The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs Quotes

“Other motifs suggest that Aubéron is the manifestation of a deity. He has command over animals and knows the secrets of heaven, which is to say the otherworld. He can read what is in the hearts of men and knows the past—he is five hundred years old, after all—and the future; he knows everything about Huon and overlooks nothing that is done or said in the world. This final detail accentuates the solar character of the little king of Faery. In fact, according to an extremely archaic myth, this kind of knowledge is the prerogative of the Sun God and is explained by his tireless course of this celestial body around the earth, during which the sun can see and hear everything.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“It so happens that Aubéron is an elf, which is to say a creature that is etymologically connected with water. We are therefore able to say this: the dwarf is an ill-intentioned “twisted creature”; the elf/sprite is beneficial and beautiful. But “elf ” and “sprite” were supplanted by the term “dwarf” and would no longer be used except in texts depicting fantastic, aquatic personages.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“What are the relations that exist between Aubéron, the various Alberîchs, the elves, and the sprites? They are all aquatic creatures, even if the poets in the German-speaking realm no longer knew this—as from early on they consistently conflated dwarfs with elves.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“From the moment they meet, Aubéron demands and forbids, in exchange for which he will lend his aid to the hero. It clearly involves a pact, behind which is visible one of the founding principles of the Germanic religion, the do ut des, the reciprocal exchange that governs the relations of men and gods.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Aubéron is an elf, not a dwarf, as can be deduced from the facts. This is made clear by his great beauty, his shining nature, his hostility to all lies, and his magical powers: Aubéron has mastered the art of charm and illusion and is capable of creating mirages. He rules over the elements and is able to unleash wind and rain as he pleases. This ability makes him similar to Thor, as Adam of Bremen describes this god (see here), and as he has survived in folk beliefs in which, at an older stage of his history, he had a connection to the elves. Aubéron therefore falls into the Third Function as defined by Dumézil.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“In fact, the fantasy traditions of medieval Great Britain generally tend to lend the color green to all creatures coming from the otherworld, as is perfectly illustrated by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a twelfth-century romance.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“This text contains a wealth of details, among which stand out the following: the kingdom is a land of play and pleasure, a beautiful country of rivers, green meadows, forests, and plains. A kind of darkness reigned there, as the sun did not shine on it directly; the days there were misty, and neither the moon nor the stars illuminated the nights. This mist is reminiscent of the name of the Nibelungen and of Montnuble, the castle of Aubéron according to Gandor of Brie. In this particular occasion, we have a summary description of these subterranean beings at our disposal, which also describes their mind-set and their food: They are small in size but possess immense qualities. They are yellow and have long hair. They eat a kind of milk-based broth flavored with saffron. Lies, fickleness, and infidelity are odious to them (this trait is strongly reminiscent of Aubéron).”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“the Welsh cleric Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) recorded in his Itinerarium Cambriae (Journey through Wales), which he wrote around 1191. From the mouth of an old priest named Eliodorus, he heard a story that was based on an adventure his informant had allegedly experienced: When he was twelve, Eliodorus met two little men the size of Pygmies, who invited him to follow them underground. He accompanied them to their kingdom and became friends with the son of their king. He was able to travel between this other world and our own with no difficulty. One day his mother asked him to bring a gift back with him so he stole a golden ball from the subterranean beings. They pursued him and took it back. After this incident, Eliodorus was never able to return to their world.40”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“In fact, Odin is not alone in having valkyries in his service. Analysis of the texts and of the attested valkyrie names reveals that these women can be sorted into three major groups: some are indisputably warriors and bear the names of fighters (“Battle,” “Force,” “Paralyzing,” etc.), others have “feminine”-sounding names, and the last group, which is the least numerous, has names associated with fate. 37 The goddess Freya has a right to half of those who die on the battlefield (valr), while the other half are reserved for Odin; furthermore, this goddess is also a swan maiden. I should add that because of the theme of transformation into swans, water is also closely associated with these mythological legends. We are still evolving in the same great complex of representations: elves/water–death–life–Third Function. One final detail we may point out: the valkyries do not shun the love of men (cf. Brynhildr, who disobeys Odin on account of her love for Helgi), and a very ancient belief, which we see crop up more recently in the writings of Paracelsus, is that water sprites are the closest of such elemental spirits to humans and the most apt to form unions with them.