As
Elthindur and the Elves
Began
It seems now
that given my unique understanding of the happenings of time that I
should retell them for the benefits of my progeny. It happened so
long ago it seems, but I remember living it like it was brand
new. I was new to the world then, as were all the elves, and was
just beginning to feel out my surroundings and those I lived
with. We, the elves and I, were not of the same character that we
now are...
In the
beginning, we were of short stature and full of mischief.
There were those of us who wished well upon man and those of us who
wished ill. The elves of the former group, of which I consider
myself a member,
lived in the hills and meadows, upon the trees and leaves, and danced
in the grass when the dew was just forming in the morning. The
latter, which breathed sickness and pestilence upon man and his
animals, dwelt in the caves and undergrounds of the world. Mainly
we were concentrated in the area which mankind calls Europe, and there
mainly in the northern part.
It was a
joyous and carefree time then, and we had the beginnings of our culture
and our kings. We kept mainly to ourselves and passed our time
merry-making and mischief-making. We had weddings, feasts, and
dances where we played our music and danced our dances. The lucky
among the humans may sometimes have heard our singing and playing,
which they considered to have a melancholy tone. If they so
desired, some among us would venture out to teach a few among men to
play the fiddle as we. However, because our music was so
intoxicating, it was witnessed that once they began a melody, men could
not stop playing until someone cut the strings of their fiddles.
A
certain shock to humans, but quite ordinary to us, was the fact that
the elvish music makes certain inanimate objects dance and sway with
its melodies.
As time
crept on and we became more and more adventurous, some among us began
traveling to the places of men and settling. A few of our more
desirable abodes
were underneath their houses. Being of much smaller size than
they, we had no problem with the space. However, when living
amongst men we began to see how filthy they were. There were,
however,
those among us who wished to reward the clean and tidy. I
remember an incident with a certain servant girl. I and some
others were living beneath the house she served, and she became beloved
to us for her courtesies. She always took the foul water some
ways from the house for dumping, rather than pouring it off the
doorstep. I was preparing to wed one elf-girl, so I took it upon
myself to invite her to the wedding. Preceding the ceremony we
gave her many presents, among which was a healthy sum of gold. It
so happened that as I and my bride were walking the path there was a
piece of straw littering the way. I managed to step over the
straw without trouble, but my poor bride tripped on it and fell to the
ground. Our servant girl began laughing, so to save my bride from
embarrassment we banished the ceremony from her eyes. Elves have
that certain power to appear and disappear to whomever we choose.
As has been
relayed, we were generous to the cleanly, but some have been rather
vicious to the untidy. One of us at one point warned a dairymaid
who took care of a cow house we lived under to make better use of her
time and keep the place clean. As she brushed us off time and
again, the one of us who gave the warning spirited her up to the
hayloft so she could watch him slaughter the cattle.
Many more
run-ins with man occurred throughout the ages, but I will only relate
one more. There happened to be some of us who were extremely
mischievous. The elf-men would disguise themselves as old men
whenever they would go out and dance in the sun rays. There they
would await the coming of a man, and if he drew too near they would
open
their mouths and breathe sickness unto him. The elf-women of
these extremely mishievous few were in appearance like beautiful young
maids.
They preferred their dancing in the moonlight while they played their
stringed instruments. Here they have stolen many a young man and
spirited him off never to be seen by the likes of mankind again.
Those among us who prefered this type of mischief were known as the
Elle-people.
With these
many encounters with man came some very intriguing revelations.
It was noticed among us who were wise that certain men shared a closer
affinity to us than others. I came to realize that those among
mankind born on Sundays were able to see our manifestations much
more quickly and easily than any others. We also were able to
bestow
this power to those whom we loved, and also shared our great libraries
with these few. Within the elvish texts, if read correctly and
with pure intentions, lie the secrets of the future.
Here I will
end momentarily, as I have told many things of the first among the
elves. We have grown greatly since this time, and the world has
changed and been reborn many times as well. But fear not,
for I have had many adventures in many lives, and my eagerness to tell
you is only increased with your eagerness to learn...
Author's
Note: This is a story that I took from the Fairy Mythology
website. It is under the Scandanavian section, where the story is
titled Elves. My frametale is that of a very ancient elf whose
name is Elthindur. He has lived through all the ages of Elves
through many different lives and now wishes to retell his adventures,
since none among the elves is as unique as he. I chose this story
because it sounded like a good way to explain the very beginnings of
the classic elves. I am going to do a sort of timeline where I
take you through the chronology of elf stories, from the classic myths
and folktales up to the images of elves as we now have. I have
taken the original story, which reads like an essay, and turned it into
a first person storytelling. I also have taken all the seperate
stories in the original story and made them all relate to each other,
as well as significantly lengthening parts of the original. The
most important thing I want you to remember with this story is that it
is an account of the elves of Europe in accordance with Scandinavian
ancestry. These are NOT the elves that appear in The Lord of The
Rings trilogy. They are not the tall, slender, blonde haired
elves that wage ware against ogres, trolls, and goblins. This
type of elf is more of a fairy creature that is much smaller than a
human.
Bibliography:
"Elves"
By Thomas Keightley (1870)
Weblink: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/tfm017.htm
(The Fairy Mythology)