There are jingle bells playing in the music bed, so you know what that means!
It’s time to do the traditional Step Back holiday special…
except I didn’t do one last year…
Anyways, this non-denominational red Starbucks cup holiday session, let’s talk about a
big piece of our fantasy literature, our RPG grids, and a key point of cookie and Santa
folklore.
Let’s talk about elves!
Hi, I’m Tristan Johnson, and this is Step Back History.
Be sure to click the subscribe button as well as the bell notification to never miss a new
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Elves are a staple of fantasy fiction and gaming.
Their roots go back to ancient Scandinavian and English folklore.
They came back as part of a famous literary movement and entered the realm of fantasy
staple with the work of Tolkien.
But let’s start this story back at the beginning.
Elves have roots going back to before the Christianization of Europe.
Throughout the middle ages, belief in elves was considered a pagan superstition.
That being said, they never really went away.
As Christianity expanded into northern Europe, elves, or álfar, were considered incubi,
or evil sex demons, or as personal ambassadors of Satan.
Of course, this is Step Back, I’m four paragraphs in a Christmas special about elves and talking
about sex demons.
Medieval Scandinavians wrote about light elves and dark elves (yeah it goes that far back)
as a syncretic way to talk about angels and demons.
In many medieval prayers, elves are portrayed as demonic forces.
Sometimes though they got a break and were merely people spawned from the murder of Abel,
as mentioned in Beowulf, or as lost children of Eve.
Sometimes they were labelled as angels who stayed neutral in the war against Lucifer.
This I think is the most damning condemnation of elves.
I mean what makes a good man go neutral?
Lust for gold?
Power?
Or were they just born with a heart full of neutrality?
It seems the elves did not get such a rebuke from the residents of the volcanic island
of Iceland.
Legends about elves treated them more like a different race of people who lived in the
woods.
They wrote about elf encounters, but not necessarily as encounters with demonic forces.
Icelanders wrote about them as a far-off farming community that wasn’t Christian, apparently
as a way to undermine the church.
So what does the folklore about elves?
Well, let’s start in England.
The earliest written sources mentioning elves comes from Anglo-Saxon England.
They turn up in medical texts as the possible source of illness for humans or livestock.
Usually as the source of pain or mental illness.
Again, this was a time before a scientific knowledge of medicine, and so often supernatural
forces were blamed as the source of disease.
You can hear all about it in my vampire video from back in October.
Don’t worry if you didn’t see it, not many did.
There are also references in this period, especially in Scotland to Elf-shot, or elf
arrows.
Sometimes it was a reference to… shooting pains… is this really where the idiom comes
from?
Okay… and often uncovered arrowheads from Neolithic people were thought to be elf arrows.
So this is where you can trace back Legolas’s archery skills.
Buckler boogie boarding is a different thing altogether.
Near the end of the middle ages, elves became synonymous with the fairy, a word borrowed
from ye olde francais.
So if you've ever heard of Robin Goodfellow, Puck, hobgoblins or brownies, you are getting
an idea of where elves fit in the Anglo-Saxon mythology sphere.
The image of an elf at this time was in flux.
For most of the middle-ages, an elf was an invisible demonic archer, but by the early
modern period, they became human-like creatures.
Their association with faeries (possibly another know your fantasy episode?) made them much
more…
sexy.
At one point they thought elves would steal babies and replace them with… changelings.
Gosh, I’m just opening more and more doors for episodes of this series.
I guess I’ll just be doing Know your Fantasy forever.
People still believed in elves in parts of Northern England and Scotland well into the
1800s.
This is probably where all the dismissiveness of the north in Game of Thrones comes from:
Jon: The Night's Watch protects the Realm from…
Tyrion Lannister: Ah, yes, yes, against grumpkins and snarks, and all the other monsters your
wet-nurse warned you about!
You're a smart boy, you don't believe all that nonsense.
King James VI of Scotland held serious discussions about elves, and elves came up regularly in
Scottish witch trials.
Is your D&D warlock patron an archfey?
Here’s where that idea comes from.
Many songs and stories about elves come from Scotland, and many references refer to the
Elf-Queen.
Galadriel anyone?
Now Stop.
Rewind.
It’s time to go back to the beginning and talk about how these creatures manifested
in the Scandinavian parts of the world.
Outside of Iceland, belief in elves was much more sparse.
But the Icelanders make up for it, with a surprising amount of elf lore coming from
Bjork island.
Much of the writing about elves comes from the poet, and I’m sorry Icelanders in advance,
Snorri Sturlson.
In a work of his called Edda, he talks about three types of elves, light elves, dark elves,
and black elves.
Again, this was more paganising of Christian symbols.
Today, most scholars agree that these elves are references to angels, demons, and dwarves.
Elves often had an association in Norse mythology with a group of gods called the Æsir.
Notably because of references to the phrase Æsir ok Álfar, or Æsir and elves.
Sometimes elves are referred to as humanlike and enemies of the… giants.
They also seem to overlap a lot with dwarves in Norse folklore.
The best reference to elves in medieval Scandinavian literature is from the Eyrbyggja saga, where
'going to drive away the elves' meant… going to the toilet.
The elves evolved in Scandinavian folklore to be mainly women who live in mounds of stones
or in hills.
