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On the Ambiguity of Elves

Jacqueline Simpson

Available online: 11 Apr 2011

To cite this article: Jacqueline Simpson (2011): On the Ambiguity of Elves , Folklore, 122:01, 76-83

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 Folklore 122 (April 2011): 76–83

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On the Ambiguity of Elves [1]

Jacqueline Simpson
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Abstract
There is a sharp contrast in how elves are portrayed by three modern fantasy
writers—Tolkien, Pratchett and Rowling—yet all three can be justified from
traditional lore. Anglo-Saxon and medieval Icelandic evidence shows that elves
have always been ambiguous figures, sometimes helpful to humans and
sometimes harmful. This is closer to human experience of luck and misfortune
than the Christian doctrine of good and evil spirits.

There can be no doubt that the three most popular writers of fantasy in Britain are
J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett and J. K. Rowling. All three have elves in their
books, but their elves could hardly be more different from each other—and yet
each author is drawing upon elements of genuine traditional folklore, although in
varying degree.
In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954– 55), elves are shown as noble, wise,
beautiful, deathless beings living in remote and enchanted woodlands of Middle
Earth; however, their true home lies across the sea, and they will soon be leaving
earth. They have powers of healing and foresight. Humans and hobbits regard
them with awe and a touch of fear, but they are wholly benevolent. In fact, their
status in that book appears not very different from that of angels in popular
Christianity, although in Tolkien’s fuller mythology, as deployed in the many
versions of The Silmarillion, it is made clear that they were not always sinless. In his
essay “On Fairy Stories,” originally given as a lecture in 1939 and published in
Essays Presented to Charles Williams in 1947, he stated firmly that:
elves are not primarily concerned with us [humans], nor we with them. Our fates are sundered,
and our paths seldom meet. Even upon the borders of Faerie we encounter them only at some
chance crossing of the ways (Tolkien 2008, 32).
Of course, in his own writing he did not keep rigidly to this rule (it would make
the plot of The Lord of the Rings impossible), but it will serve as an indication of how
lofty and remote elves were in his thought.
Pratchett’s elves have a central role in Lords and Ladies (Pratchett 1993) and The
Wee Free Men (Pratchett 2003), and also appear in Science of the Discworld II: The
Globe (Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen 2002). Like Tolkien’s, they too are tall,
glamorous and aristocratic—or at least, they make themselves seem so to human
ISSN 0015-587X print; 1469-8315 online/11/010076-8; Routledge Journals; Taylor & Francis
q 2011 The Folklore Society
DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.2011.537133
 On the Ambiguity of Elves 77

