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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7341210" data-attributes="member: 58172">The Norse elves, the alfar, inhabit the sky. In Old Norse, in Snorris Edda, a wellknown passage in the prose Gylfaginning mentions the ‘realm of elf’, Alfheimr. The passage is brief, but ascribes useful data.• Alfheimr is in the sky.• It is the capital, the location of the government of the alfar.• Alfar inhabit Alfheimr.• Alfar are the nature spirits of the light in the sky.Snorris Edda, GylfaginningThen Gangleri spoke.You know great news to say about the sky. What is there (in the sky), (with regard to) (other) capitals, more than (the æsir capital) at Urðarbrunni (in Ásgarðr)?Hárr said.Many honored places are there. One such place is there (in the sky), which is called Alfheimr. There dwell that people, which are named alfar of light.Þá mælti Gangleri: Mikil tíðendi kannt þú at segja af himninum. Hvat er þar fleira hǫfuðstaða en at Urðarbrunni?Hárr segir: Margir staðir eru þar gǫfugligir. Sá er einn staðr þar, er kallaðr er Alfheimr. Þar byggvir fólk þat, er Ljósálfar heita.Alfheimr is in the sky. The alfar inhabit it.Subjectively, from the perspective of the humans, the sky appears as if the shape of a dome. The base of this hemisphere is the horizon all around. Its arch is the starry constellations, vaulting over from horizon to horizon. Daylight, sun, and moon glide over this dome from horizon to horizon. Clouds fill this dome. The floor beneath the dome is the surface of the earth and the sea, round and flat like a disk within the horizon.The nickname alfar of ‘light’ also corresponds to the luminosity of where the alfar dwell. The sky is luminous. In Sæmundar Edda, the poem Alvíssmál has the alfar nickname the sky ‘beautiful roof’ (fagra-ræfr). The Old Norse term ‘beautiful’ (fagr) extends to mean ‘luminous’. The alfar dwell at the ‘roof’ of the sky, across the hemispheric surface. For them high above the clouds, the weather is always ‘beautiful’, cloudless and bright, be it blue daylight or glittering starlight.Relatedly, in the poem Skirnismál, Freyr the vanir spirit of fertile weather calls the sun by its nickname ‘radiance of elves’ (alfa-rǫdull). The light of the sun is an aspect of the light of the alfar. The sun glides over the roof of the sky, where the alfar dwell. In the poem Alvíssmál, the alfar call the sun by the nickname ‘beautiful wheel’ (fagra-hvél), suggesting the alfar travel with the brightly beautiful sun across sky.The sky has three layers: ‘sky’, above it is ‘length of breath’, and above it is ‘the wide dark luster’. The alfar inhabit the highest two layers.The term ‘sky’ (himinn) can refer to the sky generally, or can specifically refer to the first and lowest layer of the sky. This layer forms the dome-shape core of the sky. It is the hazy air of the lower atmosphere where clouds appear and disappear, from fluffy cumulus clouds rolling across the cloud level across the base of the dome, to wispy cirrus clouds that contour the vault of the dome of the sky.Note, below the ‘sky’, the space between the earth and the cloud level is called the ‘weather’ (veðr), especially characterized by winds, but also snow, rains, and sunbeams. Together the ‘sky’ above the cloud level and ‘weather’ below the cloud level correspond to what meteorologists today call the troposphere.Above this first layer of the sky is the second layer of the sky called ‘length of breath’ (and-langr). The ‘breath’ reaches higher beyond the cirrus clouds. This second layer corresponds to the ether, the cloudless pure air of the upper atmosphere. The term ǫnd (and-) means ‘breath’, ‘spirit’, and ‘ether’ of the sky. This layer of ether appears as if it envelops the dome of clouds, as a kind of dome-shape shell. The ‘length of breath’ corresponds meteorologically to the bright stratosphere and the faintly luminous mesosphere above it.  These levels of the atmosphere become luminous because they refract and scatter solar light, thus forming the ubiquitous ‘light of day’ (dags-ljós).The third and highest layer of the sky is ‘the wide dark luster’ (við-blá-inn). Sometimes, it is translated ‘the wide blue’, but here the Old Norse term (-blá-) denotes a very dark lustrous color. This is the layer of the sky that is beyond the mesosphere. The sun and stars travel thru it. In other words, the wide dark luster corresponds to what we today understand as empty space, within which the lustrous celestial phenomena drift. Where the earth is now was once a primordial emptiness, called the ‘gaping of delusion’ (ginnunga-gap). Possibly, this delusion refers to the ephemeral quality of reality itself. ‘The sky of the gaping delusion’ (ginnunga-gap-himinn) was the primordial emptiness above. This emptiness now corresponds to ‘the wide dark luster’. From the perspective of Norse animists, the