|
An elf (plural: ''elves'') is a type of supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore.〔Lass 1994, p. 205; Lindow 2002, p. 110; Hall 2007.〕 Reconstructing the early concept of an elf depends almost entirely on texts in Old English or relating to Norse mythology.〔Hall 2007.〕 Later evidence for elves appears in diverse sources such as medical texts, prayers, ballads, and folktales. Recent scholars have emphasised, in the words of Ármann Jakobsson, that : the time has come to resist reviewing information about ''álfar'' ''en masse'' and trying to impose generalizations on a tradition of a thousand years. Legends of ''álfar'' may have been constantly changing and were perhaps always heterogeneous so it might be argued that any particular source will only reflect the state of affairs at one given time.〔2006, 230-31; cf. Shippey 2005; Hall 2007, 16-17; Gunnell 2007.〕 However, some generalisations are possible. In medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, elves seem generally to have been thought of as a group of beings with magical powers and supernatural beauty, ambivalent towards everyday people and capable of either helping or hindering them. However, the precise character of beliefs in elves across the Germanic-speaking world has varied considerably across time, space, and different cultures. In Old Norse mythological texts, elves seem at least at times to be counted among the pagan gods; in medieval German texts they seem more consistently monstrous and harmful. Elves are prominently associated with sexual threats, seducing people and causing them harm. For example, a number of early modern ballads in the British Isles and Scandinavia, originating in the medieval period, describe human encounters with elves. In English literature of the Elizabethan era, elves became conflated with the fairies of Romance culture, so that the two terms began to be used interchangeably. German Romanticist writers were influenced by this notion of the 'elf', and reimported the English word ''elf'' in that context into the German language. In Scandinavia, probably through a process of euphemism, elves often came to be known as (or were conflated with) the beings called the huldra or huldufólk. Meanwhile, German folklore has tended to see the conflation of elves with dwarfs.〔Hall 2007, 32-33.〕 The "Christmas elves" of contemporary popular culture are of relatively recent tradition, popularized during the late nineteenth-century in the United States. Elves entered the twentieth-century high fantasy genre in the wake of works published by authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, for which, see Elf (Middle-earth). == Etymology == The English word ''elf'' is from the Old English word most often attested as ''ælf'' (whose plural would have been *''ælfe''). Although this word took a variety of forms in different Old English dialects, these converged on the form ''elf'' during the Middle English period.〔Hall 2007, 176-81.〕 During the Old English period, separate forms were used for female elves (such as ''ælfen'', putatively from common Germanic *''ɑlβ(i)innjō''), but during the Middle English period the word ''elf'' came routinely to include female beings.〔Hall 2007, 75-88, 157-66.〕 The main medieval Germanic cognates of ''elf'' are Old Norse ''alfr'', plural ''alfar'', and Old High German ''alp'', plural ''alpî'', ''elpî'' (alongside the feminine ''elbe'').〔Hall 2007, 5.〕 These words must come from Common Germanic, the ancestor-language of English, German, and the Scandinavian languages: the Common Germanic forms must have been *''ɑlβi-z'' and ''ɑlβɑ-z''.〔Hall 2007, 5, 176-77.〕 Germanic '' *ɑlβi-z~ *ɑlβɑ-z'' is generally agreed to be cognate with the Latin ''albus'' ('(matt) white'), Old Irish ''ailbhín'' (‘flock’); Albanian ''elb'' (‘barley’); and Germanic words for ‘swan’ such as Modern Icelandic ''álpt''. These all come from an Indo-European base '' *albh-'', and seem to be connected by whiteness. The Germanic word presumably originally meant 'white person', perhaps as a euphemism. Jakob Grimm thought that whiteness implied positive moral connotations, and, noting Snorri Sturluson's ''ljósálfar'', suggested that elves were divinities of light. This is not necessarily the case, however. For example, Alaric Hall, noting that the cognates suggest matt white, has instead tentatively suggested that later evidence associating both elves and whiteness with feminine beauty may indicate that it was this beauty that gave elves their name.〔Hall 2007, 54-55.〕 A completely different etymology, making ''elf'' cognate with the ''Rbhus'', semi-divine craftsmen in Indian mythology, was also suggested by Kuhn, in 1855.〔, "Zu diesen ṛbhu, alba.. stellt sich nun aber entschieden das ahd. alp, ags. älf, altn . âlfr"〕〔in ''K. Z.'', p.110, .〕 While still sometimes repeated, however, this idea is not widely accepted.〔Hall 2007, 54-55 fn. 1.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elf」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|