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“One final point deserves to be made. Like Odin and Freya, Thor is awarded a certain portion of the dead; the Hárbarzlióð (Lay of Hárbarð) informs us that Thor’s portion consisted of “thralls.” With great astuteness, Jan de Vries suggests that the anonymous poet of the lay substituted this term for an undoubtedly less ignominious notion, which was probably “free farmers” (bœndr).33 This takes us to a fairly balanced whole: Odin and Freya gathered the warriors fallen in battle; Thor and Freyr received the free farmers, and Hel received the “neutral” dead.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“if we accept Franz Rolf Schröder’s analysis, confirms that Völundr is the manifestation of an ancient god. This theory is viable because Germanic mythology provides us with other examples of this kind of reduction in status. Þjazi, a very ancient god of the North, became a giant, and Skadi, eponymous ancestor of Scandinavia, became nothing more than a telluric giantess bearing a male name.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Caesar also writes, in this brief mention he gives of the ancient Germans in The Gallic War (VI, 21, 2): They count among the gods only those whom they see and whose benefits they openly tangibly feel—namely, the Sun, Vulcan, and the Moon.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“In a very extensive etymological study based on solid arguments, Franz Rolf Schröder was able to reasonably show that the figure of Wayland was related to the Roman Volcanus, to the Cretan Zeus Felchanos, the Etruscan Velchans, and the Iranian Ossetian Wärgon.28 He must have been a smith god before being reduced to the status of a mere human.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Ólaf Gudrødsson met the criteria just outlined above, so after his burial beneath a mound in Geirstad he was given the nickname “the Elf of Geirstad.” Halfdan Hvitbeinn was buried in Skiringssal, where he was mourned as “the Elf with the Breastplate.”22 These testimonies help to clarify and explain how the elves became associated with a precise category of deceased individuals: both groups are acting within the domain of the Third Function.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Like the correspondence between the Latin words homo, “man,” and humus, “soil,” the dead are closely connected with the fertility of the soil, which causes a confusion between them and practically all the beings that can be described as land spirits or guardian spirits (vættir, landvættir). The dead have direct power over the fertility of the earth, among other things because they have command over the elements,19 or simply because they serve as an intermediary between men and gods, with whom they—now having returned to a sacred status themselves—are able to intercede on behalf of their family and clan. The good dead become fertile ground. Of course, all could be assimilated to elves, but several texts nevertheless show how the transition from a good, dead individual to an elf takes place. Those who are elevated to the status of elves, therefore minor divinities, are those dead whose lives were particularly exemplary or beneficial for their contemporaries.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Freyr is the embodiment of the Third Function: “He controls the rain and the shining of the sun,”—this brings Aubéron to mind—“and through them all bounty of the earth. It is good to invoke him for peace and abundance. He also determines men’s success in prosperity.”11In fact, the Njörðr–Freyr–Freya triad is the result of a process of polymorphism: Nerthus has “exploded” into three distinct deities, each of whom specializes in a specific domain within the same function. Njörðr is the patron of sailing and fishing, and Freya oversees love and pleasure. By placing the elves under Freyr’s aegis, the ancient mythographers, with Snorri Sturluson at the forefront, placed them in the sphere of fertility and fruitfulness. It is quite possible that at one time in their historical evolution, elves were gods in their own right. It is tempting to accept this hypothesis in view of the triadic expressions that insert them alongside the Æsir and the Vanir. There is a good example of this in the Eddic poem För Skírnis (Skírnir’s Journey), where we read: “I am not one of the elves, nor one of the Æsir, nor one of the shrewd Vanir.”12 But as gods, the elves would not have been singled out, and they would reflect a complex of notions centered on the Third Function—a complex that the Vanir would have absorbed.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“The term “elf” was well represented in personal names because the benevolent creature from whom people received their names became in some way a patron spirit, a guardian angel. During pagan times, the owner of a name like this was dedicated to the supernatural being it designated.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“In Germany, “elf” (alp, elbe) occurs but rarely in texts until the thirteenth century. After this time, the word was systematically employed as a synonym for “dwarf” (zwerc), or “nightmare” (mar). In England, “elf” (ælf, elf; pl. ylfe) was used until the beginning of the eleventh century. It then underwent the same evolution as its continental Germanic cognate and became commingled with all the other citizens of the lower mythology. In the Scandinavian countries, the elf (Old Norse álfr, pl. álfar) is practically always a simple dwarf (dvergr), and the same individual can alternately be called “elf ” and “dwarf,” which clearly shows that the poets of this time no longer knew that the two names should be applied to two different creatures.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Much more enigmatic and mysterious than the dwarfs, elves give the impression of being almost a decorative element in Germanic mythology. They are never described, and what they can do, what role they play, or what duty they perform can only be learned through deduction and cross-referencing. All evidence suggests that they belong to a very ancient stratum of the civilizations of the East and North, like the dwarfs, moreover, whom they supplanted. Everything indicates that elves figure in the mythology as vestiges of a remote past—a past most likely predating the first or second century AD,”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Gods are born, evolve, and die with men and their civilization; they welcome outsiders like Loki into their midst, whom they elevate to their rank, while discharging their obsolete ancestors from the pantheon because no one believes in them anymore, or else because they have been downgraded to the rank of spirits, genies, and even humans.