Pontic Steppe
93-934: Wood elf is a generic term for an elf that lives in wooded areas such as forests. Wood Elf may refer to: Elf An elf ( pl. : elves ) is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic folklore . Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology , being mentioned in the Icelandic Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda . In medieval Germanic -speaking cultures, elves were thought of as beings with magical powers and supernatural beauty, ambivalent towards everyday people and capable of either helping or hindering them. Beliefs varied considerably over time and space and flourished in both pre-Christian and Christian cultures . The word elf
186-457: A cause of illnesses remained prominent in early modern Scotland, where elves were viewed as supernaturally powerful people who lived invisibly alongside everyday rural people. Thus, elves were often mentioned in the early modern Scottish witchcraft trials: many witnesses in the trials believed themselves to have been given healing powers or to know of people or animals made sick by elves. Throughout these sources, elves are sometimes associated with
279-454: A circle where they had danced, 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. In the words of the local historian Anne Marie Hellström: ... on lake shores, where the forest met the lake, you could find elf circles. They were round places where
372-667: A common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic Bronze Age . The Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia (Denmark, south Sweden and southern Norway) and the northern-most part of Germany in Schleswig Holstein and northern Lower Saxony, the Urheimat (original home) of the Germanic tribes. It is possible that Indo-European speakers first arrived in southern Scandinavia with
465-524: A couple of verse spells, including the Bergen rune-charm from among the Bryggen inscriptions . The appearance of elves in sagas is closely defined by genre. The Sagas of Icelanders , Bishops' sagas , and contemporary sagas , whose portrayal of the supernatural is generally restrained, rarely mention álfar , and then only in passing. But although limited, these texts provide some of the best evidence for
558-432: A dialect of Proto-Indo-European that had lost its laryngeals and had five long and six short vowels as well as one or two overlong vowels. The consonant system was still that of PIE minus palatovelars and laryngeals, but the loss of syllabic resonants already made the language markedly different from PIE proper. Mutual intelligibility might have still existed with other descendants of PIE, but it would have been strained, and
651-415: A few witchcraft trials, people attested that these arrow-heads were used in healing rituals, and occasionally alleged that witches (and perhaps elves) used them to injure people and cattle. A 1749–50 ode by William Collins includes the lines: 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,
744-642: A first element. These names may have been influenced by Celtic names beginning in Albio- such as Albiorix . Personal names provide the only evidence for elf in Gothic , which must have had the word * albs (plural * albeis ). The most famous name of this kind is Alboin . Old English names in elf - include the cognate of Alboin Ælfwine (literally "elf-friend", m.), Ælfric ("elf-powerful", m.), Ælfweard ("elf-guardian", m.), and Ælfwaru ("elf-care", f.). A widespread survivor of these in modern English
837-661: A key development of this idea. In the eighteenth century, German Romantic writers were influenced by this notion of the elf, and re-imported the English word elf into the German language. From the Romantic notion came the elves of modern popular culture. Christmas elves are a relatively recent creation, popularized during the late 19th century in the United States. Elves entered the twentieth-century high fantasy genre in
930-475: A larger scope of linguistic developments, spanning the Nordic Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe (second to first millennia BC) to include "Pre-Germanic" (PreGmc), "Early Proto-Germanic" (EPGmc) and "Late Proto-Germanic" (LPGmc). While Proto-Germanic refers only to the reconstruction of the most recent common ancestor of Germanic languages, the Germanic parent language refers to
1023-555: A late stage. The early stage includes the stress fixation and resulting "spontaneous vowel-shifts" while the late stage is defined by ten complex rules governing changes of both vowels and consonants. By 250 BC Proto-Germanic had branched into five groups of Germanic: two each in the West and the North and one in the East. The following changes are known or presumed to have occurred in
