Modern stories about Santa Claus often include elves making toys in Santa’s workshop. In English speaking cultures, the small creatures, usually humanoid, with large pointy ears and pointy hats, wearing green and/or red clothing, living in the North Pole with Santa Claus, are the elves. Their history is rather interesting.
Medieval Europeans saw elves as dark and dangerous creatures. They are first mentioned in the Old English writing "Beowulf," which dates to sometime around 900 AD. It records that elves are an evil race that descended from Cain, the biblical son of Adam and Eve who murdered his brother, "Of Cain awoke all that woful breed, Etins and elves and evil-spirits, as well as the giants that warred with God."
The Old English term was oelf. Probably derived from the ancient Norse mythological creatures named alfar, who are spirits with the gods. They are included with the huldufolk (hidden peoples) who look human and live as human but invisible in a parallel world. The Nordic elves were small lively creatures, most often mischievous.
Throughout history, in various tales, elves alternated between being good and bad creatures. They could deliver babies safely through a difficult labor or steal away a human baby and replace it with a sickly and deformed changeling. But by William Shakespeare's day (1565-1616) elves lost many of their malevolent traces. In Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," there was an elflike figure, Puck, who acted as a jokester.
Elves became linked with Santa Claus in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known today as "The Night Before Christmas." It refers to Santa Claus as a "jolly old elf." In 1857, Harper's Weekly published a poem called "The Wonders of Santa Claus," which tells how Santa “Keeps a great many elves at work/ All working with all their might/ To make a million of pretty things/ Cakes, sugar-plums, and toys/ To fill the stockings, hung up you know/ By the little girls and boys." The image of the elves in the workshop was popularized by Godey’s Lady’s Book (1873), with a front cover illustration showing Santa surrounded by toys and elves with the caption "Here we have an idea of the preparations that are made to supply the young folks with toys at Christmas time".
In 1922, Norman Rockwell released a painting of an exhausted Santa surrounded by tiny, industrious elves, trying to get a dollhouse finished in time for Christmas. A 1932 short movie by Disney called “Santa’s Workshop” had bearded, blue-clad elves singing, prepping Santa's sleigh, brushing reindeer teeth, and helping Santa with the list of presents.
In more recent movies like The Santa Claus (with Tim Allen in 1994) and The Christmas Chronicles (with Kurt Russell in 2018) the roles of elves have expanded to include functioning as police and air forces protecting the North Pole and operating as Santa's secret service agents.
.....
An elf is rarely a solitary figure. They usually work in teams which is why a plural form of elf has been elfs or elves. In English, the word plural form of elf has most often followed the example set by many other nouns that end in an “f,” that converts to a “v” when the noun is pluralized: shelf becomes shelves; scarf (usually) scarves; wolf and calf convert to wolves and calves. We talk of the leaves on the trees, a den of thieves, two halves making a whole. There are also those nouns that end in “fe” as wife and knife become wives and knives. Although we have briefs, beliefs, roofs, and reliefs, which don’t follow the conversion.
When I was younger TV ads showed elves baking cookies for The Keebler Company. The latest installment of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings stories, Rings of Power (2022), continues the story of the race of Elves interacting with dwarves, humans, wizards, and other powers.
For both young and old, elves continue to remain best known in connection to the Christmas stories of Santa Claus. The elves lend a playful and joyful touch to the Christmas season, even if they were not at the manger scene in Bethlehem . . . as far as we know. Merry Christmas!
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com . Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
