In Heathen Germanic culture, are elves and dwarves one and the same race of beings? They are clearly closely associated. Many dwarves have an ‘elf’ element to their names; Voluspa’s verse 12 lists Gandalfr (Wand-elf) and Vindalfr (Wind-elf) and in verse 16, one dwarf is simply named Alfr. Elves and dwarves are also seen together as the bearers of illness, as evidenced by the third and seventh Anglo-Saxon verse charms, ‘Against a Dwarf’ and ‘For the Water-elf Disease’ (as to what a ‘water-elf’ actually was, I will return to this later). – Anglo-Saxon Verse Charms, Maxims and Heroic Legends, Louis J. Rodrigues, Anglo- Saxon Books, Pinner, 1994 – In Gongu-Hrolfs saga, the dwarf Mondul also has power to heal: “I am so skilled in medicine that I can heal anyone – provided he has any chance at all of living – within three days. And I want to reveal to you that I am a dwarf who dwells in the earth, and as a dwarf I have magic powers both in healing and in fashioning things.” (1)
I have noticed that Havamal v. 143, describes Dainn as an elf and Dvalinn a dwarf. Yet both appear in the dwarf list preserved in Snorri’s Edda. Well, Dainn cannot be an elf and a dwarf, or can he? Yet this same verse is also evidence for the distinction between elves and dwarves, explaining that just as Othinn gave runes to the Gods, so Dainn gave them to the elves and Dvalinn gave runes to the dwarves.
This distinction is further evidenced by Snorri, who divides elves into light and dark elves. Snorri’s tells us “Ljosalfar eru fegri en sol synum en dokkalfar eru svartari en bik” – “Light-elves are fairer than the sun in appearance but dark-elves are blacker than pitch.” Snorri’s references to ‘Svartalfheim’, ‘Black-elf World’, suggest another category of beings. Many people nowadays take this to indicate that there are light-elves and dark-elves and black-elves and dwarves, making four categories. This misunderstanding is cleared up in a most excellent fashion by Paul Battles (1). He shows us that dwarves are clearly also known to Snorri as ‘svartalfar’, ‘black-elves’; in Gylfaginning, Othinn has Skirnir sent “i Svartalfheim til dverga nokkurra” – “to Black-elves’ World to certain dwarfs”. In Skaldskaparmal (2), we read “Loki … swore that he would get black-elves to make Sif a head of hair … Loki went to some dwarves called Ivaldi’s sons” and, at the risk of labouring the point, we later read “Then Odin sent Loki into the world of black-elves and he came across a dwarf named Andvari”. So, Snorri saw dwarves as black-elves and black-elves as dwarves. Yes, he had two names for the same beings. Are then dark-elves also to be taken as another name for dwarves? Jacob Grimm saw dark-elves as suggestive of dimness and dinginess but not downright black and saw dark and black elves as distinct beings even whilst admitting his interpretation of ‘black’ and ‘dark’ was contrary to Snorri’s unequivocal statement “… en dokkalfar eru svartari en bik.” Paul Battles naturally adopts a scholastic approach and in so doing he shows how such an approach can shine a light of clarity upon fanciful and wishful thinking.
As Havamal 143 shows, there does seem to be a clear difference between elves and dwarves, in spite of their association. Yet the more we look the more we find confusion. Dwarves in Norse sources are seen as smiths, yet Volundarkvitha, at verse 32 and elsewhere, describes the wonder-working smith as “visi alfa”, “leader of elves”.
Both races have an association with the dead. It has been suggested that the dwarf in Alvissmal is one of the living dead due to his being described in verse 2 as looking pale, Thorr asks if he has spent the night with a corpse. However, in the very next verse, Alvis seems to explain that his paleness is due to his living under the earth, under a rock. The dwarf names Nar (Corpse), Nain (Corpse), Dain (Dead), Thrar, Thrain, Haugspori (Howe-treader), are suggestive of the dead. The first three names listed in the previous sentence are not found in the Voluspa but in Snorri’s list that he appears to have taken from the version of Voluspa that he had before him. Dwarves and elves are associated in folklore with mounds that are often the funereal homes of aboriginal races. That the dead, elves and dwarves can all be shown to ‘live’ underground strengthens the association.
