Elves are mythical creatures that belong to the supernatural world. While they have Germanic origins, having first appeared in the myths of Europe, elves became popular throughout the world in mid-19th century with the introduction of popular culture. While their description is vague in stories, they are often imagined today as tall, beautiful human-like creatures, with pointy ears. Traditionally, “the hidden people” have been performing tasks similar to those of human beings, and have the same basic social structures in the society. Elves’ relationship with humans is ambivalent, which allowed for a variety of representations in popular media. Thus, elves can be beautiful or ugly, good, bad or ambivalent, as well as strong or weak and helpless. Regardless of the variety of representations in popular media, elves maintain characteristics that allow them to be recognized as such, namely the fact that they are outsiders, living in a natural space that is out of human reach, that they have magical powers, and that they have knowledge far above ordinary human beings. The paper explores the portrayal of the elves’ unique characteristics in the popular culture, highlighting the appropriateness of these objects in explaining the mysteries of death, disappearance, misfortune, and even unexpected prosperity.
The explanation for the existence of the “hidden people” motif is the fact that people of the past needed an explanation for sudden and unexplained death and other mysterious events and experiences. In the folklore from Iceland and Denmark, elves are often ambiguously depicted as tricksters, or helpful to humans. In the latter category, they often do it without their will, being deceived by humans themselves, or by spiritual attachment to them. For example, in “The Elves’ Dance on New Years’ Eve”, the watcher who took upon himself to keep a house under surveillance while the masters were at the church, despite the fact that all previous watchers had disappeared manages to gain the elves’ golden objects after warning them of the approaching daylight (Simpson 66). However, he did this by himself, not allowing the elves to see him, in which case he would have disappeared as well. The same attempt to hide is also present in many other stories, such as “Hild, the Queen of the Elves” where the elf –queen travels to her kingdom on Christmas Eve accompanied by shepherds who then die. While they do not directly die by her hand, she is nevertheless ultimately charged for their death. The shepherd is however able to return safely, and after having made a service to the elves, he is rewarded with prosperity. These aspects provide evidence of the explicit and amazing characteristics of the Elves that pertinently attempts to explain the concepts of death and mysterious disappearance of things. The portrayal that the watcher would have also disappeared if seen by elves brings out a sense of some unclear spiritual power that characterized these objects. In this context, it becomes arguable that this power was responsible for some aspects such as death, misfortunes and disappearance of things that the humanity cannot fully understand. Furthermore, the scenario describes Elves as rational and conscious beings, but not just hysterical irrational objects. This is evident in the sense that the shepherd who makes the right survive to the elves receives a reward. It means that the elves can identify and acknowledge humanity’s effort towards accomplishing their will, thus, rewarding them accordingly.
However, in other stories, the elves are rather malefic, and people in Europe often used different strategies in order to ‘fight’ against malicious spirit that attempted to destroy human beings and their properties. For example, in “Taken to the Mountain”, a girl is kidnapped by the elves. In order to help her, people “rang the church bells for her, and the girl returned” (Sehmsdorf 212). The story also shows that the girl went mad, but later recovered. However, less lucky than her, a young boy who was herding in the woods was forced to dance the elves, and for this reason, he went mad (Sehmsdorf 212). Through this example, the unique trait of elves as powerful spiritual beings is brought out. In this context, elves liken with the doctrinal account of the God. Kidnapping of the girl to the mountain highlights the elves’ ability to punish the human beings when their wrong undertakings annoy them. Similar, to the theological mythical teachings the God is likely to punish people whenever they engage in evil undertakings. This characteristic of the elves even comes out clearly, when the girl returns only after the people rung the church bells. The idea of church affirms some sense of divinity. In reference to the instance, it is arguable that turning back to the church (the Elves/God’s ways) is the only way through which human being can be forgiven their sins, thus surviving the wrath of the elves. This is evident as Sehmsdorg shows that “the elves were generally feared because they struck humans with sickness, as reflected in the term "elf shot" (Sehmsdorf 212). People are aware that elves are likely to punish them ultimately whenever they offended them by failing to follow their ways. This meant that the only way of staying safe from suffering such as sicknesses and even death elves was only through living as per the their demands.
However, the elves could also bring luck to those who obeyed their commands, or performed extraordinary service to them. In Hild’s story, the shepherd has a prosperous and happy life after releasing the queen from the curse, and the reason behind this prosperity is suggested to be the elfish queen. This justifies the divine attribute of the elves, the similar way with the divine notion of the God’s nature assumed by the popular culture. In line with the shepherds’ case, the popular culture promoted a belief that people who lives as per the God’s would ultimately get a reward from Him which would essentially be leading a happy life.
Furthermore, in Simpson’s story of the fisherman, the man has prosperity for as long as he respects the commands of the elf who acted as his neighbor. As soon as he disobeyed the fisherman stopped seeing the elf and the luck evaporated (Simpson 31). In the popular culture, the ideology assumed by Simpson of elves being an excellent fisherman is promoted as they are identified as objects that hardly age physical and ones that are less affected by illness. This manifests their high ability and potential, the aspects that features extensively in the Lord of the Rings and in the World of Warcraft where they are represented as being excessively powerful than human being. In these shows, the elves are able to do challenging activities that humans are not able to do while persevering extreme conditions. However, the elves are also presented as beings that can be destroyed by violence and excessive negative attitude. This warns humans against engaging in violence and evil practices that could make them fail to exploit the great potential of the elves.
