Chapter 17

Now what is the true meaning of the word albs, alp = genius? One is tempted indeed to compare the Lat. albus, which according to Festus the Sabines called alpus; alfoj (vitiligo, leprosy) agrees still better with the law of consonant-change. Probably then albs meant first of all a light-coloured, white, good spirit, (13) so that, when âlfar and dvergar are contrasted, the one signifies the white spirits, and other the black. This exactly agrees with the great beauty and brightness of âlfar. But the two classes of creatures getting, as we shall see, a good deal mixed up and confounded, recourse was had to composition, and the elves proper were named liosâlfar. (14)

The above-named döckâlfar (genii obscuri) require a counterpart, which is not found in the Eddic songs, but it is in Snorri's prose. He says, p. 21: 'In Alfheim dwells the nation of the liosâlfar (light elves), down in the earth dwell the döckâlfar (dark elves), the two unlike one another in their look and their powers, liosâlfar brighter than the sun, döckâlfar blacker than pitch.' The liosâlfar occupy the third space of heaven, Sn. 22. Another name which never occurs in the lays, and which at first right seems synonymous with döckâlfar, is svartâlfar (black elves); (15) and these Snorri evidently takes to be the same as dvergar, for his dvergar dwell in Svartâlfaheim, (Sn. 34. 130. 136). This is, for one thing, at variance with the separation of âlfar and dvergar in the lays, and more particularly with the difference implied between döckâlfar and dvergar in Sæm. 92b 188ª. That language of poetry, which everywhere else imparts such precise information about the old faith, I am not inclined to set aside here as vague and general. Nor, in connexion with this, ought we to overlook the nâir, the deadly pale or dead ghosts named by the side of the dvergar, Sæm. 92b, though again among the dvergar themselves occur the proper names Nâr and Nâinn.

Some have seen, in this antithesis of light and black elves, the same Dualism that other mythologies set up between spirits good and bad, friendly and hostile, heavenly and hellish, between angels of light and of darkness. But ought we not rather to assume three kinds of Norse genii, liosâlfar, döckâlfar, svartâlfar? No doubt I am thereby pronouncing Snorri's statement fallacious: 'döckâlfar eru svartari en bik (pitch).' Döckr (16) seems to me not so much downright black, as dim, dingy; not niger, but obscurus, fuscus, aquilus. In ON. the adj. iarpr [[jarpr - chestnut, reddish-brown]], AS. eorp, fuscus, seems to be used of dwarfs, Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 152; and the female name Irpa (p. 98) is akin to it. In that case the identity of dwarfs and black elves would hold good, and at the same time the Old Eddic distinction between dwarfs and dark elves be justified.

Such a Trilogy still wants decisive proof; but some facts can be brought in support of it. Pomeranian legend, to begin with, seems positively to divide subterraneans into white, brown, and black; (17) elsewhere popular belief contents itself with picturing dwarfs in gray clothing, in gray or brown cap-of-darkness; Scotch tradition in particular has its brownies, spirits of brown hue, i.e., döckâlfar rather than svartâlfar (see Suppl.). But here I have yet another name to bring in, which, as applied to such spirits, is not in extensive use. I have not met with it outside of the Vogtland and a part of East Thuringia. There the small elvish beings that travel especially in the train of Berchta, are called the heimchen (supra, p. 276); and the name is considered finer and nobler than querx or erdmännchen (Börner p. 52). It is hardly to be explained by any resemblance to chirping crickets, which are also called heimchen, OHG. heimili (Graff 4, 953); still less by heim (domus), for these wights are not home-spirits (domestici); besides, the correct spelling seems to be heinchen (Variscia 2, 101), so that one may connect it with 'Friend Hein,' the name for death, and the Low Sax. heinenkleed (winding-sheet, Strodtmann p. 84). (18) This notion of departed spirits, who appear in the 'furious host' in the retinue of former gods, and continue to lead a life of thier own, may go to support those nâir of the Edda; the pale hue may belong to them, and the gray, brown, black to the coarser but otherwise similar dwarfs. Such is my conjecture. In a hero-lay founded on thoroughtly German legend, that of Morolt, there appear precisely three troops of spirits, who take charge of the fallen in battle and of their souls: a white, a pale, and a black troop (p. 28b), which is explained to mean 'angels, kinsmen of the combatants coming up from hades, and devils.' No such warlike part is ever played by the Norse âlfar, not they, but the valkyrs have to do with battles; but the traditions may long have become tangled together, and the offices confounded. (19) The liosâlfar that dwell 'niðri î iörðu,' nay, the very same that in the Alvîsmâl are not expressly named, but designated by the words 'î heljo.' Or I can put it in this way: liosâlfar live in heaven, döckâlfar (and nâir?) in hel, the heathen hades, svartâlfar in Svartâlfaheim, which is never used in the same sense as hel (see Suppl.). The dusky elves are souls of dead men, as the younger poet supposed, or are we to separate döckâlfar and nâir? Both have their abode in the realms of hades, as the light ones have in those of heaven. Of no other elves has the Edda so much to tell as of the black, who have more dealings with mankind; svartâlfar are named in abundance, liosâlfar and döckâlfar but fitfully.

