It is believed to be a fabulous people from Celtic and Germanic-Scandinavian folklore. In Scandinavian mythology, they are also called alves, and in Celtic mythology - Sids. Elves are persistent characters in fairy tales and fantasy works and are most often viewed as spirits.
The origin of the name "elves"
In Germanic languages there is a group of similar words to "elf": Danish name "elv", Anglo-Saxon "aelf", Swedish "alv", Norwegian "alv" and Icelandic "alf-ur", which speaks of a single root, and therefore, about the former unity of ideas about elves among the ancestors of all modern German-Scandinavian peoples. Some researchers associate the word "elf" with the Romanesque root "alb" - "white", there is also an opinion that it comes from the Welsh or Irish "elly" / "ailli" - "shining", going back to the Sumerian "ellu" - also " shining. " Indeed, the elves of early legends were distinguished by their radiance. Apsaras from Indian mythology are also similar to the elves in the radiance emanating from them.
Elves - light spirits of nature in Germanic and Scandinavian mythology
In German-Scandinavian mythology, there are two types of alves: 1) white, light and kind and 2) dark, gloomy and cunning dwarfs. The first type, according to most researchers of folklore, is the real elves. And the second type - ministers or gnomes who have nothing to do with them. Light elves or elves were considered sages and wizards who trained the first wise men. They were skilled in poetry, music, and many crafts. Elves lived in Alfheim (the land of elves) and served the gods - the aesir. They were more beautiful than the sun in their appearance. In English, Swedish, Norse folklore and modern culture, elves began to relate to the spirits of nature who inhabited the air, land, mountains, forests and dwellings.
According to Anglo-Saxon legends, part of the Scandinavian Valkyries descended from the light elves. Valkyries were considered immortal maidens of wonderful beauty with golden hair, dazzling blue eyes and snow-white skin. The Oxford professor of the Anglo-Saxon language J. R. R. Tolkien, who judged them on the basis of Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic mythology, portrayed the elves approximately the same way. He attributed elves to an ancient race and believed that they were perfect in face and body. There were no ugly elves, in his opinion, because they were created without flaws. Elven eyes are large, always of pure colors, usually gray and heavenly, rarely green.
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Elves are the spirits of the "Fairy Land" in Irish folklore
In Celtic mythology, elves are called the magical people (essentially the same spirits) who lived in the hills - the Sids, and in early myths was known as "Sids". Their ruler was Queen Medb, a tall, slender beauty with bright blue eyes and long blond hair. A wide robe of the finest white silk developed behind her. The man who had met Medb was soon dying of amorous yearning.
Other elves were also very tall, and their beauty could immediately "blind" a mere mortal. With one touch of the hand, they took away the will and reason from a person. A man who accidentally wandered into their lands (they were always men), the elves, as a rule, turned into their slave. If the unfortunate man nevertheless managed to escape and get home, his reason never returned to him. Sometimes former captives of elves became prophets or healers, acquiring the ability to foresee the future or to heal people.
Despite this, there are many plots in Irish mythology in which mortals and elves vied with each other, and people entered their world for the purpose of matchmaking or in order to obtain wonderful objects. There are also legends and historical evidence (and not only in Ireland) about marriages between elves, fairies and people, for example, Beckum the White-skinned with the King of Ireland Equestrian of the Hundred Battles - and about the birth of children from them.
Mythological and historical elves
According to "Education in the Houses of Two Cups", "The Taking of the Seeds" and other Irish sagas, the gods and goddesses of the Tribe, goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann), who lived earlier in Ireland, Wales and in northern France, began to be called Sids, and then elves after their defeat from the Sons of Mile of Spain (approximately 1700-700 BC). According to one of the versions of the saga "Education in the Houses of Two Cups" (there are only five of them), the country was divided into two parts by Amorgen - the poet and sage of the Goidels (the people to which the sons of Mil belonged), so that the Tribe of the goddess Dan got the lower one, underworld. The mythological elves began to live in it.
The Sids were not the only place where, according to legend, the Tribe of the goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann) left after being defeated by the Sons of Mil. The Irish sagas also say that the people of the Tribe of the goddess Danu sailed across the sea and settled on the mysterious islands - Brendan, Blessed, Yablonev. A fragment from the saga "The Adventures of Art, Son of Connes" can serve as a reference point for the location of the new homeland of Tuatha de Danann. The tribe of the goddess Danu, who gathered for a council in the Promised Land because of Beckuma the White-skinned (daughter of Eogan Inbir), who committed adultery, exiles her to Ireland: “So, she was expelled from the other side of the sea space and the great abyss; and it was sent to Ireland, for the Tribe of the goddess Danu hated the Sons of Mil after they were expelled from Ireland.
In the saga "The Disappearance of Kondla the Beautiful, son of the Kond of the Hundred Battles", approximately the same location of the country where the elves settled is indicated. The elf who seduced Kondla sang to him:
This mythical land of elves was located across the sea, probably where the sun sets, that is, in America. Thus, after being defeated by the Sons of Mile, men and women of the Tribe of the goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann) were pushed back to the periphery of the developed space - beyond the sea, to the islands, into the bowels of the hills, which was called the "Magic Land". And they themselves began to be called elves.
Elves - gods and goddesses of the Tribe of the Goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann), who lived in the North
As follows from the foregoing, those who lived in Ireland, Iceland, Britain and other parts of the world, at least from the X millennium to 1700-700. BC. gods and goddesses of the Tribe of the goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann), in essence, were historical elves (the prototype of mythological elves from the Other World).
The elves were tall, perfectly built, forever young and beautiful young men and women with very fair skin, delicate features, blue, gray and green eyes, long golden hair, which, with their impeccable beauty, could drive ordinary mortals crazy. Elves were forever young and did not die of old age, which indicates a very long duration of their life, for example, the god Danda and the goddess Banba lived for more than 3,000 years, and according to some sources, even more than 10,000 years. They could only die an unnatural death.