eyes, for their real appearance is thin, dull, and grey, with triangular faces and big
slanty eyes. They are a predatory, cruel, parasitic race who have no world of their
own but are always striving to break into those of other peoples through places
where the barrier between dimensions is just a bit too thin for safety. They are
utterly ruthless, and inflict pain and humiliation for the fun of it. They fear nothing
except iron, which disrupts the magnetism on which they rely for their sense-
perceptions. As Granny Weatherwax puts it in Lords and Ladies:
When they get into a world, everyone else is on the bottom. Slaves. Worse than slaves. Worse
than animals, even. They take what they want, and they want everything. But worst of all, the
worst bit is . . . they read your mind. They hear what you think, and in self-defence you think
what they want. And it’s barred windows at night, and food out for the fairies, and turning
round three times before you talks about ’em, and horseshoes over the door (Pratchett 1993,
163).
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Turning to Rowling’s Harry Potter series, we find a type of elf who is exploited
as a servant in a human household, which she calls a house-elf. The prime
example is a miserable specimen named Dobby, slave to the Malfoy family; he
hates them, yet regularly bursts into tears and beats or burns himself if he thinks
he has failed in his duty to them. He is clad in an old pillowcase, and can only be
released into freedom if someone gives him an item of clothing, which Harry
eventually does (Rowling 1998, 15– 20 and 247–9).
How is it possible for three authors to paint three such contrasting portraits of
beings sharing the same name?
Rowling’s “elf” is a drastically simplified version of a figure known throughout
Europe—the house-spirit who takes up residence in human farms. He generally
has some special name setting him apart from the broader category of elves and
fairies—hob, puck, dobby, brownie or pixy in Britain, cobold in Germany, nisse
and tomte in Scandinavia (Briggs 1978, 53– 65; Grimm 1981, vol. 1, 68– 89 and
340– 2; Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1988, 238– 46; Simpson 1988, 171–8; Thorpe
2001, 238– 9, 293– 4, 339– 43 and 468– 9). Rowling has picked out one genuine
feature; namely that if he is given new clothes, he will leave immediately (ML 7015
in R. Th. Christiansen’s The Migratory Legends; Christiansen 1958). But in all other
respects she has seriously distorted the traditional material. The authentic house-
spirit is never imagined as a downtrodden serf; on the contrary, he is the guardian
spirit of the farm. His presence brings prosperity, so if he leaves in anger, the place
goes to rack and ruin (ML 7005). He punishes the human farm-servants if they are
slovenly in their work. He is quick to take revenge if anybody spies on him, laughs
at him, or cheats him of the food which is his due (ML 7010). Even unprovoked, he
can cause such havoc by his mischievous pranks that the humans whose home he
has adopted become exasperated and decide to move house (ML 7020). These
characteristics and functions do not overlap with those attributed to elves.
“Elf” and its cognates are, of course, native terms in several Germanic languages
for minor supernatural beings, as opposed to gods; they are derived from an Indo-
European root meaning “white.” “Elf” was a standard word in English until it was
gradually superseded, from the thirteenth century onwards, by the more elegant
and aristocratic French loanwords “fairy” and “fay.” The elves of Tolkien and
Pratchett, different though they are, can both claim descent from the highly
ambiguous concept of elves found in Germanic mythology, in so far as this can be
 78 Jacqueline Simpson

reconstructed from the fragmentary evidence of Old English and Old Icelandic
sources (most recently assessed in meticulous detail by Alaric Hall 2007). Tolkien
limits himself to a few features, all wholly positive, to which he adds one motif
from later lore; namely the imminent departure of elves/fairies. Pratchett draws
on its negative traits, reinforced by ample use of later folklore, to draw a wholly
negative picture.
Medieval Icelandic information about elves is scanty, but fairly clear-cut. It is
predominantly positive. There are about a dozen passages in Eddaic poems of the
eleventh century where the word álfar (elves, masculine) is coupled with one or
other of the two words meaning “gods” (Æsir and Vanir), or with both; this
strongly suggests that in heathen times they had been considered very powerful
beings, on a par with divinities (Gunnell 2007, 121–3; Hall 2007, 34 –9). According
to the mythographer Snorri Sturluson’s Edda (c.1220), there were two kinds—the
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Light Elves, who were as fair as the sun and lived in a radiant region called
Álfheimr (elf-home), and Dark Elves, who were as black as pitch and lived
underground; the latter group, he says, are “different in appearance and very
different in practice” from the former. No other source refers to Dark Elves; Snorri
may be alluding to dwarfs, and/or imitating the Christian contrast between angels
and devils. Unfortunately, neither the poems nor Snorri’s work give any actual
tales about elves, so it is impossible to tell what functions they originally had, or
how they were believed to interact with human society. (This could be why
Tolkien chose to think that such interaction was rare.) We see that the word “elf”
existed in heathen Iceland, and we can deduce that it referred to something of
importance, but beyond that we can only guess at the meaning or meanings it
contained. Many older scholars interpreted Icelandic elves as nature spirits, but
there are also good arguments for saying that they were originally seen as the
protective spirits of dead ancestors (Gunnell 2007, 126– 9).
Fuller evidence can be gleaned from the Anglo-Saxon word ælf. It is masculine,
like its Norse cognate; the feminine forms ælfen or elfen are only found in
compounds meaning mountain-elf, wood-elf, field-elf, water-elf, and sea-elf,
which were used (and probably specially invented) by glossators seeking
equivalents for the Latin names of female beings such as nymphs, dryads, nereids,
and so forth. These terms imply that for the English it seemed appropriate to
locate elves in the landscape of earth, not in a remote mythological realm such as
Snorri describes (Bosworth and Toller 1898, 14– 15, 218, 274 and 1277).
Some uses of ælf support the idea of beautiful and/or benevolent beings, others
are definitely sinister. On the one hand, there are various human names that
incorporate the word “elf”; the only one still in use is Ælfred, meaning “elf-
wisdom,” but there was also Ælfric, meaning “elf-power,” Ælfbeorht, “elf-bright,”
and Ælfnoth, “elf-valour.” People would not have given their sons such names
unless they thought of elves as helpful protectors; moreover, the recorded
instances all concern men of royal or noble rank (Hall 2007, 57). There are three or
four occurrences of the adjective ælfscyne, “radiant like an elf,” applied in Christian
poems to two Biblical women, Sarah the wife of Abraham, and the heroine Judith.
This has generally been interpreted by association with Snorri’s idea of Light
Elves, but Hall has shown that in its contexts it implies not merely beauty but
dangerously seductive beauty (Hall 2007, 88– 94).
 On the Ambiguity of Elves 79