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#17327768214881116-582: A major role in transmitting traditional ideas about elves in post-medieval cultures. Indeed, some of the early modern ballads are still quite widely known, whether through school syllabuses or contemporary folk music. They, therefore, give people an unusual degree of access to ideas of elves from older traditional culture. The ballads are characterised by sexual encounters between everyday people and humanlike 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
1209-613: A misunderstanding: the image proves to be a conventional illustration of God's arrows and Christian demons. Rather, twenty-first century scholarship suggests that Anglo-Saxon elves, like elves in Scandinavia or the Irish Aos Sí , were regarded as people. Like words for gods and men, the word elf is used in personal names where words for monsters and demons are not. Just as álfar is associated with Æsir in Old Norse,
1302-471: A threat to the everyday community by lure people into the elves' world. The most famous 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 to live among the elves; in some versions he refuses, and in some he accepts, but in either case he dies, tragically. As in Elveskud , sometimes
1395-456: A threatening, even demonic, force. For example, some prayers invoke God's help against nocturnal attacks by Alpe . Correspondingly, in the early modern period, elves are described in north Germany doing the evil bidding of witches; Martin Luther believed his mother to have been afflicted in this way. As in Old Norse, however, there are few characters identified as elves. It seems likely that in
1488-402: Is Alfred (Old English Ælfrēd , "elf-advice"). Also surviving are the English surname Elgar ( Ælfgar , "elf-spear"), and the name of St Alphege ( Ælfhēah , "elf-tall"). German examples are Alberich , Alphart and Alphere (father of Walter of Aquitaine ) and Icelandic examples include Álfhildur . These names suggest that elves were positively regarded in early Germanic culture. Of
1581-547: Is also evidence associating elves with illness, specifically epilepsy. In a similar vein, elves are in Middle High German most often associated with deceiving 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 are/is deceiving me"). The same pattern holds in Early Modern German. This deception sometimes shows
1674-643: Is also to be found in the Prose Edda . The Old High German word alp is attested only in a small number of glosses. It is defined by the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch as a "nature-god or nature-demon, equated with the Fauns of Classical mythology ... regarded as eerie, ferocious beings ... As the mare he messes around with women". Accordingly, the German word Alpdruck (literally "elf-oppression") means "nightmare". There
1767-790: Is difficult to be sure how many of other words, including personal names, can appear similar to elf , because of confounding elements such as al- (from eald ) meaning "old". The clearest appearances of elves in English examples are Elveden ("elves' hill", Suffolk) and Elvendon ("elves' valley", Oxfordshire); other examples may be Eldon Hill ("Elves' hill", Derbyshire); and Alden Valley ("elves' valley", Lancashire). These associate elves fairly consistently with woods and valleys. The earliest surviving manuscripts mentioning elves in any Germanic language are from Anglo-Saxon England . Medieval English evidence has, therefore, attracted quite extensive research and debate. In Old English, elves are most often mentioned in medical texts which attest to
1860-459: Is found throughout the Germanic languages . It seems originally to have meant 'white being'. However, reconstructing the early concept depends largely on texts written by Christians, in Old and Middle English , medieval German, and Old Norse . These associate elves variously with the gods of Norse mythology , with causing illness, with magic, and with beauty and seduction. After the medieval period,
1953-807: Is largely a matter of convention. The first coherent text recorded in a Germanic language is the Gothic Bible , written in the later fourth century in the East Germanic variety of the Thervingi Gothic Christians , who had escaped persecution by moving from Scythia to Moesia in 348. Early West Germanic text is available from the fifth century, beginning with the Frankish Bergakker runic inscription . The evolution of Proto-Germanic from its ancestral forms, beginning with its ancestor Proto-Indo-European , began with
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#17327768214882046-412: Is not necessarily the case, however. For example, because the cognates suggest matt white rather than shining white, and because in medieval Scandinavian texts whiteness is associated with beauty, Alaric Hall has suggested that elves may have been called 'the white people' because whiteness was associated with (specifically feminine) beauty. A completely different etymology, making elf a cognate with