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“I will say that Loki most certainly comes from folk traditions, and if he comes across as bewildering, it is precisely because of his marginal, hybrid nature, that of a figure between two worlds. His ambiguity is that of the beings of folk beliefs, that of the “savage mind” that has not yet been domesticated and systematized. Loki is the eruption of fantasy inside a pantheon that is organized and frozen, and in which each god has his function. He is an intruder that the gods cannot do without, despite his nasty tricks, for he shows imagination.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Although it cannot be proved one way or the other, we can, therefore, envision the dwarfs as a functional duplication of the Vanir, with the gods proper conserving what suits their image, and the dwarfs embodying what tarnishes their image, what is blameworthy and reprehensible. In this way the dwarfs clear the gods of less flattering traits, and they become a kind of hypostasis, having acquired almost complete independence. This hypothesis would have the undeniable merit of satisfactorily explaining the surprising proximity, if not to say kinship, of the dwarfs and the Vanir. I will add two more sets of complementary details: the dwarfs know the future, the Vanir are seers; the first group follows its own specific moral code, the second group is amoral.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“According to Régis Boyer: “All in all, clearly connected to the idea of the Vanir is a complex of representations in which water, magic, and death are inseparable.”55 It so happens that, as we have seen earlier, this same complex is also associated with the dwarfs. There is the element of water (which is prominent in the story of Andvari, the dwarf who evolved in the form of a pike), the magic (which emerges from the objects crafted by these creatures), and death (which is evident from their names and from the relationship between stones and dwarfs).”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“In terms of their activity and knowledge of magic, the dwarfs are comparable to the Vanir.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Dwarfs occupy an important place in mythology. However, there is one astonishing fact: they have no attachment to any deity, and this point deserves our full attention. No member of the Germanic pantheon is presented at the master of the dwarfs, and it has never been said that they were dependent on a god.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Norse mythology and the Western literatures recognize the dwarf as a skilled artisan and renowned smith. These creatures have crafted the most important objects owned by the gods: Thor’s hammer (Mjöllnir), Odin’s spear (Gungnir), Freyr’s boat (Skiðblaðnir), and Freya’s necklace (Brisingamen). In order to obtain this last object, Brisingamen, the goddess had to sleep with each of the four dwarfs that had made it. Dwarfs crafted the golden hair for Thor’s wife, Sif, and they forged the ring Draupnir and a boar with gold bristles (Gullinbursti). Each of these objects was endowed with magical properties, which strongly suggests that the dwarfs knew magic (although we should also note that smiths have always had the reputation of being part sorcerer, as Mircea Eliade has clearly shown50”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“First, we have the reputation of dwarfs as guardians of hidden treasures. Connect that to the fact that dwarfs inhabit tumuli, tombs from which archaeologists have unearthed a wealth of grave goods,45 and we will have a plausible explanation that reinforces two clues: the most recent tombs were topped by a memorial stone, and it may have been at the foot of that stone that the people of that era saw dwarfs. The second supporting detail is that tumuli were used for group burials, which could provide a good explanation why the texts situate dwarf populations beneath the mounds.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“Added to what we have just seen concerning the onomastics of dwarfs, this information confirms that, at a given time in their history, dwarfs were regarded as the dead and played the role of spirits or emissaries of the dead.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“The last group is fascinating, as it proves the collusion between the dwarfs and the deceased. The names are devoid of ambiguity: “Black One,” “Departed,” “Torpid,” “Dead One,” “Cadaver,” “He Who Enters the Tomb,” “Prepared for Burial,” “Cold One,” “Buried beneath the Cairn.”37 If we recall that in practically all latitudes the moon is the celestial body of the dead, we can include “Moonless Night” and “New Moon” in this group.38 Since death was regarded as a form of sleep, the name “Slumbering” also falls into this same domain. And wouldn’t “Ancestor”39 be the most revealing name concerning beliefs associated with the dead?”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms

“The second group refers to the character or physical aspect of the name: “Twisted/Shrunken,” “Puffed Up,” “Hoary” or “Blind,” “Tough,” “Of Unbending Will,” “Warrior,” and “Flowing” (this last one is most likely an example of antiphrasis).32 In the third group we find the names of dwarfs whose names suggest an artisanal activity or refer to it directly: “Adept with His Hands,” “Miller,” “Ironmonger,” “Filer.”33 The working of metals holds a major place here, and several dwarfs are quite simply named “Smith,” or metaphorically, for example, “He Who Sends Sparks Flying.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms