concerning Icelandic elves and trolls no doubt served as warning fables. They prevented many children from wandering away from human habitations, taught Iceland's topographical history, and instilled fear and respect for

4521-864: Is possible to reconstruct proto-Old English as a fairly unitary language. For the most part, the differences between the attested regional dialects of Old English developed within England and southeastern Scotland, rather than on the Mainland of Europe. Although from the tenth century Old English writing from all regions tended to conform to a written standard based on Late West Saxon, in speech Old English continued to exhibit much local and regional variation, which remained in Middle English and to some extent Modern English dialects . The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian , Northumbrian , Kentish , and West Saxon . Mercian and Northumbrian are together referred to as Anglian . In terms of geography

4658-434: Is replaced by ⟨þ⟩ ). In contrast with Modern English orthography , Old English spelling was reasonably regular , with a mostly predictable correspondence between letters and phonemes . There were not usually any silent letters —in the word cniht , for example, both the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ were pronounced ( /knixt ~ kniçt/ ) unlike the ⟨k⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ in

4795-451: Is thought by Haukur Þorgeirsson to have come from the survey of folklore and early modern scholarship about elves ( álfar ) in Icelandic tradition in the introduction to Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri ('Icelandic legends and fairy tales'). It covered stories from the 17th century onwards, noting that elves are the firstborn race; that they could marry humans; and that they lack an immortal soul. The modern English word Elf derives from

4932-408: Is unthinkable. Betrothal, with the exchange of rings, lasts at least a year, and is revocable by the return of the rings, but is rarely broken. Marriage is by words exchanged by the bride and groom (including the speaking of the name of Eru Ilúvatar) and consummation; it is celebrated with a feast. Wedding rings are worn on the index fingers. The bride's mother gives the groom a jewel to wear. Elves view

5069-546: The Álftanes peninsula to the Reykjavík suburb of Garðabær , was stopped because elf supporters and environmental groups protested, stating that the road would destroy the habitat of elves and local cultural beliefs. In 2013, in Reykjavik, construction on a road was halted because a group of protesters showed up, included people who believed that the construction would “disturb the habitat of elves that live among

5206-644: The Common Speech . According to Shippey, the theme of diminishment from semi-divine Elf to diminutive Fairy resurfaces in The Lord of the Rings in the dialogue of Galadriel. "Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten." Writing in 1954, part way through proofreading The Lord of

5343-652: The Latin alphabet was introduced and adapted for the writing of Old English , replacing the earlier runic system. Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French ) words into English occurred after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and thus in the Middle English rather than the Old English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse , which came into contact with Old English via

5480-604: The Old English word ælf (with cognates in all other Germanic languages ). Numerous types of elves appear in Germanic mythology ; the West Germanic concept appears to have come to differ from the Scandinavian notion in the early Middle Ages, and the Anglo-Saxon concept diverged even further, possibly under Celtic influence. J. R. R. Tolkien made it clear in a letter that his Elves differed from those "of

5617-491: The Roman conquest . Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms : Kentish , Mercian , Northumbrian , and West Saxon . It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England

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5754-515: The Solosimpi and Tinúviel . Alongside the idea of the greater Elves, Tolkien toyed with the idea of children visiting Valinor, the island-homeland of the Elves in their sleep. Elves would also visit children at night and comfort them if they had been chided or were upset. This was abandoned in Tolkien's later writing. Douglas Anderson shows that in The Hobbit , Tolkien again includes both

5891-603: The dialect of Somerset . For details of the sound differences between the dialects, see Phonological history of Old English § Dialects . The language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers appears not to have been significantly affected by the native British Celtic languages which it largely displaced . The number of Celtic loanwords introduced into the language is very small, although dialect and toponymic terms are more often retained in western language contact zones (Cumbria, Devon, Welsh Marches and Borders and so on) than in

6028-609: The kingdom of Northumbria . Other parts of the island continued to use Celtic languages ( Gaelic – and perhaps some Pictish – in most of Scotland, Medieval Cornish all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon , Cumbric perhaps to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria , and Welsh in Wales and possibly also on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border ); except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements, where Old Norse

6165-451: The "fusion or kindling-point" of Tolkien's thinking about elves came from the Middle English lay Sir Orfeo , which transposes the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into a wild and wooded Elfland, and makes the quest successful. In Tolkien's translation the elves appear and disappear: "the king of Faerie with his rout / came hunting in the woods about / with blowing far and crying dim, and barking hounds that were with him; yet never