2139-432: Is now southern Sweden. 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 humanlike and existing in opposition to the giants . Many commentators have also (or instead) argued for conceptual overlap between elves and dwarves in Old Norse mythology, which may fit with trends in the medieval German evidence. There are hints that
2232-403: Is often thought to be derived from it. These all come from a Proto-Indo-European root *h₂elbʰ- , and seem to be connected by the idea of whiteness. The Germanic word presumably originally meant 'white one', perhaps as a euphemism. Jakob Grimm thought whiteness implied positive moral connotations, and, noting Snorri Sturluson's ljósálfar , suggested that elves were divinities of light. This
2325-470: Is ongoing. The noun elf-shot is first attested in a Scots poem, "Rowlis Cursing," from around 1500, where "elf schot" is listed among a range of curses to be inflicted on some chicken thieves. The term may not always have denoted an actual projectile: shot could mean "a sharp pain". But in early modern Scotland, elf-schot and other terms like elf-arrowhead are sometimes used of neolithic arrow-heads , apparently thought to have been made by elves. In
2418-536: Is still relatively common. Even when Icelanders do not explicitly express their belief, they are often reluctant to express disbelief. A 2006 and 2007 study by the University of Iceland's Faculty of Social Sciences revealed that many would not rule out the existence of elves and ghosts, a result similar to a 1974 survey by Erlendur Haraldsson . The lead researcher of the 2006–2007 study, Terry Gunnell , stated: "Icelanders seem much more open to phenomena like dreaming
2511-413: Is termed Pre-Proto-Germanic . Whether it is to be included under a wider meaning of Proto-Germanic is a matter of usage. Winfred P. Lehmann regarded Jacob Grimm 's "First Germanic Sound Shift", or Grimm's law, and Verner's law , (which pertained mainly to consonants and were considered for many decades to have generated Proto-Germanic) as pre-Proto-Germanic and held that the "upper boundary" (that is,
2604-640: Is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages . Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branches during the fifth century BC to fifth century AD: West Germanic , East Germanic and North Germanic . The latter of these remained in contact with the others over a considerable time, especially with the Ingvaeonic languages (including English ), which arose from West Germanic dialects, and had remained in contact with
2697-564: Is the question of what specific tree, in the tree model of language evolution, best explains the paths of descent of all the members of a language family from a common language, or proto-language (at the root of the tree) to the attested languages (at the leaves of the tree). The Germanic languages form a tree with Proto-Germanic at its root that is a branch of the Indo-European tree, which in turn has Proto-Indo-European at its root. Borrowing of lexical items from contact languages makes
2790-586: Is to say, the supernaturals protect and enforce religious values and traditional rural culture. The elves fend off, with more or less success, the attacks, and advances of modern technology, palpable in the bulldozer." Elves are also prominent, in similar roles, in contemporary Icelandic literature. Folk stories told in the nineteenth century about elves are still told in modern Denmark and Sweden. Still, they now feature ethnic minorities in place of elves in essentially racist discourse. In an ethnically fairly homogeneous medieval countryside, supernatural beings provided
2883-548: Is typical not of Germanic but Celtic languages. Another is * walhaz 'foreigner; Celt' from the Celtic tribal name Volcae with k → h and o → a . Other likely Celtic loans include * ambahtaz 'servant', * brunjǭ 'mailshirt', * gīslaz 'hostage', * īsarną 'iron', * lēkijaz 'healer', * laudą 'lead', * Rīnaz 'Rhine', and * tūnaz, tūną 'fortified enclosure'. These loans would likely have been borrowed during
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2976-495: The Ṛbhus , semi-divine craftsmen in Indian mythology, was suggested by Adalbert Kuhn in 1855. In this case, * ɑlβi-z would connote the meaning 'skilful, inventive, clever', and could be a cognate with Latin labor , in the sense of 'creative work'. While often mentioned, this etymology is not widely accepted. Throughout the medieval Germanic languages, elf was one of the nouns used in personal names , almost invariably as
3069-571: The British Isles and Scandinavia, originating in the medieval period, describe elves attempting to seduce or abduct human characters. With modern urbanisation and industrialisation, belief in elves declined rapidly, though Iceland has some claim to continued popular belief. Elves started to be prominent in the literature and art of educated elites from the early modern period onwards. These literary elves were imagined as tiny, playful beings, with William Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night's Dream