One thing we must not let go: the identity of svartâlfar and dvergar.

Dvergar, Goth. dvaírgs? AS. dweorg, OHG. tuerc, MHG. tverc, our zwerg, (20) answer to the Lat. nanus, Gr. nannoj (dwarf, puppet), Ital. nano, Span. enano, Portug. anao, Prov. nan, nant, Fr. nain, Mid. Nethl. also naen, Ferg. 2243-46-53-82. 3146-50, and nane, 3086-97; or Gr. pugmaioj. Beside the masc. forms just given, OHG. and MHG. frequently use the neut. form gituerc, getwerc, Nib. 98,1. 335, 3. MS. 2, 15ª. Wigal. 6080. 6591. Trist. 14242. 14515. daz wilde getwerc, Ecke 81. 82. Wh. 57, 25. Getwerc is used as a masc. in Eilhart 2881-7. Altd. bl. 1, 253-6-8; der twerk in Hoffm. fundgr. 237. Can qeourgoj (performing miraculous deeds, what the MHG. would call wunderære) have anything to do with it? As to meaning, the dwarfs resemble the Idæan Dactyls of the ancients, the Cabeiri and pataikoi: all or most of the dvergar in the Edda are cunning smiths (Sn. 34. 48. 130. 354). This seems the simplest explanation of their black sooty appearance, like that of the cyclopes. Their forges are placed in caves and mountains: Svartâlfheimr must therefore lie in a mountainous region, not in the abyss of hell. And our German folk-tales everywhere speak of the dwarfs as forging in the mountains: 'von golde wirkent si diu spœhen werc' says the Wartburg War of the getwerc Sinnels in Palakers, whereas elves and elfins have rather the business of weaving attributed to them. Thus, while dwarfs border on the smith-heroes and smith-gods (Wielant, Vulcan), the functions of elves approach those of fays and good-wives (see Suppl.). (21)

If there be any truth in this view of the matter, one can easily conceive how it might get altered and confused in the popular belief of a later time, when the new christian notions of angel and devil had been introduced. At bottom all elves, even the light ones, have some devil-like qualities, e.g. their loving to teaze men; but they are not therefore devils, not even the black ones, but often good-natured beings. It appears even that to these black elves in particular, i.e., mountain spirits, who in various ways came into contact with man, a distinct reverence was paid, a species of worship, traces of which lasted down to recent times. The clearest evidence of this is found in the Kormakssaga p. 216-8. The hill of the elves, like the altar of a god, is to be reddened with the blood of a slaughtered bull, and of the animal's flesh a feast prepared for the elves: 'Hôll einn er heðan skamt î brott, er âlfar bûa î (cave that elves dwell in); grâðûng þann, er Kormakr drap (bull that K. slew), skaltû fâ, ok riôða blôð grâðûngsins â hôlinn ûtan, en gera âlfum veizlu (make the elves a feast) af slâtrinu, ok mun þer batna.' An actual âlfabôt. With this I connect the superstitious custom of cooking food for angels, and setting it for them (Superst. no. 896). So there is a table covered and a pot of food placed for home-smiths and kobolds (Deut. sagen, no. 37. 38. 71); meat and drink for domina Abundia (supra, p. 286); money or bread deposited in the caves of subterraneans, in going past (Neocorus 1, 262. 560). (22) There are plants named after elves as well as after gods: alpranke, alpfranke, alfsranke, alpkraut (lonicera periclymen., solanum dulcam.), otherwise called geissblatt, in Denmark troldbär, in Sweden trullbär; dweorges dwosle, pulegium (Lye), Mone's authorities spell dwostle, 322ª; dvergeriis, acc. to Molbech's Dial. Lex. p. 86, the spartium scoparium. A latrina was called âlfrek, lit. genios fugans, Eyrb. saga, cap. 4 (see Suppl.).