6302-570: The 12th century, and the association of dancing with elves can be seen as early as the 15th century. One folktale shows the elves siding with the common people and taking revenge on a sheriff who banned dance parties. Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir concludes that these legends "show that Icelanders missed dancing". In the 13th and 14th centuries, books from mainland Europe reached Iceland, and may have influenced folktales about elves. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson writes: "Round about 1600 sources for hidden folk become so voluminous that we can readily define

6439-399: The 1950s when electricity was brought to the island. "The Elf Maiden" is a Norse folklore about a young man who marries an elf woman. As their marriage progresses, the elf maiden begins to periodically, miraculously disappear from his sight. The elf maiden finally tells her husband that she will eventually disappear, permanently, and that the only way to prevent it is by hammering a nail into

6576-422: The 8th century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script , a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline ) replaced the insular. The Latin alphabet of

6713-615: The Anglo-Saxons might call a very fair woman ælfscýne , "elf-beautiful". Some aspects can readily be reconciled, Shippey writes, since "Beauty is itself dangerous". But there is more: Tolkien brought in the Old English usage of descriptions like wuduælfen "wood-elf, dryad ", wæterælfen "water-elf", and sǣælfen "sea-elf, naiad ", giving his elves strong links with wild nature. Yet another strand of legend holds that Elfland , as in Elvehøj ("Elf Hill") and other traditional stories,

6850-779: The Avari, The Unwilling . The others were called Eldar, the People of the Stars by Oromë, and they took Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë as their leaders, and became respectively the Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri (who spoke Vanyarin Quenya, Noldorin Quenya, and Telerin, respectively). On their journey, some of the Teleri feared the Misty Mountains and dared not cross them. They turned back and stayed in

6987-600: The Elves to Valinor rather than leaving them where they were first awakened, near the Cuiviénen lake in the eastern extremity of Middle-earth. They sent Oromë, who took Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë as ambassadors to Valinor. Returning to Middle-earth, Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë convinced many of the Elves to take the Great Journey (also called the Great March) to Valinor. Those who did not accept the summons became known as

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7124-456: The Elves who never went to see the light of the Two Trees of Valinor . Tolkien developed his conception of elves over the years, from his earliest writings through to The Hobbit , The Silmarillion , and The Lord of the Rings . Traditional Victorian dancing fairies and elves appear in much of Tolkien's early poetry, and have influence upon his later works, in part due to the influence of

7261-406: The English language; some of them, such as Pope Gregory I 's treatise Pastoral Care , appear to have been translated by Alfred himself. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but Alfred chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A later literary standard, dating from the late 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester , and

7398-608: The Great . From that time on, the West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as Early West Saxon) became standardised as the language of government, and as the basis for the many works of literature and religious materials produced or translated from Latin in that period. The later literary standard known as Late West Saxon (see History , above), although centred in the same region of the country, appears not to have been directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon. For example,

7535-673: The Grey Havens, where Círdan the Shipwright dwells with his folk. Eventually, any Elves that remain in Middle-earth undergo a process of "fading", in which their immortal spirits overwhelm and "consume" their bodies. This renders their bodily forms invisible to mortal eyes, except to those to whom they wish to manifest themselves. The 1977 Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit depicts the wood-elves in what Austin Gilkeson calls

7672-410: The Huldufolk are some of the children of Adam and Eve. These children were not washed and therefore Eve avoided presenting them to God. In return, God said; “That which had to be hidden from Me, shall also be hidden from man,” thus creating the “hidden people”/ Huldufolk/Elves, out of the children and their offspring. The second folktale describing the origin of Huldufolk says that when the devil raised

7809-563: The Middle English puzzle, letting Elves go not to Heaven but to the halfway house of the Halls of Mandos on Valinor. By the late 19th century, the term 'fairy' had been taken up as a utopian theme, and was used to critique social and religious values, a tradition which Tolkien and T. H. White continued. One of the last of the Victorian Fairy-paintings , The Piper of Dreams by Estella Canziani , sold 250,000 copies and

7946-410: The Northumbrian dialect retained /i(ː)o̯/ , which had merged with /e(ː)o̯/ in West Saxon. For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old English (dialects) . Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and history of Old English were the following: For more details of these processes, see the main article, linked above. For sound changes before and after

8083-880: The Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River; the Mercian lay north of the Thames and south of the Humber River; West Saxon lay south and southwest of the Thames; and the smallest, Kentish region lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner of England. The Kentish region, settled by the Jutes from Jutland, has the scantest literary remains. The term West Saxon actually is represented by two different dialects: Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon. Hogg has suggested that these two dialects would be more appropriately named Alfredian Saxon and Æthelwoldian Saxon, respectively, so that

8220-654: The Númenóreans, were killed. During the Second and Third Ages , they held some protected realms with the aid of the Three Rings of Power : Lothlorien, ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn; Rivendell , ruled by Elrond and home to the Elf-lord Glorfindel; and the Grey Havens, ruled by Círdan the shipwright. Círdan and his Elves built the ships on which Elves departed for Valinor. After the destruction of

8357-467: The Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order , and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language. The eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours produced

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8494-478: The Old English period, see Phonological history of English . Nouns decline for five cases : nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental ; three genders : masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers : singular, and plural; and are strong or weak. The instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter singular and often replaced by the dative . Only pronouns and strong adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There

8631-684: The One Ring , the power of the Three Rings of the Elves ended and the Fourth Age , the Age of Men, began. Most Elves left for Valinor; those that remained in Middle-earth were doomed to a slow decline until, in the words of Galadriel , they faded and became a "rustic folk of dell and cave". The fading played out over thousands of years, until in the modern world, occasional glimpses of rustic Elves would fuel folktales and fantasies. Elladan and Elrohir,

8768-505: The Rings , Tolkien claimed that the Elvish language Sindarin had a character very like British-Welsh "because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers". In the same letter, Tolkien goes on to say that the elves had very little in common with elves or fairies of Europe, and that they really represent men with greater artistic ability, beauty and a longer life span. In his writings, an Elven bloodline

8905-465: The Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th   century, and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the early 11th   century. Many place names in eastern and northern England are of Scandinavian origin. Norse borrowings are relatively rare in Old English literature, being mostly terms relating to government and administration. The literary standard, however,

9042-851: The Shire "moving slowly and gracefully towards the West, accompanied by ethereal music" with John Duncan 's 1911 painting The Riders of the Sidhe . She notes that Jackson's conceptual designer, the illustrator Alan Lee , had made use of the painting in the 1978 book Faeries . Tolkien-style Elves have influenced the depiction of elves in the fantasy genre from the 1960s and afterwards. Elves speaking an elvish language similar to those in Tolkien's novels became staple non-human characters in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons . They are often portrayed as being mentally sharp and lovers of nature, art, and song, as well as wiser and more beautiful than humans. They usually fit

9179-782: The Silmarils back, and led a large army of the Noldor to Beleriand. In Beleriand, Elwë was eventually found, and married Melian the Maia . He became the overlord of Beleriand, naming himself Thingol (Sindarin: Grey-cloak ). After the First Battle of Beleriand , during the first rising of the Moon, the Noldor arrived in Beleriand. They laid a siege around Morgoth's fortress of Angband , but were eventually defeated. The Elves never regained

9316-525: The Teleri took his brother Olwë as their leader and were ferried to Valinor. Some Teleri stayed behind though, still looking for Elwë, and others stayed on the shores, being called by Ossë. They took Círdan as their leader and became the Falathrim . The Teleri who stayed in Beleriand later became known as the Sindar. Matthew Dickerson notes the "very complicated changes, with shifting meanings assigned to

9453-417: The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey 's suggestion that the "real root" of The Silmarillion lay in the linguistic relationship, complete with sound-changes and differences of semantics, between these two languages of the divided elves. Shippey writes, too, that the elves are separated not by colour, despite names like light and dark, but by history, including their migrations. In Valinor, Fëanor, son of Finwë, and

9590-426: The Valar tried to summon the Elves back to Valinor. Many complied, but some stayed. During the Second Age they founded the Realms of Lindon (all that was left of Beleriand after the cataclysm), Eregion , and Rhovanion (Mirkwood). Sauron , Morgoth's former servant, made war upon them, but with the aid of the Númenóreans they defeated him, though both the king of the Noldorin Elves, Gil-galad, and Elendil, king of

9727-553: The Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns , modals , comparatives , pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings because, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English

9864-526: The arts. Elves, particularly the Noldor, spend their time on smithwork, sculpture, music and other arts, and on preparing food. Males and females are equal, but females often specialize in the arts of healing while the males go to war. This is because they believe that taking life interferes with the ability to preserve life. However, females can defend themselves at need as well as males, and many males such as Elrond are skilled healers. Elves are skilful horse-riders, riding without saddle or bridle, though Tolkien

10001-522: The atmosphere of German, Scandinavian, and Celtic tales, and many characteristics of the huldu-fólk , the daoine-sithe , and the tylwyth-teg ." Tolkien, a philologist , knew of the many seemingly contradictory traditions about elves. The Old English Beowulf -poet spoke of the strange eotenas ond ylfe ond orcn éas , " ettens [giants] and elves and demon-corpses", a grouping which Shippey calls "a very stern view of all non-human and un-Christian species". The Middle English Sir Gawain meets

10138-506: The basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language , and developed out of Ingvaeonic (also known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England . This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland , which for several centuries belonged to

10275-628: The bay of Cuiviénen during the Years of the Trees . This event marked the beginning of the First Age . They awoke under the starlit sky, as the Sun and Moon had yet to be created. The first Elves to awaken were three pairs: Imin ("First") and his wife Iminyë, Tata ("Second") and Tatië, and Enel ("Third") and Enelyë. They walked through the forests, finding other pairs of Elves, who became their folk. They lived by

10412-559: The beginnings of the compound tenses of Modern English . Old English verbs include strong verbs , which form the past tense by altering the root vowel, and weak verbs , which use a suffix such as -de . As in Modern English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated

10549-487: The beliefs and legends about them, and after that there is one source after another about them right down into the twentieth century." According to Árni Björnsson, belief in hidden people grew during the 17th and 18th centuries when Iceland was facing tough times. There are four Icelandic holidays considered to have a special connection with hidden people: New Year's Eve, Thirteenth Night (January 6), Midsummer Night and Christmas night. Elf bonfires ( álfabrennur ) are

10686-410: The beliefs are simplified and exaggerated for the entertainment of children and tourists, and that it is a somewhat misrepresentative yet harmless trick used by the tourism industry to entice visitors. The stories of elves may have been fun tales rather than beliefs. The Icelandic Elf School in Reykjavík organizes five-hour-long educational excursions for visitors. Hafnarfjörður offers

10823-531: The better known lore" of Scandinavian mythology . The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that one Middle English source which he presumes Tolkien must have read, the South English Legendary from c. 1250, describes elves much as Tolkien does: Some of Tolkien's Elves are in the "undying lands" of Valinor , home of the godlike Valar , while others are in Middle-earth. The Elf-queen Galadriel indeed has been expelled from Valinor, much like

10960-433: The borrowing of individual Latin words based on which patterns of sound change they have undergone. Some Latin words had already been borrowed into the Germanic languages before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian missionaries that

11097-499: The cluster ending in the palatal affricate is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ (or ⟨nġċ⟩ ) by modern editors. Between vowels in the middle of a word, the pronunciation can be either a palatalized geminate /ʃː/ , as in fisċere /ˈfiʃ.ʃe.re/ ('fisherman') and wȳsċan , /ˈwyːʃ.ʃɑn 'to wish'), or an unpalatalized consonant sequence /sk/ , as in āscian /ˈɑːs.ki.ɑn/ ('to ask'). The pronunciation /sk/ occurs when ⟨sc⟩ had been followed by

11234-461: The coast, or else it may derive from a related word *angô which could refer to curve or hook shapes including fishing hooks. Concerning the second option, it has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name either because they lived on a curved promontory of land shaped like a fishhook , or else because they were fishermen (anglers). Old English was not static, and its usage covered

11371-421: The dative case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. Remnants of the Old English case system in Modern English are in the forms of a few pronouns (such as I/me/mine , she/her , who/whom/whose ) and in the possessive ending -'s , which derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending -es . The modern English plural ending -(e)s derives from the Old English -as , but

11508-502: The differences in role and status between sisters, and "inculcated in young girls the... stoic adage never to despair, which was a psychological preparedness many would need as they found themselves reduced in status and denied the proper outlet for their sexuality in marriage, thereby sometimes having to rely on infanticide to take care of the unsolicited and insupportable effects of their occasional amours, an element... related in huldufólk stories." Anna Pietrzkiewicz contends that

11645-431: The east. However, various suggestions have been made concerning possible influence that Celtic may have had on developments in English syntax in the post–Old English period, such as the regular progressive construction and analytic word order , as well as the eventual development of the periphrastic auxiliary verb do . These ideas have generally not received widespread support from linguists, particularly as many of

11782-576: The eldest of the elves and his clan, is similar to the name of the god Ingwi-Freyr in Norse mythology, a god who is gifted the elf-world Álfheimr . Terry Gunnell finds the relationship between beautiful ships and the Elves reminiscent of the god Njörðr and the god Freyr's ship Skíðblaðnir . He also retains the usage of the French derived term "fairy" for the same creatures. The larger Elves are inspired by Tolkien's personal Catholic theology , representing

11919-638: The existence of hidden people. Several modern surveys have been made showing a surprising number of believers. Around 7–8% claim to be certain that elves exist, and around 45% claim it is likely or possible. These surveys have been criticized as being misrepresentative, as journalists have claimed that they show that a majority of Icelanders believe in elves, despite belief not being that serious. Folklore professor Terry Gunnell has said: "Very few will say immediately that they 'believe' in such, but they won't deny it either." Different ways of asking could elicit very different responses. Árni Björnsson claims

12056-524: The fallen Melkor , though she is clearly good, and much like an angel. Similarly, some of the Legendary ' s Eluene are on Earth, others in the " Earthly Paradise ". So, did they have souls, Shippey asks? Since they could not leave the world, the answer was no; but given that they didn't disappear completely on death, the answer had to have been yes. In Shippey's view, the Silmarillion resolved

12193-645: The former diphthong /iy/ tended to become monophthongised to /i/ in EWS, but to /y/ in LWS. Due to the centralisation of power and the destruction wrought by Viking invasions, there is relatively little written record of the non-West Saxon dialects after Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be written, however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some of the translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of which were produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly continued to be spoken, as

12330-531: The futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs , representing a single sound. Also used was the Tironian note ⟨⁊⟩ (a character similar to the digit 7) for the conjunction and . A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke ⟨ꝥ⟩ , which was used for the pronoun þæt ( that ). Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for

12467-674: The golden house of Finarfin." The Vanyar were called "The Fair" for their golden hair. Maeglin is said to have been "tall and black-haired" and "his skin was white." Túrin, a Man, was called Elf-man due to his appearance and speech, and described as "dark-haired and pale-skinned, with grey eyes." Elves, at least the Eldar, have a pregnancy that lasts about a year. By the age of 1, Elves can speak, walk and dance. Puberty and full height are attained at around their fiftieth to one hundredth year, when they stop aging physically. Elves marry freely, monogamously, only once, and for love early in life; adultery

12604-630: The greatest of the Elves, created the Silmarils in which he stored a part of the light of the Two Trees that were lighting Valinor. After three ages in the Halls of Mandos, Melkor was released, feigning reform. He however spread his evil and started to poison the minds of the Elves against the Valar. Eventually he killed Finwë and stole the Silmarils. Fëanor then named him Morgoth (Sindarin: The Black Enemy ). Fëanor and his seven sons then swore to take

12741-400: The harsh powers of nature." Michael Strmiska writes: "The Huldufólk are... not so much super natural as ultra natural, representing not an overcoming of nature in the hope of a better deal beyond but a deep reverence for the land and the mysterious powers able to cause fertility or famine." Pálsdóttir claims that in a landscape filled with earthquakes, avalanches, and volcanoes, "it

12878-419: The hidden people symbolize idealized Icelandic identity and society, the key elements of which are seeing the "past as a source of pride and nature as unique and pure." Hidden people often appear in the dreams of Icelanders. They are usually described as wearing 19th-century Icelandic clothing, and are often described as wearing green. In one version of modern Faroese folklore, the hidden people vanished in

13015-946: The hidden people. The term huldufólk was taken as a synonym of álfar (elves) in 19th-century Icelandic folklore. Jón Árnason found that the terms are synonymous, except álfar is a pejorative term. Konrad von Maurer contends that huldufólk originates as a euphemism to avoid calling the álfar by their real name. There is, however, some evidence that the two terms have come to be taken as referring to two distinct sets of supernatural beings in contemporary Iceland. Katrin Sontag found that some people do not differentiate elves from hidden people, while others do. A 2006 survey found that "54% of respondents did not distinguish between elves and hidden people, 20% did and 26% said they were not sure." Terry Gunnell writes: "different beliefs could have lived side by side in multicultural settlement Iceland before they gradually blended into

13152-603: The inscriptions on the Franks Casket ) date to the early 8th century. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 8th century. With the unification of several of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (outside the Danelaw ) by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect (Early West Saxon). Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, and had many works translated into