3162-677: The Corded Ware culture in the mid-3rd millennium BC, developing into the Nordic Bronze Age cultures by the early second millennium BC. According to Mallory, Germanicists "generally agree" that the Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was primarily situated in an area corresponding to the extent of the Jastorf culture . Early Germanic expansion in
3255-466: The Elder Edda . The only character explicitly identified as an elf in classical Eddaic poetry, if any, is Völundr , the protagonist of Völundarkviða . However, elves are frequently mentioned in the alliterating phrase Æsir ok Álfar ('Æsir and elves') and its variants. This was a well-established poetic formula , indicating a strong tradition of associating elves with the group of gods known as
3348-503: The Funnelbeaker culture , but the sound change in the Germanic languages known as Grimm's law points to a non-substratic development away from other branches of Indo-European. Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after c. 500 BC, and Proto-Norse , from the second century AD and later, is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo-European suggest
3441-709: The Late Middle Ages , the word elf began to be used in English as a term loosely synonymous with the French loan-word fairy ; in elite art and literature, at least, it also became associated with diminutive supernatural beings like Puck , hobgoblins , Robin Goodfellow, the English and Scots brownie , and the Northumbrian English hob . However, in Scotland and parts of northern England near
3534-637: The Norse . A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law , a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of the Migration Period in the fourth century AD. The alternative term " Germanic parent language " may be used to include
3627-724: The Other through which everyday people created their identities; in cosmopolitan industrial contexts, ethnic minorities or immigrants are used in storytelling to similar effect. Proto-Germanic language Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc ; also called Common Germanic )
3720-681: The Pre-Roman Iron Age (fifth to first centuries BC) placed Proto-Germanic speakers in contact with the Continental Celtic La Tène horizon . A number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic have been identified. By the first century AD, Germanic expansion reached the Danube and the Upper Rhine in the south and the Germanic peoples first entered the historical record . At about the same time, extending east of
3813-621: The Vistula ( Oksywie culture , Przeworsk culture ), Germanic speakers came into contact with early Slavic cultures, as reflected in early Germanic loans in Proto-Slavic . By the third century, Late Proto-Germanic speakers had expanded over significant distance, from the Rhine to the Dniepr spanning about 1,200 km (700 mi). The period marks the breakup of Late Proto-Germanic and
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3906-515: The chivalric sagas tend even to be whimsical. In his Rerum Danicarum fragmenta (1596) written mostly in Latin with some Old Danish and Old Icelandic passages, Arngrímur Jónsson explains the Scandinavian and Icelandic belief in elves (called Allffuafolch ). Both Continental Scandinavia and Iceland have a scattering of mentions of elves in medical texts, sometimes in Latin and sometimes in
3999-632: The subterraneans . Elves have a prominent place in several closely related ballads, which must have originated in the Middle Ages but are first attested in the early modern period. Many of these ballads are first attested in Karen Brahes Folio , a Danish manuscript from the 1570s, but they circulated widely in Scandinavia and northern Britain. They sometimes mention elves because they were learned by heart, even though that term had become archaic in everyday usage. They have therefore played
4092-552: The succubus -like supernatural being called the mare . While they may have been thought to cause diseases with magical weapons, elves are more clearly associated in Old English with a kind of magic denoted by Old English sīden and sīdsa , a cognate with the Old Norse seiðr , and paralleled in the Old Irish Serglige Con Culainn . By the fourteenth century, they were also associated with
4185-625: The svartálfar create new blond hair for Thor's wife Sif after Loki had shorn off Sif's long hair. However, these terms are attested only in the Prose Edda and texts based on it. It is now agreed that they reflect traditions of dwarves , demons , and angels , partly showing Snorri's "paganisation" of a Christian cosmology learned from the Elucidarius , a popular digest of Christian thought. Scholars of Old Norse mythology now focus on references to elves in Old Norse poetry, particularly