In Sweden, they were beautiful women who lived with an elf king.
They would be seen dancing at night or in the early morning and left circles on the
ground where they danced.
They call these elf circles or elf dances.
Often these would be naturally occurring circles of mushrooms which are usually called fairy
rings.
Norse people believed peeing on one would give you VD.
God damn Scandinavia.
Today in Iceland, it’s still not uncommon for people to believe elves live in rock formations.
A 2006 study of Icelanders suggested many people there wouldn't rule out the existence
of elves or ghosts.
They often feature in oral storytelling.
Frequently, elves a supernatural attack on urbanisation.
They’re figures trying to preserve the old lifestyle of the home of EVE online.
In places like Denmark and Sweden folk stories about elves in the 19th century were replaced
with… ethnic minorities.
This sort of shows that elves function merely as an other, whether it be development, minorities,
or immigrants used as stand-ins for the same idea.
Even some German folklore reference elves.
Germans considered them scary nature demons.
They were associated with disease such as epilepsy.
They often confused or deceived people, and worked for witches.
Even Martin Luther believed his mother had been afflicted by an elf.
In the early modern period, elves came back into literature.
For example, Shakespeare references them a few times.
Allusions to them happen in Romeo and Juliet, and they are flat out characters in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.
There is even some similar Japanese creatures known as Yokai, or Mononoke that sort of fit
the role of trickster but good elfish type stuff.
In the romantic period, elves gained insect wings (hello Tinkerbell), and finally got
their pointed ears and funny hats.
This showed up all the way until the modern age, and that’s where we get into the fantasy
and Christmas elves.
The nineteenth century saw a lot of romantic literature like the Grimm brothers who tried
to create national mythologies such as their horrifying collection of Fairytales.
One of the first significant works of fantasy with elves was the 1924 novel The King of
Elfland’s Daughter.
However, this was nothing compared to the thing that really put elves on the map.
Let’s talk Tolkien.
JRR Tolkien initially made his elves a bit more fairy-like (seriously, read the Hobbit
to see) but he also borrowed elements of the Ljósálfar elves from Norse mythology.
He made elves humanlike, but fairer, wiser, and with spiritual powers, keen senses, and
a close relationship with nature.
He made them immortal and even invented his own elvish language.
Much of his influence is what affected the fantasy elf going forward.
The Tolkien elves got further popularised by their inclusion in Dungeons and Dragons.
Though in DnD they’re actually a bit skinnier and shorter than humans.
Building off the sexy times aspect of elves in myth, they also allowed for half-elves
to be uncommon of still present part of the DnD multiverse.
DnD also reintroduced dark elves as the evil misandrous Drow.
These dark elves then influenced Warhammer, which added some of the evil aspects of elvish
literature.
Later, Blizzard entertainment's bevelled edged Warhammer story Warcraft included the Night
Elves.
They show up in a lot of fantasy stories, even some weird places like the Eldar race
in Warhammer 40,000, or the Starcraft Protoss obviously knocked off from those Eldar.
So there, I said it, Protoss are elves.
Then there is fantasy literature trying to turn the elf image around like in Harry Potter
where elves are super problematic slaves.
SERIOUSLY JK ROWLING WHAT THE FU- Ok Christmas elf time!
Santa was actually first depicted as an elf in the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas
by Clement Clarke Moore.
You might remember it as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
"He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf."
The first Christmas elf in literature comes from a non-published book by Louisa May Alcott
called Christmas Elves.
The whole Santa's workshop part comes from an 1873 book called Godey’s Lady Book.
I wanna mention that the Swedes didn’t believe Santa gave presents until the late 19th century
and instead believed that gifts were delivered by the Yule Goat.
It’s sort of beside the fact, but I think it’s super important you know that they
believed a goat delivered presents.
As for how they look in media today, with the pointy hat and shoes and small height.
It’s actually more an adaptation of the dwarves from Norse mythology.
In places like Belgium, and the Netherlands that whole “replacing elves with ethnic
minorities” thing from the 19th century happened, and St. Nicholas is helped by a
slave called…
black Peter.
Usually dressed in colonial garb from the time when they were involved heavily in African
colonization and the slave trade…
Come on, guys…
And so you have elves.
Over a millennium of folklore that still profoundly permeates our culture today.
Whether your elf is of the Dark Eldar or Keebler variety, I hope you have fun with them.
Happy non-denominational red Starbucks cup holiday session!
Now, if you like the Know your Fantasy series, I really wanna hear what I should do for the
next instalment.
Also, if you’re a fan of D&D, I am actually part of a group that plays a 5th edition campaign
every Wednesday night which you can find on the card or the description.
You can watch me drink beer and do Dwarf karate.
We’re in December now of 2017, and I am getting tantalisingly close to 30,000 subscribers.
If you folks wanna help out, this is the time to show Step Back to friends or family who
might not have seen the channel.
If you incredible history fans can get Step Back to 30k by the end of 2017 it would be
the best Christmas gift you can give me!
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If you want to get your name on here as well as get videos early, consider supporting Step
back at patreon.com/stepbackhistory I want to thank 12 tone for the theme song,
and I want you all to have an excellent holiday.
Stay warm, watch some old movies, and come back next week for more Step Back.