There can be no mistaking the negative implications of several terms found in

medical texts, indicating that elves cause disease. These include prescriptions
against ælf-adl and ælf-sogoda, both meaning “elf-sickness”; the second is
associated with fever (Hall 2007, 105–6). An interesting group of texts gives
remedies against ælfsiden, where the second element is cognate to Norse seidr,
“harmful magic,” and a salve to be used wid ælfcynne ond nihtgenga ond þam
monnum þe deoful mid hæmd, “against the elfin race and the night-walker and for
people with whom a devil has sex with” (Hall 2007, 120– 30). Here, elves are
blamed for nocturnal afflictions that later periods would call “nightmare” and
“hag-riding,” and are being associated with the incubus and succubus.
Scholars have long been fascinated by some lines from a charm in verse, probably
dating from the late tenth century, which is included in a collection of medical
texts known as Lācnunga (Cockayne 1864 –66, vol. 3, 2 –80; Hall 2007, 108– 18).
It is entitled Wid færstiche, “against a sudden, intense stab of pain”; besides reciting
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the charm, the healer is instructed to make a concoction of feverfew, red nettles, and
plantain, boiled in butter. The verses envisage the pain as a spear shot into the
victim by “mighty women” riding over the hills. The charmer declares:
If it were the shot of gods, or if it were the shot of elves,
Or if it were the shot of witch, I will relieve thee.
This is to relieve thee from shot of gods,
This is to relieve thee from shot of elves,
This is to relieve thee from shot of witch;
I will help thee (Gordon 1926, 95).
Here we find the same linking of gods and elves (ēsa gescot . . . ylfa gescot) as in the
Eddaic poems, but also a link with hægtesse; Gordon’s translation “witch” is
adequate, provided one realises that these are not human witches but powerful
and malevolent supernatural females.
Even more intriguing is a passage in Beowulf where the Christian poet digresses
from his narrative to explain how monstrous beings like Grendel fit into world
history as told in the Bible. They are all, he says, descended from Cain:
From him were born all evil offspring,
Ettins and elves and orcnēas,
And giants too, who waged war on God
Through long ages—but He paid them back (Lines 111– 14, my translation).
Ettins are a species of giant. Orcnēas is a unique and obscure word, apparently
derived from Latin Orcus (a name for the god of the dead), and meaning “creature
from the Underworld” or “corpse ogre”; it was the origin of Tolkien’s orcs. It is
something of a shock to find elves classed as part of this family of “evil offspring,”
and is obviously a Christian interpretation. Christian views may also have
coloured the medical texts, since these were often produced in monasteries. On the
other hand, folk beliefs and legends of later periods, both in Britain and
throughout Europe, provide ample evidence that fairy beings of various types
were dangerous to humans and to livestock, and could inflict illness or death, so
the concept of the evil elf might well have existed in pre-Christian tradition too.
A final scrap of linguistic evidence is the curious word “oaf,” which is a
medieval development from “elf.” Its chief present-day meanings are “rough,
 80 Jacqueline Simpson

