Elfvor f.; and the words Elf-dans and Elf-blæst, together with Olof and other proper names, are derived from…
- Date of account
- Nineteenth-century comparative survey
- Source
- The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
- Reference
- The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries · selected passage 91
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with translated traditional material
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Elfvor f.; and the words Elf-dans and Elf-blæst, together with Olof and other proper names, are derived from them
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe Danes have _Elv_, pl. _Elve_; the Swedes, _Elf_ pl. _Elfvar_ m. _Elfvor_ f.; and the words _Elf-dans_ and _Elf-blæst_, together with _Olof_ and other proper names, are derived from them. The Germans call the nightmare _Alp_; and in their old poems we meet with _Elbe_ and _Elbinne_, and _Elbisch_ occurs in them in the bad sense of _elvish_ of Chaucer and our old romancers; and a number of proper names, such as Alprecht, Alphart, Alpinc, Alpwin,[104] were formed from it, undoubtedly before it got its present ill sense.[105] In the Anglo-Saxon, [Old English: Ælf], or [Old English: Ælfen], with its feminine and plural, frequently occurs. The Oreas, Naias, and Hamodryas of the Greeks and Romans are rendered in an Anglo-Saxon glossary by [Old English: Munt-ælfen], [Old English: sǽ-ælfen], and [Old English: feld-ælfen].[106] [Old English: Ælf] is a component part of the proper names Ælfred and Ælfric; and the author of the poem of Judith says that his heroine was [Old English: Ælf-seine] (_Elf-sheen_), bright or fair as an elf. But of the character and acts of the elfs no traditions have been preserved in Anglo-Saxon literature.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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