Elfin Around Greek Mythology

Elfin’ Around A world without fairy tales and folklore is a world drained of imagination. They started as a way for the Greeks to explain the unknown and teach others right from wrong. It continued in different parts of the world and evolved differently but overall introduced more imagination. Some mythology was added into religion and beliefs while some were stories that encaptured more “unrealistic beings.” As time went on, societies were established and more stories were shared and created. The mythology from Scandinavia laid the backbone to stories and creatures that progressed to fit into today’s culture. The stories were made in the Viking Age, 790 - 1100 CE, and introduced many mythical creatures one of them being elves (Groeneveld …show more content…
Through an examination of various elf stories from different religions, we can see the idea of elves being modified to fit civilization. The Scandinavian stories of mythical creatures were passed down through word of mouth until someone officially wrote them down to preserve them. This was done first by Snorri Sturluson who wrote The Prose Edda in 1220 CE (Groeneveld np). Sturluson “where dwell the peoples called Light-Elves; but the Dark-Elves dwell down in the earth, and they are unlike in appearance, but by far more unlike in nature” (Sturluson, 31). He then continued to write about their appearance saying the Light-Elves are “fairer to look upon than the sun” while the Dark-Elves are “blacker than pitch” (Sturluson, 31). This was thought to be of full Germanic background but it actually contained pieces of Christian beliefs. Sturluson was most likely to spertate the elves, since before his work they were of dual nature. The idea was seen through the use of a story. The story is about Gangleri who asks a higher figure about other …show more content…
There too they had two groupings of elves but in a different way, almost as different creatures. They had fairy-elves as well as regular elves known as “hidden folk.” They were said to resemble humans but reside in different areas, only becoming visible when they want to. Even though they were different from elves in the main area of Scandinavia they were also affected by the spread of Christianity. One story of their origin is that they were descendents of Adam and Eve. When Eve was too ashamed to show God, she hid them and God returned with making them hidden forever. This shows how the story of elves was twisted into a way for Christians to believe in them. Their true Pagan background was still shown through sometimes. In spite of humans being presumed to be Christian, it was said that the elves still worshipped Pagan Gods. Overtime elves faded from Norse paganism. This and the presumption of Christianity in humans reflects the slow process of Christianity coming into Iceland (Strom,