Hobbits are to English as Elves are to .....eh...does anyone know??
 

Where do elves come from? I mean the ACTUAL myth of the elf?

Leprechauns come from Ireland, Gnomes are Germanic, and Trolls were created by the Scandinavians...but I can't find where the myths of Elves come from.

Does anyone know or have any speculations?

~~Daegwenn

Elves? Hm. For some reason I'm thinking Norway, Sweden, or that region. (But then, I also have a sinus headache, which probably means I don't know what I'm talking about...)
I do know there are "house-elves" called Brownies in Canada, though, which I also know isn't any help..... [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

I was under the impression that they were of Finnish, Norwegian, or Swedish mythos. Maybe even Russian? Lush?
If anyone finds the answer, do share! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Tolkien's Quendi come from Tolkien. Tolkien's trolls as well. And, hey, guess about hobbits and orcs.
He only gave these creatures names of our very own world and nearer time. Apart from 'hobbit', which he made up. There are 'Elves' in other myths (mostly called 'fairies'), but only in the earliest and long abandoned stages of the legendarium were they related to Tolkien's Quendi or other races.

If I had to guess I'd say Elves had Celtic origins, close to those of Irish and Scottish fairies. In the Middle Ages and earlier fairies were thought of as full-sized and very beautiful beings, also very frightening and powerful. They weren't intrinsically evil, but they belonged to an older (read: pre-Christian) world and any human who got entangled with them would either disappear forever (like in "The Child Who Went With the Fairies") or at least be changed drastically by the fact that fairies lived outside of normal time (like all those fairy-tales about the man who goes to dance one reel with a fairy party and at the end of the reel returns home and it's a hundred years later).

Sounds a lot like those lines about "Men say that few escape the snares of the Sorceress of the Golden Wood" and the fact that time passes differently in Elven-country. And since Tolkien's Elves don't engage in baby-stealing or luring people away for the fun of it, who knows, maybe the medieval fairies got a bad rap. That'll happen when people think you're strange.

Yeah, elves are as English as Yorkshire pudding. Check out "Thomas the Rhymer", "Midsummer's Night Dream" or "The Demon Lover".

But then, wasn't it Goethe the German poet who wrote that incredibly scary poem about the man with the dying child being pursued by the Elf King?

Thing is, if Gimli heard any of these poems, he'd have good reason not to want to go to Lothlorien.

Elves is scary! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

No we're not! [img]smilies/redface.gif[/img]
Unless, of course, you happen to come upon me wielding my mace! [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

Read the Mabinogion, about the Tuatha de Danaan. They are one of the sources for Tolkien's Elves. And no, it is not true that Tolkien just made them up out of his own highly original genius, highly original though it was. Nor is that true about Dwarves or Orcs. Remember, in The Hobbit orcs, for example, were called Goblins.

Way back in the beginnings of the courtly era, Cretien de Troyes took Celtic myths and retold them as contemporary love stories with knights and ladies; the knights and ladies were Celtic gods and goddesses reconstituted, so to speak. The result of de Troyes' popularity was the Arthurian mythos, with the Lady of the Lake (very elvish - or I should say, faerie). It's important also to remember that Tolkien wrote of his and others' creations in these areas as 'Faerie'.

Check out the Arthurian Legends, the Mabinogion, and compare them to the SPIRIT of Tolkien's "Smith of Wooton Major". I think you'll see the connections.

Thanks for enlightening me, littlemanpoet! I am amazed at how much I glean from this forum! How could I have forgotten about the Celts, my ancestors? [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]
~*goes off to read Arthurian references...

Quite welcome, milady. (bows and kisses ring {um the Queen does have a ring, no?}) [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I had the idea that they were...eh...of a Roman or Greek origin. Like a nymph. *slaps head* I'm a dummy.

~~Daegwenn
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