We should also remember that Freyr, who was given Alfheimr as a tooth-gift, thus became the lord of elves. He and his twin sister Freyja both have elf-like characteristics; they are very good-looking and have greatly to do with fertility and yet also with death. Sacrifice was made to the elves at the beginning of winter, a time also associated with the ancestors. A winter sacrifice of a boar was made to Freyr, for an abundant, peaceful year. The Vanir and the elves both have the same ruling family and similar functions. The euhemerised Freyr as Frothi, in Ynglinga saga chapter 10, continues to provide plentiful harvests after death from his grave mound. Could the Vanir not be the elves? Elves get to dine with the Gods in Aegir’s hall and seem to have status and to be allied to the Gods.
We learn more about dwarves in the Norse sources and not as much about elves. Anglo-Saxon writings provide a cluster of elf-compound words; waeteraelfe, wuduaelfe, dunaelfe, feldaelfe (water-, wood- dune- and field-elf respectively) but these words were only coined by English translators for the names of classical sprites, nymphs, dryads, muses and so forth, that the translators would have had no understanding of. We do not get any clearer idea of how elves were thought of. It cannot all have been of the negative, disease-causing type, else why are there so many Anglo-Saxon names with an ‘elf’ element such as Aelfthryth (a woman’s name), Aelfred and Aelfric (men’s names)?
In later folklore, the elves have become a subterranean mirror of our world, as in the Icelandic folktale “The Magistrate’s Wife of Burstarfell” (3). In dream, a man leads her to a rock which turns into a house when he walks around it three times, she goes in and later smears some ointment she is given (to put on the elf woman’s baby’s eyes) upon her own right eye;”… she was now able to see everything that happened in the earth as well as on it. Close to Burstarfell, there are said to be large rock formations and high cliffs. The magistrate’s wife saw that it was all quite different from what it appeared to be. It was all farms, houses, and large villages, filled with people who behaved just like anybody else, mowing, raking, and cultivating fields and meadows… she also noticed that these people used much more practical work methods and were much keener in forecasting the weather than ordinary people.” We see that they are still connected to the fertility of the land.
Paul Battles, at page 48 (1), sees the armathr there discussed, as a dwarf because he lives in a rock, yet the name armathr – ‘abundance-man’ – again suggests concern with the fertility of the land, more a concern of elves than dwarves.
Perhaps we assume too much in thinking that our forebears ever possessed a neat theology, where every being had its place, that became corrupted over time. In the preserved written lore, we see a legitimacy that may not have existed in other parts of the Germanic world, or at earlier periods of its cultural history. As with stories, we tend to think that there must have been an original ‘true’ version. But a mythology is not a theology. Mythology, until it gets frozen in writing, is local to varying degrees, alive and evolving in different directions in different places. It is not coherent to the logical mind. For example, Grimnismal v. 31 tell us Yggdrasil’s ash has three roots; Hel is under one, one is over the frost-giants and our world below the third. Snorri in his Edda also tells us the ash has three roots with one among the frost-giants and one in Hel’s realm in Niflheimr but that, contrary to Grimnismal, the other root is in heaven One wonders, logically, how can a root be up in the heavens when roots are in the earth? And how can a root in the sky have a spring under it? Yet both versions are true, true to the tradition of The World Tree. Perhaps though there is an underlying, unifying theme that can be sensed in the world of elves and dwarves. Chthonic beings often have to do with fertility and its perceived opposite, death. Are not light and dark elves two sides of the same coin, two aspects of the elves? We think of light elves as living in elevated worlds filled with light and beauty, and dwarves living in dark and dank subterranean worlds. Yet how do we get to either? By going underground. That is how a root can be in heaven. Forgive me, but it is a “route-root”! The world of elves and dwarves both open up in the landscape, either mounds, hills, caves or rocks; their worlds, whether light or dark, are below. Verily spoke the dwarf who whispered in our Drighten’s ear!
(1) Paul Battles, ‘Dwarfs in Germanic Literature’ in The Shadow-Walkers, edit. Tom Shippey, Brepols, 2005.
(2) ‘Edda’, Snorri Sturlusson trans. Anthony Faulkes, Everyman Classics, 1987, p.96.
(3) – Icelandic Folk and Fairy Tales, May and Hallberg Hallmundsson, Iceland Review Library, Reykjavik, 1987 p.18