4278-537: The Æsir , or even suggesting that the elves and Æsir were one and the same. The pairing is paralleled in the Old English poem Wið færstice and in the Germanic personal name system; moreover, in Skaldic verse the word elf is used in the same way as words for gods. Sigvatr Þórðarson 's skaldic travelogue Austrfaravísur , composed around 1020, mentions an álfablót ('elves' sacrifice') in Edskogen in what
4371-484: The "lower boundary" was the dropping of final -a or -e in unstressed syllables; for example, post-PIE * wóyd-e > Gothic wait , 'knows'. Elmer H. Antonsen agreed with Lehmann about the upper boundary but later found runic evidence that the -a was not dropped: ékwakraz … wraita , 'I, Wakraz, … wrote (this)'. He says: "We must therefore search for a new lower boundary for Proto-Germanic." Antonsen's own scheme divides Proto-Germanic into an early stage and
4464-556: The 2nd century CE, as well as the non-runic Negau helmet inscription, dated to the 2nd century BCE), and in Roman Empire -era transcriptions of individual words (notably in Tacitus ' Germania , c. AD 90 ). Proto-Germanic developed out of pre-Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe. According to the Germanic substrate hypothesis , it may have been influenced by non-Indo-European cultures, such as
4557-545: 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 might return home once the child is weaned. In folk stories, Scandinavian elves often play the role of disease spirits. The most common, though the also most harmless case
4650-474: The German-speaking world, elves were to a significant extent conflated with dwarves ( Middle High German : getwerc ). Thus, some dwarves that appear in German heroic poetry have been seen as relating to elves. In particular, nineteenth-century scholars tended to think that the dwarf Alberich, whose name etymologically means "elf-powerful," was influenced by early traditions of elves. From around
4743-429: The Germanic subfamily exhibited a less treelike behaviour, as some of its characteristics were acquired from neighbours early in its evolution rather than from its direct ancestors. The internal diversification of West Germanic developed in an especially non-treelike manner. Proto-Germanic is generally agreed to have begun about 500 BC. Its hypothetical ancestor between the end of Proto-Indo-European and 500 BC
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#17327768214884836-616: The Old English Wið færstice associates elves with ēse ; whatever this word meant by the tenth century, etymologically it denoted pagan gods. In Old English, the plural ylfe (attested in Beowulf ) is grammatically an ethnonym (a word for an ethnic group), suggesting that elves were seen as people. As well as appearing in medical texts, the Old English word ælf and its feminine derivative ælbinne were used in glosses to translate Latin words for nymphs . This fits well with
4929-444: The Old Norse word álfr . The following table summarises the situation in the main modern standard languages of Scandinavia. The elves of Norse mythology have survived into folklore mainly as females, living in hills and mounds of stones. The Swedish älvor were stunningly beautiful girls who lived in the forest with an elven king. The elves could be seen dancing over meadows, particularly at night and on misty mornings. They left
5022-632: The Rhymer , where a man meets a female elf; Tam Lin , The Elfin Knight , and Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight , in which an Elf-Knight rapes, seduces, or abducts a woman; and 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 might return home once the child is weaned. In Scandinavian folklore , many humanlike supernatural beings are attested, which might be thought of as elves and partly originate in medieval Scandinavian beliefs. However,
5115-458: The Scottish border, beliefs in elves remained prominent into the nineteenth century. James VI of Scotland and Robert Kirk discussed elves seriously; elf beliefs are prominently attested in the Scottish witchcraft trials, particularly the trial of Issobel Gowdie ; and related stories also appear in folktales, There is a significant corpus of ballads narrating stories about elves, such as Thomas
5208-455: The ancestor-language of the attested Germanic languages ; the Proto-Germanic forms are reconstructed as * ɑlβi-z and * ɑlβɑ-z . Germanic *ɑlβi-z~*ɑlβɑ-z is generally agreed to be a cognate with Latin albus ('(matt) white'), Old Irish ailbhín ('flock'), Ancient Greek ἀλφός ( alphós ; 'whiteness, white leprosy';), and Albanian elb ('barley'); and the Germanic word for 'swan' reconstructed as *albit- (compare Modern Icelandic álpt )
5301-403: The arcane practice of alchemy . In one or two Old English medical texts, elves might be envisaged as inflicting illnesses with projectiles. In the twentieth century, scholars often labelled the illnesses elves caused as " elf-shot ", but work from the 1990s onwards showed that the medieval evidence for elves' being thought to cause illnesses in this way is slender; debate about its significance
5394-489: The beginning of the (historiographically recorded) Germanic migrations . The earliest available complete sentences in a Germanic language are variably dated to the 2nd century AD, around 300 AD or the first century AD in runic inscriptions (such as the Tune Runestone ). The language of these sentences is known as Proto-Norse , although the delineation of Late Common Germanic from Proto-Norse at about that time
5487-601: The belief that elves might afflict 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 . This tradition continues into later English-language traditions too: elves continue to appear in Middle English medical texts. Belief in elves as
5580-466: The characteristics and names of these beings have varied widely across time and space, and they cannot be neatly categorised. These beings are sometimes known by words descended directly from the Old Norse álfr . However, in modern languages, traditional terms related to álfr have tended to be replaced with other terms. Things are further complicated because when referring to the elves of Old Norse mythology, scholars have adopted new forms based directly on
5673-498: The dates of borrowings and sound laws are not precisely known, it is not possible to use loans to establish absolute or calendar chronology. Most loans from Celtic appear to have been made before or during the Germanic Sound Shift . For instance, one specimen * rīks 'ruler' was borrowed from Celtic * rīxs 'king' (stem * rīg- ), with g → k . It is clearly not native because PIE * ē → ī
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#17327768214885766-414: The development of a separate common way of speech among some geographically nearby speakers of a prior language and ended with the dispersion of the proto-language speakers into distinct populations with mostly independent speech habits. Between the two points, many sound changes occurred. Phylogeny as applied to historical linguistics involves the evolutionary descent of languages. The phylogeny problem
5859-432: The earlier boundary) was the fixing of the accent, or stress, on the root syllable of a word, typically on the first syllable. Proto-Indo-European had featured a moveable pitch-accent consisting of "an alternation of high and low tones" as well as stress of position determined by a set of rules based on the lengths of a word's syllables. The fixation of the stress led to sound changes in unstressed syllables. For Lehmann,
5952-482: The elf dance is a common motif transferred 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 the 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
6045-571: The elf of Geirstaðir'), and a demonic elf at the beginning of Norna-Gests þáttr . 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 Heimskringla while Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar recounts a line of local kings who ruled over Álfheim , who since they had elven blood were said to be more beautiful than most men. According to Hrólfs saga kraka , Hrolfr Kraki 's half-sister Skuld
6138-508: The elves by offering a treat (preferably butter) placed into an elven mill. In order to protect themselves and their livestock against malevolent elves, Scandinavians could use a so-called Elf cross ( Alfkors , Älvkors or Ellakors ), which was carved into buildings or other objects. 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 to protect against elves. The second form
6231-480: The entire journey that the dialect of Proto-Indo-European that would become Proto-Germanic underwent through the millennia. The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any complete surviving texts; it has been reconstructed using the comparative method . However, there is fragmentary direct attestation of (late) Proto-Germanic in early runic inscriptions (specifically the Vimose inscriptions , dated to
6324-496: The erosion of unstressed syllables, which would continue in its descendants. The final stage of the language included the remaining development until the breakup into dialects and, most notably, featured the development of nasal vowels and the start of umlaut , another characteristic Germanic feature. Loans into Proto-Germanic from other (known) languages or from Proto-Germanic into other languages can be dated relative to each other by which Germanic sound laws have acted on them. Since
6417-543: 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
6510-716: The form elf during the Middle English period. During the Old English period, separate forms were used for female elves (such as ælfen , putatively from Proto-Germanic * ɑlβ(i)innjō ), but during the Middle English period the word elf routinely came to include female beings. The Old English forms are cognates – having a common origin – with medieval Germanic terms such as Old Norse alfr ('elf'; plural alfar ), Old High German alp ('evil spirit'; pl. alpî , elpî ; feminine elbe ), Burgundian * alfs ('elf'), and Middle Low German alf ('evil spirit'). These words must come from Proto-Germanic ,