The modern representations of elves seem to have begun with the Brothers Grimm. In Grimm’s representations, the elves mysterious and often troublesome actions are left mostly unexplained. The shoemaker’s story shows a positive representation of elves, as helpful and beneficial. The narrator says that, as soon as they receive clothing from the shoemaker’s wife, the elves rejoice and leave the cobbler's job. However, the shoemaker continues to prosper (Grimm 36). This idea is potentially reiterated in the popular novel and film series, “Harry Potter”. In Rowling’s story, the young wizards meet Dobby, the house-elf in the service of the Malfoy family. Dobby is a slave to the family, as all the other elves, but he may be released by receiving clothing from the master. While completely subject to the wishes of the family, and bound to them exclusively, Dobby is also a magical being and he is able to accomplish magic, although he is forbidden to do so. While resembling the small people described by Brothers Grim in the story of the shoemaker, both in size, and in their function, the house-elves in “Harry Potter” are unlike mythological elves from the European tradition in that they are weak and defenseless before their masters. This presents as a traditional motive especially in the German sense who viewed other races as inferior.
Apart from Rowling’s “Harry Potter”, one monumental series of novels, which discusses the topic of the elves, is Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. In this novel series, the elves become superior and extremely powerful beings, with unmeasured knowledge and healing powers. The elves are immortal, and their knowledge and isolation may be a result of their superiority. By means of such characters as Legolas, Arwen, Galadriel or Elrond, the author, and later, the director of the film series with the same name, transforms elves into fascinating creatures whose morality and knowledge is outside the man’s limited power of understanding. While they fight against evil if necessary, Tolkien’s elves are mostly neutral and they try to remain as uninvolved as possible, in order to preserve the integrity of their people, and avoid unnecessary death. The elves, in “Lord of the Rings” have a distinctive language, and they live an ecological lifestyle. This is hardly seen in the previous tales, it presents as an invented quality amongst elves and popular culture that Tolkien utilizes to develop further the figure of the elves. Rivendell seems a corner of paradise and the home of the wood elves is equally enchanting. While trying to maintain neutrality, elves nevertheless often join the fight against evil, where their own well-being is threatened, or out of a sense of duty towards the Middle Earth and its fate. This is not traditional in respect to the popular culture’s belief as of the divine nature of the God as He was assumed supreme and unchallengeable.
While in popular media today, the elves are mostly represented as beautiful and positive characters, some narratives depart from this idea, and imagine elves as evil. For example, in the film “Thor”, the “Dark Elves” are evil creatures from Nifelheim. In this context, it is arguable that situation relates closely to the traditional concept of the ‘albiz’ that identified the existence of some beautiful individuals with unique abilities. The Proto-Germanic concept might have influenced this perception where the albiz presents as the Germans while the evil eves symbolize other races the, dwarfs who had limited abilities. The weak individuals are represented as tall, dark, ugly, with sharp teeth, and massive bodies. The only attribute they share with other representations encountered in popular media, is their pointy ears. While they may seem unfamiliar for mainstream viewers, who are more used to imagining elves as beautiful and serene, the dark elves are nevertheless also part of the popular culture, being particularly present in video games, and films. This is might be a misrepresentation of the Snorri’s idea, as the scenario presented does not comfortably portray the pertinent attributes that characterize the image of elves. The dark representation of elves as evil is also part of the European mythology, as shown in Sehmsdorf’s collected folklore. However, despite their evil intentions, the malicious elves who cause people to become sick, disappear or lose their minds, are mainly harmful creatures who dance in rings (212). Unlike them, the evil elves in popular culture are represented as dark and threatening. This is because they present ideologies such as sexual threats, lust, seduction and other discerning aspects that are likely to trap human beings making them succumb to body and other earthly pleasures, thus forgetting diverting from the right path.
Furthermore, Terry Pratchett’s elves from the Discworld are a threat to human beings, whom they often kidnapped, as they are fascinated with the imaginative power and talents of human beings. In his novels, elves are conceived as creatures that lack emotions and consequently, are incapable of creating beautiful things, or of feeling empathy. As per Tolkien’s representation, humans perceive elves as beautiful, elegant and superior. However, this is merely an illusion, because in reality, elves are abstraction constructions that lack humane characteristics. Therefore, this representation is still drawing from folkloric elves that kidnapped people in order to help them with the functions that they were incapable of accomplishing by themselves.
Therefore, while stylized and glamorized in popular culture today, contemporary representations of elves draw from old myths of the European people and continue to fascinate the audience due to their “hidden” and mysterious appeal, and the variety of their representations. Elves’ supernatural powers, their human-like appearance and their capacity to influence human life create a powerful appeal and continue to represent sources of inspiration for filmmakers, drawing artists and video game developers.
Works Cited
Grimm, Brothers. “The Elves.” 1972. Print.
Simpson, Jacqueline. “The Hidden People.” 1972. Print.
Sehmsdorf, Henning. “The Invisible Folk.” 1972. Print.