Unlike their predecessors (except the Fomorians and Fir Bolg) and their successors, the Sons of Mil, the elves possessed secret magical knowledge and possessed the secrets of witchcraft. They were the greatest sorcerers who trained the early druids. Elves could revive the dead. One of the most important features of this people was their wonderful magical ability to change shape, appearance and size. They could transform into animals, birds, fish (horses, wolves, cows, swans, ravens, eels, etc.), as well as into various elements of nature.
Elves were not only the greatest sorcerers, but also scientists who taught the first druids, perfectly comprehended the laws of nature and knew how to control it. They had a comprehensive knowledge of the healing and energetic properties of plants and used them to heal various diseases, mortal wounds and when casting spells.
Elves were also highly skilled artisans and musicians, warriors and poets, and their weapons were considered the finest and most modern. Women enjoyed almost the same civil rights as men and took an active part in all male affairs, even in war. Often they acted as envoys in negotiations between the warring parties, and also sat on councils at the conclusion of peace.
Elves had the custom of raising children on the side, either as a "pledge of friendship" or for a fee - for pedagogical purposes and to strengthen their character. Boys remained in education until seventeen, girls - up to fourteen. The responsibilities of adoptive parents were widely understood. A close bond between dairy or stepbrothers was established for life, sometimes stronger and deeper than blood relationship.
Elves are a divine race of immortals and sorcerers
As follows from the Irish (and Welsh) and to a lesser extent from the German-Scandinavian legends, elves were a divine race of wizards and sorcerers, endowed with longevity or immortality, magical abilities and similar to the most beautiful people, only many times more beautiful. It is no coincidence that they have always been opposed to humans and referred to beings between mythical supermen and demigods, divine demons or fallen angels.
In the story of Tuan MacKairil from the Book of the Brown Cow, written about 1100, it is said that no one knows where the Tuatha de Danann came to Ireland from, but that “they seem to have come from heaven, as evidenced by their intelligence and perfection of their knowledge. " According to one of the versions (apparently the earliest) of the "Battle of Mag Tuired", the Tuatha de Danann reached Ireland on dark clouds directly through the air, landed on Mount Konmeikne Rhine and covered the face of the sun with darkness for three days.
Elves in Altai, Mongolia and China
Ireland, Wales, Northern France are far from the only places in which elves lived. The divine people, described by Herodotus in the "History" as Tuatha de Anu or "royal Scythians", similar to the Tribe of the goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann) lived in Altai, and probably in Mongolia and northern China in the II millennium BC … Probably, these were the same elves who were distinguished by their tall stature and "unearthly appearance", who could turn into vultures; their foremother was the Great Goddess - "The Lady of the Scythians".
In Altai, the deceased (or perished) representatives of the "royal Scythians" survived - however, it is not entirely clear whether they belonged to this divine people, or, as studies of the DNA of mummies showed, most of the deceased (or perished) were their mortal descendants - heroes. Especially many of their graves were found on the Ukok high plateau. In the graves of the 1st-2nd millennia BC. a large number of figures and images of eared griffins guarding gold were found.
The most important find, made in 1993, is a perfectly preserved mummy, about 3 thousand years old, “Princess Kadyn” - a Scythian woman whose appearance is very different from the races and nationalities that now live and lived in ancient times in Altai. On the left shoulder of the mummy there is a sacred sign - the so-called "Altai griffin", in connection with which some researchers "christened" her the Great Goddess (Priestess, Foremother or Lady of the Scythians). According to ancient Altai legends, the Great Goddess was the progenitor of the human race. One of them says that on the high-mountain plateau Ukok in Altai, at the foot of the great mountains Tabyn-Bogdo-Ola, there is a mountain world, "the second layer of heaven", inhabited by the sons of heaven. It was here that, many millennia ago, creatures (elves) with supernatural powers lived.
Elves in Europe, Russia, Sumeria, Egypt, India and other places on Earth
Elves used to inhabit other areas of the Earth. So, Herodotus mentioned in his "History" about the seizure by the Phoenicians of the Danaan sanctuary of the White Goddess Io in Argos - the then religious center of the Peloponnese. But the White Boninya and the goddess Danu are one and the same, and the latter, as you remember, was the people or gods of the Tribe of the goddess Danu (Tuatha de Danann). Ward Rosenford, in his book Druids, notes a clear parallel between the Irish goddess Danu and the Mediterranean goddess Diana, who is the queen of the fairies in Italian mythology. In Slavic mythology, there is also the goddess Dana ("Mother of Water" or "Water-Mother"); in addition, there is a widespread idea of the Danube as the "Mother of the Rivers", the source of abundance, the border of the human world and the other world. The name of the Don rivers in Russia and Scotland is also associated with the name of Dan.
Great elven civilization
Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that the people of gods, demigods, wizards and sorcerers, which were called the Gandhars, apsaras, the tribe of the goddess Danu, Tuatha de Danann, Tuatha de Anu, royal Scythians, Valkyries, alves and other names, simply put, elves - was quite widespread on the planet in different places and at different times. Its number may have even been comparable to the number of people. This means that elves could be a whole race and even a civilization of aliens who lived in parallel with other humanoid creatures and people. Moreover, according to the Indian, Irish, Slavic, Scandinavian epics and legends of many other peoples, all these creatures and people waged fierce wars with each other.
It follows that elven civilization is not a fantasy, but a historical reality. True, the historical elves were most likely different from the fantasy elves. In none of the Irish sagas there is information that they (the gods and goddesses of the tribe of the goddess Danu, Gandharvas and Apsaras) had long pointed ears, because this is how most of us imagine elves.