6603-551: The form of amulets, where elves are viewed as a possible cause of illness. Most of them have Low German connections. Sometimes elves are, like dwarves , associated with craftsmanship. Wayland the Smith embodies this feature. He is known under many names, depending on the language in which the stories were distributed. The names include Völund in Old Norse, Wēland in Anglo-Saxon and Wieland in German. The story of Wayland
6696-467: The future, forebodings, ghosts and elves than other nations". Whether significant numbers of Icelandic people do believe in elves or not, elves are certainly prominent in national discourses. They occur most often in oral narratives and news reporting in which they disrupt house- and road-building. In the analysis of Valdimar Tr. Hafstein , "narratives about the insurrections of elves demonstrate supernatural sanction against development and urbanization; that
6789-717: The god Freyr was associated with elves. In particular, Álfheimr (literally "elf-world") is mentioned as being given to Freyr in Grímnismál . Snorri Sturluson identified Freyr as one of the Vanir . However, the term Vanir is rare in Eddaic verse, very rare in Skaldic verse, and is not generally thought to appear in other Germanic languages. Given the link between Freyr and the elves, it has therefore long been suspected that álfar and Vanir are, more or less, different words for
6882-427: The grass had been flattened like a floor. Elves had danced there. By Lake Tisnaren , 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. 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. Humans being invited or lured to
6975-475: The heart-smit heifers lie. Because of elves' association with illness, in the twentieth century, most scholars imagined that elves in the Anglo-Saxon tradition were small, invisible, demonic beings, causing illnesses with arrows. 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. However, this is now thought to be
7068-545: The history of Proto-Germanic in the wider sense from the end of Proto-Indo-European up to the point that Proto-Germanic began to break into mutually unintelligible dialects. The changes are listed roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on the outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list. The stages distinguished and the changes associated with each stage rely heavily on Ringe 2006 , Chapter 3, "The development of Proto-Germanic". Ringe in turn summarizes standard concepts and terminology. This stage began with
7161-450: The idea of a Fairy Queen . A propensity to seduce or rape people becomes increasingly prominent in the source material. Around the fifteenth century, evidence starts to appear for the belief that elves might steal human babies and replace them with changelings . By the end of the medieval period, elf was increasingly being supplanted by the French loan-word fairy . An example is Geoffrey Chaucer 's satirical tale Sir Thopas , where
7254-420: The many words for supernatural beings in Germanic languages, the only ones regularly used in personal names are elf and words denoting pagan gods, suggesting that elves were considered to be similar to gods. In later Old Icelandic, alfr ("elf") and the personal name which in Common Germanic had been * Aþa(l)wulfaz both coincidentally became álfr~Álfr . Elves appear in some place names, though it
7347-413: The period marked the definitive break of Germanic from the other Indo-European languages and the beginning of Germanic proper, containing most of the sound changes that are now held to define this branch distinctively. This stage contained various consonant and vowel shifts, the loss of the contrastive accent inherited from PIE for a uniform accent on the first syllable of the word root, and the beginnings of
7440-413: 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 chivalric romance or Breton lais , Kötludraumur and Gullkársljóð . The idea also occurs in later traditions in Scandinavia and beyond, so it may be an early attestation of a prominent tradition. Elves also appear in
7533-699: The presence of elves in everyday beliefs in medieval Scandinavia. They include a fleeting mention of elves seen out riding in 1168 (in Sturlunga saga ); mention of an álfablót ("elves' sacrifice") in Kormáks saga ; and the existence of the euphemism ganga álfrek ('go to drive away the elves') for "going to the toilet" in Eyrbyggja saga . The Kings' sagas include a rather elliptical but widely studied account of an early Swedish king being worshipped after his death and being called Ólafr Geirstaðaálfr ('Ólafr
