A To Z Blogging Challenge 2023: Folk Tale And Myth In Fiction - E Is For Elves

 Elves are probably the most commonly used characters in fantasy fiction these days, so let’s chat about them a bit. 

Tolkien got them from Norse mythology and gave them an entire culture, languages and background. In his world they are more or less immortal unless killed - in which case they find themselves in the Halls of Mandos, waiting to be dragged kicking and screaming back to Middle-Earth for another life. Mind you, they are quite likely to get killed, given that they fight a lot. Really. 

They can also decide they have had enough and go to the Undying Lands, home of the gods. A few members of other races have been allowed to go there - Gimli the Dwarf goes with his best friend Legolas the Elf. All the Ringbearers are allowed to go - Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee. The ships sail from one port, the Grey Havens, and the last ship left at the end of Lord Of The Rings. 

I want to put in my own thought here and say I think the Minbari of Babylon 5 are Tolkien Elves. They aren’t immortal, but they have a very Tolkien Elvish philosophy - and there is no question they can be plenty murderous when angry! Even Delenn, the Galadriel-like Minbari ambassador on the space station got angry enough to start a war against Earth when her mentor was killed by an accidental shot. But then, even Elf Queen Galadriel was once a very naughty girl, as we learn in The Silmarillion! And there are many Tolkien elements in the show, including a departure for the equivalent of the Undying Lands by the appropriate people - including John Sheridan, the former commander of the space station.

But Terry Pratchett gets it really right, in his Discworld novel Lords And Ladies, which cheekily sends up A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mythological Elves are not generally nice. They can cause disease - I think some illnesses were believed to be caused by “elfshot”. They’re not necessarily evil either - people had the word “Alf”(Elf) in their names - Alfred, Alfgifu, etc. - and they probably wouldn’t do that if Elves were totally evil. They are beautiful and skilled in crafts. There are the Light Elves and the Dark Elves(those live underground). 

But Pratchett’s Elves are basically fairies and the fairies of folklore were downright scary. They had to be appeased with offerings and while they might reward you for help they might also punish you, such as the story of a woman who was called in by mysterious folk as a midwife, who was blinded in one eye for being able to see them afterwards. They couldn’t take a chance on having her able to see them.

There were changelings, usually an old fairy who wanted a holiday being swapped for human children. Unfortunately people took this bit of folklore seriously enough to abuse their disabled children because they thought they were changelings and that this was the way to get rid of their unwelcome visitors. 

In Lords And Ladies, Elves invade Lancre, the tiny mountain kingdom ruled by King Verence, who used to be a jester(and hated it) and his new Queen, the soppy Magrat Garlick, who used to be the junior member of a trio of witches. There is a group of tradesmen putting on a play to celebrate the royal wedding, a big mistake as it helps to let the Elves in, as do a group of local girls dancing in the local stone circle. (One of these is Agnes Nitt, who  appears later in the Discworld series as the new junior witch)

Basically, they are able to invade because no one takes the menace seriously, everyone assumes that Elves/fairies are nice. They are absolutely not. Fortunately Magrat stops being soppy long enough to stand up to the Fairy Queen and save her man.

The Harry Potter series features house elves. They are slaves in the wizarding world, having to serve a wizard family forever, unless they are given clothes. Even nice people like the Weasleys can’t see anything wrong with this, and there is certainly a house elf culture that centres around work; Dobby, who is the closest thing the house elf community has to a radical, likes his freedom but likes work better and refuses all but a token pay and time off, as a matter of principle. 

While J.K Rowling did invent some of her creatures, I think this one is inspired by the fairy tale “The Cobbler And The Elves”, in which some tiny people come during the night to create beautiful shoes and help fix the cobbler’s failing business. When he and his wife make them clothes to thank them, the elves depart.

If you have read enough high fantasy novels, with quests in them, you will certainly have noticed Elves! I admit I gave up on those novels after a while, but I have read enough to know.

Have you read a lot of high fantasy? What do you think? 

Tomorrow: F is for Kate Forsyth.