bad-mannered fellow” and “stupid country bumpkin,” but the Oxford English
Dictionary gives the following range of older meanings: “An elf child, a goblin
child; a supposed changeling left by elves or fairies; hence, a deformed or idiot
child; a half-wit, fool, dolt.” From this we can deduce that in Anglo-Saxon England
the belief in elves fulfilled a function that in other times and places belongs to
various species of fairy; namely to account for certain types of mental or physical
disability in babies.
As has been already mentioned, the word “fairy” entered English in medieval
times and generally replaced “elf” in common usage, while among poets and
other literary writers it became a matter of personal preference which term they
used, or, if they used both, what distinction they made between them. Elves
acquired alternative names in other post-medieval tongues as well. In Icelandic,
they are now more usually called the Hidden People, and an individual one is a
huldumadr or huldukona, “Hidden Man” or “Hidden Woman.” In Danish, the word
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elle still exists but is used quite interchangeably with troll (for Danish trolls are
small creatures, unlike the gigantic mountain trolls of Norway and Iceland); since
they were believed to live inside small hillocks, they are also known as the Mound
Folk or Underground Folk. Besides these broad terms, most languages and
dialects have local familiar words, and to add to the confusion the same word can
sometimes indicate either a friendly supernatural being or a mischievous or even
malevolent one, according to context. For simplicity, “fairy” makes a convenient
all-embracing generic term.
During the Middle Ages it became necessary to devise ways of fitting fairies into
the Bible-based Christian world-picture. Officially the Church classed them as
demons, but popular tradition gave them a more ambivalent status. One notion,
common throughout Europe, was that they had originally been angels, but had
refused to join either side in the great war in heaven between God and Satan, and
so, being cast out from heaven but not welcome in hell, had fallen to earth and
settled here. Other legends gave them kinship to humanity, claiming that they
were Adam’s children by his mysterious first wife Lilith, or that they were
children of Adam and Eve whom she had hidden from God, and who therefore
became the Hidden People (Briggs 1978, 30– 1; Simpson 1988, 171). Some tales
state or imply that they look almost exactly like human beings; others emphasise
their non-human appearance—small size, hairiness, cows’ tails or mossy backs,
oddly-shaped feet, or whatever.
Above all, fairies are morally ambiguous and unpredictable. They can be
roughly classified according to whether they are helpful or harmful to humans, yet
even the friendliest will take revenge if offended, however inadvertently; while
even dangerous ones may occasionally bestow gifts on some favoured person. The
most benevolent type is of course the guardian house-fairy. Next come those that
were believed to live on farmland and meadows close alongside human
habitations; these were thought of as being normally fairly helpful, or at least
neutral—the Good Neighbours—provided one observed certain basic rules of
politeness towards them. But if a man was to damage their favourite trees or
hillocks, he would be struck down with illness.
In some traditions it was thought that fairies from the surrounding countryside
might enter human houses invisibly and suck out the goodness of the food, unless
this had been protected by charms and religious symbols. Even more
 On the Ambiguity of Elves 81

threateningly, they could come to carry off a woman who had just given birth to a
child, replacing her with a lifeless image they had created; the grieving family
would bury the false image, while the real woman was kept captive in the fairy
world (Briggs 1978, 104– 9). There are many tales of such kidnappings in Scotland
(Westwood and Kingshill 2009, 7 – 8, 21– 2, 34 –5, 290– 1, 297, 300 and 336– 7).
Fairies everywhere would also carry off babies and toddlers, substituting their
own sickly or mentally defective changelings (Briggs 1978, 100– 3; Simpson 1988,
192– 8). Even when the fairies themselves were friendly, it was risky to enter their
domain. Most countries have legends about people who saw fairies dancing in the
woods or fields, or feasting inside their mounds, and decided to join in; when they
returned—if indeed they ever returned—they discovered that what had seemed a
few short hours had in fact been many, many years, and everyone they had once
known was dead and gone. Often they themselves crumbled into dust on the spot
(Briggs 1978, 11 – 25; Simpson 1988, 207).
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Fairies living beyond the outskirts of cultivated areas, for instance in woods or
marshes, were definitely dangerous, and those in remote forests and mountains
even more so. Just how grave the danger is corresponds to the nature of the
landscape. To be pixy-led in a Devon wood is one thing; to be tricked by a Leshy so
that one loses the path in the depths of a Russian forest is quite another. The
folklorist Gail Kligman, working in Romania in 1975 –76, found a strong belief in
fairies known as rusalii or iele, “They,” described as “white-clad maidens of
extraordinary beauty,” living in lakes, swamps, forests, mounds, and similar areas
outside human control. They are active throughout spring and summer, and
especially at Whitsun.
They are usually considered to be pernicious beings. Their limited benevolence is manifested in
connexion with music and occasionally with curing . . . However, their kindness is
overshadowed by their malevolence. If anyone breaks an interdiction, even unintentionally,
the fairies strike. One is said to be “taken” or “possessed” . . . They paralyse or disfigure
offenders. “They make you deaf, crippled, blind; they may even murder.” “They make you
crazy” . . . Anyone entering their dance will be “hit”; whoever listens to their incomparably
beautiful singing will be left deaf . . . Their most typical victims are young men; it is thought
that the iele try to steal their masculine strength (Kligman 1981, 50 – 1).