13289-449: The latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other instances. Old English nouns had grammatical gender , while modern English has only natural gender. Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of ƿīf , a neuter noun referring to a female person. In Old English's verbal compound constructions are

13426-527: The latter-day Icelandic álfar and huldufólk ." He also writes: " Huldufólk and álfar undoubtedly arose from the same need. The Norse settlers had the álfar , the Irish slaves had the hill fairies or the Good People. Over time, they became two different beings, but really they are two different sets of folklore that mean the same thing." Precursors to elves/hidden people can be found in

13563-428: The mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman (a type of French ) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what

13700-456: The modern knight ( /naɪt/ ). The following table lists the Old English letters and digraphs together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as in the Phonology section above. After /n/ , /j/ was realized as [dʒ] and /ɣ/ was realized as [ɡ] . The spellings ⟨ncg⟩ , ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of

13837-607: The more one sees "how easy it was for him to feel that a consistency and a sense lay beneath the chaotic ruin of the old poetry of the North". Tolkien's Sundering of the Elves allowed him to explain the existence of Norse mythology 's Light Elves, who live in Alfheim ("Elfhome") and correspond to his Calaquendi, and Dark Elves, who live underground in Svartalfheim ("Black Elfhome") and whom he "rehabilitates" as his Moriquendi,

13974-427: The more serious 'medieval' type of elves, such as Elrond and the wood-elf king, Thranduil , and frivolous elves, such as the elvish guards at Rivendell . In 1937, having had his manuscript for The Silmarillion rejected by a publisher who disparaged all the "eye-splitting Celtic names" that Tolkien had given his Elves, Tolkien denied the names had a Celtic origin: Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are

14111-729: The most complete of Tolkien's constructed languages. Elves are also credited with creating the Tengwar (by Fëanor) and Cirth (Daeron) scripts. Elves are immortal, and remain unwearied with age . They can recover from wounds which would be fatal to a Man, but can be killed in battle. Spirits of dead Elves go to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor. After a certain period of time and rest that serves as "cleansing", their spirits are clothed in bodies identical to their old ones. If they do not die in battle or accident, Elves eventually grow weary of Middle-earth and desire to go to Valinor; they often sail from

14248-505: The naive reader would not assume that they are chronologically related. Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the islands. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne , and most of Mercia , were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia that was successfully defended, and all of Kent , were then integrated into Wessex under Alfred

14385-512: The past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked . Old English syntax is similar to that of modern English . Some differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection, allowing freer word order . Old English was first written in runes , using the futhorc —a rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark , extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around

14522-499: The richest and most significant bodies of literature preserved among the early Germanic peoples. In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader , Dr. James Hulbert writes: Hulduf%C3%B3lk Huldufólk or hidden people are elves in Icelandic and Faroese folklore . They are supernatural beings that live in nature. They look and behave similarly to humans, but live in

14659-548: The rivers, and invented poetry and music in Middle-earth . Journeying further, they came across tall and dark-haired elves, the fathers of most of the Noldor. They invented many new words. Continuing their journey, they found elves singing without language, the ancestors of most of the Teleri. The elves were discovered by the Vala Oromë , who brought the news of their awakening to Valinor. The Valar decided to summon

14796-411: The rocks.” In her book, Icelandic Folktales and Legends , Jacqueline Simpson says that Elves, “can do both good and evil, and both in the highest degree.” In Snorri Sturluson’s The Prose Edda , the story of “The Beluiling of Gylfi,” Elves are described as being either Dark or Light, both in manner and appearance: “That which is called Alfheimer is one, where dwell the peoples called Light Elves; but

14933-415: The same names" as Tolkien worked on his conception of the elves and their divisions and migrations. He states that the sundering of the elves allowed Tolkien, a professional philologist , to develop two languages, distinct but related, Quenya for the Eldar and Sindarin for the Sindar, citing Tolkien's own statement that the stories were made to create a world for the languages, not the reverse. Dickerson cites

15070-401: The sexual act as special and intimate, for it leads to the birth of children. Elves who are married cannot be forced by other Elves to have sex; before that they will lose the will to endure and go to Mandos . Elves have few children, and there are long intervals between each child. They are soon preoccupied with other pleasures; their libido wanes and they focus their interests elsewhere, like

15207-813: The shores of the Anduin. After Elessar's death, Legolas built a ship and sailed to Valinor and, eventually, all the elves in Ithilien followed him. In " The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen " in Appendix A, most Elves have already left, barring some in Mirkwood and a few in Lindon; the garden of Elrond in Rivendell is empty. Arwen flees to an abandoned Lothlórien, where she dies. Tolkien describes elves as "tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in

15344-623: The sons of Elrond, did not accompany their father when the White Ship bearing the Ring-bearer and the chief Noldorin leaders sailed from the Grey Havens to Valinor; they remained in Lindon. Celeborn and other elves of the Grey Havens remained for a while before leaving for Valinor. Legolas founded an elf colony in Ithilien during King Elessar 's reign; the elves there helped to rebuild Gondor , living mainly in southern Ithilien, along

15481-626: The state of Men in Eden who have not yet fallen , like humans but fairer and wiser, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, and a closer empathy with nature. Tolkien wrote of them: "They are made by man in his own image and likeness; but freed from those limitations which he feels most to press upon him. They are immortal, and their will is directly effective for the achievement of imagination and desire." In The Book of Lost Tales , Tolkien includes both more serious "medieval" elves such as Fëanor and Turgon alongside frivolous, Jacobean elves such as

15618-531: The stereotype of being skilled archers and gifted in magic . Old English Old English ( Englisċ or Ænglisc , pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ] ), or Anglo-Saxon , was the earliest recorded form of the English language , spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages . It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in

15755-421: The tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact "mad" as your reader says – but I don't believe I am. Dimitra Fimi proposes that these comments are a product of his Anglophilia rather than

15892-517: The term 'fairy', which John Garth supposes may have been due to its growing association with homosexuality , but Tolkien continued to use it. According to Marjorie Burns , Tolkien eventually but hesitantly chose the term elf over fairy . In his 1939 essay On Fairy-Stories , Tolkien wrote that "English words such as elf have long been influenced by French (from which fay and faërie , fairy are derived); but in later times, through their use in translation, fairy and elf have acquired much of

16029-409: The theorized Brittonicisms do not become widespread until the late Middle English and Early Modern English periods, in addition to the fact that similar forms exist in other modern Germanic languages. Old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin , which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for

16166-564: The time still lacked the letters ⟨j⟩ and ⟨w⟩ , and there was no ⟨v⟩ as distinct from ⟨u⟩ ; moreover native Old English spellings did not use ⟨k⟩ , ⟨q⟩ or ⟨z⟩ . The remaining 20 Latin letters were supplemented by four more: ⟨ æ ⟩ ( æsc , modern ash ) and ⟨ð⟩ ( ðæt , now called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ , which are borrowings from

16303-669: The underground enslavement of the Noldoli to Melkor, Tolkien was essentially rewriting Irish myth regarding the Tuatha Dé Danann into a Christian eschatology . In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien pretends to be merely the translator of Bilbo and Frodo 's memoirs, collectively known as the Red Book of Westmarch . He says that those names and terms that appear in English are meant to be his purported translations from

16440-608: The upper hand, finally losing the hidden kingdoms Nargothrond , Doriath , and Gondolin near the culmination of the war. When the Elves had been forced to the furthest southern reaches of Beleriand, Eärendil the Mariner , a half-elf from the House of Finwë , sailed to Valinor to ask the Valar for help. The Valar started the War of Wrath , finally defeating Morgoth. After the War of Wrath,

16577-404: The usual ⟨ng⟩ . The addition of ⟨c⟩ to ⟨g⟩ in spellings such as ⟨cynincg⟩ and ⟨cyningc⟩ for ⟨cyning⟩ may have been a means of showing that the word was pronounced with a stop rather than a fricative; spellings with just ⟨nc⟩ such as ⟨cyninc⟩ are also found. To disambiguate,

16714-606: The vales of the Anduin , and, led by Lenwë, became the Nandor, who spoke Nandorin. Oromë led the others over the Misty Mountains and Ered Lindon into Beleriand . There Elwë became lost, and the Teleri stayed behind looking for him. The Vanyar and the Noldor moved onto a floating island, Tol Eressëa, that was moved by Ulmo to Valinor. After years, Ulmo returned to Beleriand to seek out the remaining Teleri. Without Elwë, many of

16851-423: The word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost. This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar". The inventory of Early West Saxon surface phones

16988-809: The writings of Snorri Sturluson and in skaldic verse . Elves were also mentioned in Poetic Edda , and appear to be connected to fertility. The Christianization of Iceland in the 11th century brought with it new religious concepts . According to one Christian folk tale, the origins of the hidden people can be traced to Adam and Eve . Eve hid her dirty, unwashed children from God, and lied about their existence. God then declared: "What man hides from God, God will hide from man." Other Christian folktales claim that hidden people originate from Lilith , or are fallen angels condemned to live between heaven and hell. In succession of Christianization, official opposition to dancing may have begun in Iceland as early as

17125-443: Was an allophone of short /ɑ/ which occurred in stressed syllables before nasal consonants (/m/ and /n/). It was variously spelled either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩. The Anglian dialects also had the mid front rounded vowel /ø(ː)/ , spelled ⟨œ⟩, which had emerged from i-umlaut of /o(ː)/ . In West Saxon and Kentish, it had already merged with /e(ː)/ before the first written prose. Other dialects had different systems of diphthongs. For example,

17262-420: Was associated both with neolithic flint arrowheads and the temptations of the devil. Tolkien takes "elf-shot" as a hint to make his elves skilful in archery. Another danger was wæterælfádl , " water-elf disease ", perhaps meaning dropsy , while a third condition was ælfsogoða , "elf-pain", glossed by Shippey as "lunacy". All the same, an Icelandic woman could be frið sem álfkona , "fair as an elf-woman", while

17399-439: Was based on the West Saxon dialect , away from the main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly in Middle English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a strong Norse influence becomes apparent. Modern English contains many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after

17536-481: Was either /ʃ/ or possibly /ʃː/ when the preceding vowel was short. Doubled consonants are geminated ; the geminate fricatives ⟨ff⟩ , ⟨ss⟩ and ⟨ðð⟩ / ⟨þþ⟩ / ⟨ðþ⟩ / ⟨þð⟩ are always voiceless [ff] , [ss] , [θθ] . The corpus of Old English literature is small but still significant, with some 400 surviving manuscripts. The pagan and Christian streams mingle in Old English, one of

17673-616: Was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham ("the Grammarian"). This form of the language is known as the " Winchester standard", or more commonly as Late West Saxon. It is considered to represent the "classical" form of Old English. It retained its position of prestige until the time of the Norman Conquest, after which English ceased for a time to be of importance as a literary language. The history of Old English can be subdivided into: The Old English period

17810-400: Was inconsistent on this point. Tolkien created many languages for his Elves . His interest was primarily philological , and he said his stories grew out of his languages. Indeed, the languages were the first thing Tolkien ever created for his mythos, starting with what he originally called "Elfin" or "Qenya" [sic]. This was later spelled Quenya (High-elven); it and Sindarin (Grey-elven) are

17947-562: Was made between long and short vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark was used for consistency with Old Norse conventions.) Additionally, modern editions often distinguish between velar and palatal ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ by placing dots above the palatals: ⟨ċ⟩ , ⟨ġ⟩ . The letter wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ is usually replaced with ⟨w⟩ , but ⟨æ⟩ , ⟨ð⟩ and ⟨þ⟩ are normally retained (except when ⟨ð⟩

18084-793: Was often impeded by elves. In 1982, 150 Icelanders went to the NATO base in Keflavík to look for "elves who might be endangered by American Phantom jets and AWACS reconnaissance planes." In 2004, Alcoa had to have a government expert certify that their chosen building site was free of archaeological sites, including ones related to huldufólk folklore, before they could build an aluminium smelter in Iceland. In 2011, elves/ huldufólk were believed by some to be responsible for an incident in Bolungarvík where rocks rained down on residential streets. In 2013, proposed road construction from

18221-411: Was spoken and Danish law applied. Old English literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century. The oldest surviving work of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn , which was composed between 658 and 680 but not written down until the early 8th century. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts (notably

18358-603: Was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages , and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order

18495-425: Was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins, and with some words in common, speakers roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of

18632-518: Was the only real claim to 'nobility' that the Men of Middle-earth could have. Tolkien wrote that the elves are primarily to blame for many of the ills of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings , having independently created the Three Rings to stop their domains in mortal-lands from ' fading ' and attempting to prevent inevitable change and new growth. The first Elves were awakened by Eru Ilúvatar near

18769-500: Was well known within the trenches of World War I where Tolkien saw active service. Illustrated posters of Robert Louis Stevenson 's poem Land of Nod had been sent out by a philanthropist to brighten servicemen's quarters, and Faery was used in other contexts as an image of " Old England " to inspire patriotism. By 1915, when Tolkien was writing his first elven poems, the words elf , fairy and gnome had many divergent and contradictory associations. Tolkien had been gently warned against

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