third layer of the sky is a great wide expanse of outer space.Compare the layers of the sky to descriptions of the sky in the poem Grímnismál and the prose Gylfaginning. The sky dome spirit, Óðinn, shapes the sky out of a skull to form a dome. The clouds are the brain inside it. Accordingly, the clouds equate the first layer of ‘sky’, the dome-shape brain that fills the sky. The dome-shape shell around the brain equates the second layer of the sky, length of breath. Finally, the empty space that is beyond the skull is the third layer of the sky.Also compare the lowest layer of the sky to the description in Gylfaginning, regarding the cosmic tree, Yggdrasill. This tree is the first layer of the sky. The wood of this tree is the air itself. Its branches spread outward to fill the sky. The tree is understood as an ‘ash tree’ because the branches of this kind of tree spread out in the shape of a dome. Clouds are ‘white clay’ (hvíta auri) that the fates fling across the tree to keep it healthy. The wispy cirrus clouds are the highest and outer most branches, forming the dome of cloud patterns. The trunk of this tree grows up from Ásgarðr, at the center of the cosmos where the sky meets the earth. A wind spirit, called ‘pale of weather’ (Veðr-fǫlnir), shapeshifts into a giant eagle, who sits in the ‘branches’ of the atmosphere, and forming the overcast clouds whose wings flap windstorms.The three layers of the sky are: • first, clouds filling a dome • second, ether forming a dome-shape shell containing the clouds• third, outer space where celestial objects traveling over the vault of etherAlfheimr is in the sky. Specifically, it is located at ‘roof’ of the sky, relating to the second layer of the sky, the pure ether of the upper atmosphere. In Alfheimr, no clouds obscure the vision of the ‘roof’. The sun rides over the top of this roof.Possibly, Alfheimr is the sun itself. If so, it is in this sense, the sun is called the ‘radiance of elf’. The alfar of Norse traditions (Proto-Norse *albʰaz) being artisan spirits who associate with the sun, are possibly cognate with the arbhu of Hindu traditions (ɽbʱu) being likewise artisan spirits who associate with the sun, and who inhabit the rays of the sun. If alfar and arbhu are cognates, the term alfar would relate to ‘labor’, in the sense of the work and skill of an artisan. Some traditions have the arbhu dwell in the starlight and in the winds of the sky. If Alfheimr is the sun, then the alfar would seem mainly active during the day while the sun is up. Oppositely, the dvergar are mainly active during the night while the sun is down. Yet in the poem Vǫluspá and in the prose Gylfaginning, in the future days of the ‘reckoning of the rulers’ (ragnar-rǫk), the sun will cease to exist, while a new young sun emerges from it. The alfar seem undistressed the loss of the sun, thus corroborating the alfar as being the light of the sun, rather than the round object of the sun itself. This coheres with the Hindu arbhu identifying with the sunlight as distinct from the sun.In any case, the alfar identify with the ‘light’ (ljós) of the sun. This sunlight extends from the ‘radiance’ (rǫdull) of the sun to the sunrays, including the solar corona that is easily seen during an eclipse, and the aura that illuminates the ice crystals of the level of upper clouds forming a halo of light around the sun, plus the sunbeams shining down thru the clouds and onto the earth. The concept of direct hot sunlight is distinct from the concept of ubiquitous cool daylight. The alfar associate with the vanir Freyr, the spirit of sex and sunshine, rather than with the æsir Baldr, the spirit of truth and daylight.Like the sun, alfar themselves radiate an aura of sunlight. Alfheimr inhabit the luminous upper places of the sky, namely the layers called length of breath and the wide dark luster. Alfheimr is at the roof, length of breath. An other location called Gimlé is in the wide dark luster. The Old Norse term ‘beautiful’ (fagr) also denotes bright luminosity, thus the poem Vǫluspá describes Gimlé as ‘more beautiful than sun’ (sólu fegra). The prose Gylfaginning takes this word ‘beautiful’ to mean, Gimlé is ‘brighter than the sun’ (bjartari en sólin). The sun is the brightest phenomenon that the humans observe in this world. A light that is brighter than the sun is an otherworldly light. Where the prose Gylfaginning describes the alfar as ‘more beautiful than the sun’, it understands this to mean, the alfar shine a brilliant otherworldly light. The ‘alfar of light’ are nature spirits of light, whose beauty actually shines. Likewise they inhabit places of light.Alfheimr is the location of the government of the alfar. This place is observable as sunlight. Yet the alfar themselves radiate light that is even brighter than the sun.</blockquote>

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