On the other hand, there are traditional tales telling how even fairies in wild
places will sometimes bestow gifts and favours on humans. In Sweden, huntsmen,
fur-trappers and charcoal burners were forced by the nature of their work to
spend many weeks alone in mountain forests, where they might encounter the
Forest Ruler, the skogsrä—a powerful female being who was beautiful when seen
from in front but whose back looked like a rotting log. If a man agreed to make
love with her she would guarantee success in his work and protect him from its
dangers, provided he never told others about her (Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1988,
217; Simpson 1988, 221). Similarly, water-spirits such as the Swedish näkk can
confer musical skill on any fiddler who has the courage to go at midnight to the
waterfall where the näkk dwells and make him some offering—a leg of mutton, or
a black cat, or some drops of human blood (Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1988, 254).
When we, as modern scholars, survey this whole spectrum of tradition, the
range and contradictoriness of the beliefs look confusing. We should remember
that no single community held ever all of them at once. However, it does remain
 82 Jacqueline Simpson

puzzling that elves and fairies could be conceived of as being so morally

ambivalent in their dealings with humanity. It is doubly puzzling that this concept
survived vigorously through long centuries of Christian culture, since Christianity
divides the supernatural world into sharply opposed forces of good and evil,
angels and saints on the one hand, demons on the other—no grey areas. And this,
perhaps, is the answer. Clear-cut moral divisions do not reflect the way we
experience life, where good luck and misfortune bear no relation to virtue and
vice. In real life, sickness strikes at random, and inevitably the cry goes up. “What
have I done to deserve this?” The Christian answers have always been pretty
bleak: “It’s the Will of God,” “It’s a punishment for your sins,” “It’s a cross you
should be glad to bear,” or “It’s the Devil’s work.” It takes courage and humility to
accept such answers. One can well imagine that the parents of a defective child
would find it less distressing to think that it is a changeling than to wonder
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whether some sin of their own has drawn down God’s anger on their baby. And it
is surely better for society that a farmer with sick cows believes they are suffering
from elf shot than that he should start suspecting a neighbour of witchcraft. The
ambiguity of elves had its uses.

Note
[1] This paper was first presented at The Folklore Society Conference on The Supernatural in
Folklore, held at Leeds Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds, March 2010.

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Biographical Note
Dr Jacqueline Simpson lives in Worthing, where she was born and went to school at Sion
Convent. She studied English Literature and Old Icelandic at London University, and
later became interested in Scandinavian and British folklore, on which she has written
numerous books and articles. She has a particular interest in local legends. Her books
include Icelandic Folktales and Legends (1972, 2004), The Folklore of Sussex (1973,
2002), British Dragons (1980, 2001), Scandinavian Folktales (1988), The Oxford
Dictionary of English Folklore (2000, in collaboration with Steve, Roud), The Lore of
the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends (2005, in collaboration with Jennifer
Westwood), The Folklore of Discworld (2008, in collaboration with Terry Pratchett) and
Green Men and White Swans: The Folklore of British Pub Names (2010). She has
served on the Committee of the Folklore Society since 1966, holding office at various times
as Editor of Folklore, as Secretary, and as President.