Whereas man grows but slowly, not attaining his full stature till after his fifteenth year, and then living seventy years, and a giant can be as old as the hills; the dwarf is already grown up in the third year of his life, and a greybeard in the seventh; (23) the Elf-king is commonly described as old and white-bearded.

Accounts of the creation of dwarfs will be presented in chap. XIX.; but they only seem to refer to the earthly form of the black elves, not of the life.




ENDNOTES:

13. The word appears in the name of the snowclad mountains (alpes, see Suppl.), and that of the clear river (Albis, Elbe), while the ON. elf elfa [[river?]], Swed. elf, Dan. elv = fluvius, is still merely appellative; the ghostly elvish swan (OHG. alpiz, MHG. elbez, AS. ælfet, ON. alpt [[swan]], p. 429) can be explained both by its colour and its watery abode; likewise the Slav. labud, lebed, from Labe. Back

14. Vanir also may contain the notion of white, bright; consider the ON. vœnn [[fair to behold, beautiful]] (pulcher), the Ir. ban (albus), ben, bean (femina), Lat. Venus, Goth. qinô, AS. cwen. To this add, that the Ir. banshi, ban-sighe denotes an elvish being usually regarded as female, a fay. The same is expressed by sia, sighe alone, which is said to mean properly the twilight, the hour of spirits (see Suppl.). Back

15. Thorlac. spec. 7, p. 160, gives the liosâlfar another name hvitâlfar (white elves); I have not found the word in the old writings. Back

16. Conf. OHG. tunchal, MHG. tunkel (our dunkel), Nethl. donker. Back

17. E. M. Arndt's Märchen und Jugenderinnerungen, Berl. 1818, p. 159. In Phil. von Steinau's Volkssagen, Zeitz 1838, pp. 291-3, the same traditions are given, but only white and black (not brown) dwarfs are distinguished. Back

18. 'Heinenkleed is not conn. with Friend Hein, but means a hünenkleed (ch. XVIII.); conf. also the hünnerskes, and perhaps the haunken, or aunken in the Westph. sgönaunken.'---Extr. from Suppl. Back

19. The different races of elves contending for a corpse (Ir. Elfenm. 68). Back

20. In Lausitz and E. Thuringia querx, in Thüringerwald querlich. Jac. von Königshofen, p. 89, has querch. In Lower Saxony sometimes twârm, for twarg. Back

21. In Bretagne the korr, pl. korred answers to our elf, the korrigan to our elfin; and she too is described like a fay: she sits by the fountain, combing her hair, and whosever catches her doing so, must marry her at once, or die in three days (Villemarqué 1, 17). The Welsh cawr means a giant. Back

22. The Old Pruss. and Lith. parstuk (thumbkin) alsohas food placed for him, conf. Lasicz 54. The Lett. behrstuhki is said to mean a child's doll, Bergm. 145. Back

23. Emp. Ludwig the Bavarian (1347) writes contemptuously to Markgraf Carl of Moravia: 'Recollige, quia nondum venit hora, ut pigmei de Judea (l. India) statura cubica evolantes fortitudine gnauica (l. gnanica, i.e. nanica) terras gygantium detrahere debeant in ruinas, et ut pigmei, id est homines bicubitales, qui in anno tercio crescunt ad perfectam quantitatem et in septimo anno senescunt et moriuntur, imperent gygantibus.' Pelzel's Carl IV. 1 urk. p. 40. Conf. Böhmer's Font. 1, 227. 2, 570. Yet this description does not look to me quite German; the more the dwarfs are regarded as elves, there is accorded to them, and especially to elfins (as to the Greek oreads), a higher and semi-divine age; conf. the stories of changlings quoted further on. Laurîn, acc. to the poems, was more than 400 years old. Back