7626-552: The reduction of the resulting unstressed syllables. By this stage, Germanic had emerged as a distinctive branch and had undergone many of the sound changes that would make its later descendants recognisable as Germanic languages. It had shifted its consonant inventory from a system that was rich in plosives to one containing primarily fricatives, had lost the PIE mobile pitch accent for a predictable stress accent, and had merged two of its vowels. The stress accent had already begun to cause
7719-539: The relative position of the Germanic branch within Indo-European less clear than the positions of the other branches of Indo-European. In the course of the development of historical linguistics, various solutions have been proposed, none certain and all debatable. In the evolutionary history of a language family, philologists consider a genetic "tree model" appropriate only if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. Early Indo-European had limited contact between distinct lineages, and, uniquely,
7812-495: The same group of beings. However, this is not uniformly accepted. A kenning (poetic metaphor) for the sun, álfröðull (literally "elf disc"), is of uncertain meaning but is to some suggestive of a close link between elves and the sun. Although the relevant words are of slightly uncertain meaning, it seems fairly clear that Völundr is described as one of the elves in Völundarkviða . As his most prominent deed in
7905-441: The seductive side apparent in English and Scandinavian material: most famously, the early thirteenth-century Heinrich von Morungen 's fifth Minnesang begins "Von den elben wirt entsehen vil manic man / Sô bin ich von grôzer liebe entsên" ("full many a man is bewitched by elves / thus I too am bewitched by great love"). Elbe was also used in this period to translate words for nymphs. In later medieval prayers, Elves appear as
7998-511: The separation of a distinct speech, perhaps while it was still forming part of the Proto-Indo-European dialect continuum. It contained many innovations that were shared with other Indo-European branches to various degrees, probably through areal contacts, and mutual intelligibility with other dialects would have remained for some time. It was nevertheless on its own path, whether dialect or language. This stage began its evolution as
8091-594: The title character sets out in a quest for the "elf-queen", who dwells in the "countree of the Faerie". Evidence for elf beliefs in medieval Scandinavia outside Iceland is sparse, but the Icelandic evidence is uniquely rich. For a long time, views about elves in Old Norse mythology were defined by Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda , which talks about svartálfar , dökkálfar and ljósálfar ("black elves", "dark elves", and "light elves"). For example, Snorri recounts how
8184-463: The wake of J. R. R. Tolkien 's works; these re-popularised the idea of elves as human-sized and humanlike beings. Elves remain a prominent feature of fantasy media today. 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
8277-586: The word elf became less common throughout the Germanic languages, losing out to terms like Zwerg ('dwarf') in German and huldra ('hidden being') in North Germanic languages , and to loan-words like fairy (borrowed from French). Still, belief in elves persisted in the early modern period , particularly in Scotland and Scandinavia, where elves were thought of as magically powerful people living, usually invisibly, alongside human communities. They continued to be associated with causing illnesses and with sexual threats. For example, several early modern ballads in
8370-404: The word ælfscȳne , which meant "elf-beautiful" and is attested describing the seductively beautiful Biblical heroines Sarah and Judith . Likewise, in Middle English and early modern Scottish evidence, while still appearing as causes of harm and danger, elves appear clearly as humanlike beings. They became associated with medieval chivalric romance traditions of fairies and particularly with
8463-468: Was an ordinary cross carved onto a round or oblong silver plate. This second kind of elf cross was worn as a pendant in a necklace, and to have sufficient magic, it had to be forged during three evenings with silver, from nine different sources of inherited silver. In some locations it also had to be on the altar of a church for three consecutive Sundays. In Iceland, expressing belief in the huldufólk ("hidden people"), elves that dwell in rock formations,
8556-614: 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 Þiðreks saga version of the Nibelungen (Niflungar) 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 . The relatively few mentions of elves in
8649-400: Was various irritating skin rashes , which were called älvablåst (elven puff) 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 (pictogram on a rock) found in Scandinavia, were known in older times as älvkvarnar (elven mills), because it was believed elves had used them. One could appease
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