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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haldrik" data-source="post: 8085907" data-attributes="member: 6694221">[USER=6789608]@maceochaid[/USER]The Norse are more animistic. Jackson Crawford described the elves as less than the gods. But actually, they are equals. Elves and aesir are both nature spirits and personify specific features of the sky. (Regarding D&D, the aesir are more like archfey.)Altho mentioning Alfheim, he didnt mention that Alfheim is one of the places in the list of things that exist in the sky. This seems to be significant, when he contrasts the dvergar who live underground versus the alfar who live in the sky. It makes me ask if he didnt notice, or is too dependent on Non-Scandiavian commentators.Compare Shakespeare. Shakespeare only mentions the fairies in passing, sometimes as characters, sometimes as humans pretending to be fairies, sometimes in stray remarks. However, if one combs thru all of the works of Shakespeare to assemble all of these references to fairies, one assembles a surprisingly comprehensive presentation of the reallife beliefs about fairies in southern England during his era.Similarly, most Non-Scandinavians focus on the eddas, with regard to elves, but there are passing references across the prolific sagas.Some things are reasonably clear concerning the Norse concept of elves and dwarves.• Both elves and dwarves are personifications of fates. Possibly the giant norns are fates of the world, while elves and dwarves are fates of individuals.• Elves associate with a good fate where a person impacts many people, while dwarves associate with a bad fate where a person is inconsequential and impacts few people.• That said, occasionally an elf is cruel and a dwarf is helpful, again relating to the big picture of fate.• The term "elf" refers to a lucky influence for a fortunate fate, that is beneficial to a human.• (A similar English term "angel" can be specific or improper, but is usually a positive influence of miracle and beauty.)• The term "dark elf" or "black elf" is a nickname for an individual dwarf, who seems beneficial in some way.• In the sense that both elves and dwarves personify fates, they might be the related after all, even tho they are quite different from each other.• In the Voluspa, the list(s) of dwarf names were inserted later. If removed, the earlier text suggests, the dwarves created the human bodies out of wood, and the aesir brought these wooden statues to life. Thus the dwarves appear as shapers and makers. Meanwhile, since the creation refers to humans, there is no creation story for dwarves. There is an origin story for giants, aesir, humans, and corpses. But there is no origin story for vanir, elves, and possibly dwarves.• According to Viking Era Scandinavians, the dwarf is human sized. (Jackson Crawford seems off here.) Only the German dwarf Albrecht is described as short, called Alfrikr in Old Icelandic, and this dwarf comes in a context of stories about Germany, and this saga appears centuries after the Viking Era. Archeological images of dwarves in Sweden and Norway, show dwarves the same size as humans.• The dwarf petrifies in direct sunlight.• The dwarf is intelligent and knowledgeable.• The dwarf is strong, especially to hold things in place.• The dwarf makes magical items.• The dwarf tends to be antisocial and deathlike, presumably because they are features of stone and dont move.• The deathlike qualities relate to shamanic trances, whence dwarves are competent in shamanic forms of magic.• Dwarves can project outofbody and travel in the form of animals, like shamans can, but while lying still as rocks.• A name such "Gand-alf", means something like "helpful for shaman magic", referring to the shaman staff used in outofbody journeys, and to elves who are fatefully beneficial.• Dwarves live underground, and only come out at night.• Stray references to "children of the mist" might suggest mist in the sense of murkiness, being used to screen out the direct sunlight during daytime.• Dwarves live inside stones and mud. They associate with unusually shaped rocks. Possibly dwarves are the nature spirits associating with features that are inside stones, such as iron mineral deposits, crystal formations, layering of strata from different eons, and other kinds of mineral patterns. This can explain their association with crafting.• According to Viking Era Scandinavians, the elf is also human sized. (Also most "giant" jotuns are human sized, even if some individuals grow bigger.)• The elf associates with fate and powerful magic.• Elves master all arts of magic, including mind magic, shaman magic, magic item creation. A leader of the elven parliament is called a "songster" (Lodi), referring to warrior magic. The concepts suggest magic being used as methods of combat.• Elves are somewhat like "cupids", causing certain individuals to fall in love, and relating to future children and other fateful outcomes. One story has one elf causing an other elf to fall in love. This love-sick elf has fateful consequences.• Several stories mention elf and human having children, who are known to be powerful mages because of their elven parentage.• Elves are beautiful in a luminous way. (Contrast mountain giants who are beautiful in a dark-hair way.)• Elves are eternally youthful. One elf appeared elderly as the result of being cursed by an other elf.• Elves are luminous, with the light being appealing and gentle, relating to sunrays, the solar corona, and sunbeams.• Alfheim is in the sky, and associates with aspects of sunlight. In a passing reference, the elves hover in midair, presumably relating to sunbeams.• Elves have their own parliament to govern themselves.• Elves occasionally fly down from the sky, by taking the form of a bird, especially a swan.• Usually these elves live among sunbeams thru trees or gleams off of snow, before returning home to sky, but can live as if human among humans.• It is uncertain if a passing reference to "slither" refers to snowshoes (proto-skis) glancing of snow, or shapeshifting into a snake.• The scholar Alric Hall suggests almost all references to  dis and the nickname valkyrja are female elves, while the name "alfr" is always male.• The valkyrja who chooses when a war hero dies, relates to the aspect of a good fate of a good afterlife, when the breath moves skyward and the body decomposes earthward.• Elves are spirits. Some stories mention them materializing and dematerializing.So, while there remain things we would want to know, there is a reasonably useful sense of what the Scandinavian cultural heritage believed about elves and dwarves.</blockquote>

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