Editing Elf (section)

=== Medieval English-language sources ===

==== As causes of illnesses ====

The earliest surviving manuscripts mentioning elves in any Germanic language are from [[Anglo-Saxon England]]. Medieval English evidence has, therefore, attracted quite extensive research and debate.{{sfnp|Jolly|1996}}{{sfnp|Shippey|2005}}{{sfnp|Hall|2007}}{{sfnp|Green|2016}} In Old English, elves are most often mentioned in medical texts which attest to the belief that elves might afflict humans and [[livestock]] with illnesses: apparently mostly sharp, internal pains and mental disorders. The most famous of the medical texts is the [[Anglo-Saxon metrical charms|metrical charm]] ''[[Wið færstice]]'' ("against a stabbing pain"), from the tenth-century compilation ''[[Lacnunga]]'', but most of the attestations are in the tenth-century [[Bald's Leechbook|''Bald's Leechbook'' and ''Leechbook III'']]. This tradition continues into later English-language traditions too: elves continue to appear in Middle English medical texts.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{harvp|Hall|2007|pp=88–89, 141}}; {{harvp|Green|2003}}; {{harvp|Hall|2006}}.</ref>

Belief in elves as a cause of illnesses remained prominent in early modern Scotland, where elves were viewed as supernaturally powerful people who lived invisibly alongside everyday rural people.<ref>{{harvp|Henderson|Cowan|2001}}; {{harvp|Hall|2005}}.</ref> Thus, elves were often mentioned in the early modern Scottish witchcraft trials: many witnesses in the trials believed themselves to have been given healing powers or to know of people or animals made sick by elves.<ref name=purkiss/>{{sfnp|Hall|2007|p=112–15}} Throughout these sources, elves are sometimes associated with the [[succubus]]-like supernatural being called the [[Mare (folklore)|''mare'']].{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=124–26, 128–29, 136–37, 156}}

While they may have been thought to cause diseases with magical weapons, elves are more clearly associated in Old English with a kind of magic denoted by Old English ''sīden'' and ''sīdsa'', a cognate with the Old Norse ''[[seiðr]]'', and paralleled in the Old Irish ''[[Serglige Con Culainn]]''.{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=119–156}}{{sfnp|Tolley|2009|loc=vol. I, p. 221}} By the fourteenth century, they were also associated with the arcane practice of [[alchemy]].<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

==== "Elf-shot" ====

[[File:Eadwine Psalter f 66r detail of Christ and demons attacking psalmist.png|thumb|upright=0.8|right|The Eadwine Psalter, f. 66r. Detail: Christ and demons attacking the psalmist.]]

In one or two Old English medical texts, elves might be envisaged as inflicting illnesses with projectiles. In the twentieth century, scholars often labelled the illnesses elves caused as "[[elf-shot]]", but work from the 1990s onwards showed that the medieval evidence for elves' being thought to cause illnesses in this way is slender;{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=96–118}} debate about its significance is ongoing.{{sfnp|Tolley|2009|loc=vol. I, p. 220}}

The noun ''elf-shot'' is first attested in a [[Scots language|Scots]] poem, "Rowlis Cursing," from around 1500, where "elf schot" is listed among a range of curses to be inflicted on some chicken thieves.{{sfnp|Hall|2005|p=23}} The term may not always have denoted an actual projectile: ''shot'' could mean "a sharp pain". But in early modern Scotland, ''elf-schot'' and other terms like ''elf-arrowhead'' are sometimes used of [[Elf-arrow|neolithic arrow-heads]], apparently thought to have been made by elves. In a few witchcraft trials, people attested that these arrow-heads were used in healing rituals, and occasionally alleged that witches (and perhaps elves) used them to injure people and cattle.{{sfnp|Hall|2005}} A 1749–50 ode by [[William Collins (poet)|William Collins]] includes the lines:<ref name="Carlyle 1788">{{harvp|Carlyle|1788}}, i 68, stanza II. 1749 date of composition is given on p. 63.</ref>

{{Blockquote|<poem>
There every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,
Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.<ref name="Carlyle 1788"/></poem>}}

==== Size, appearance, and sexuality ====

Because of elves' association with illness, in the twentieth century, most scholars imagined that elves in the Anglo-Saxon tradition were small, invisible, demonic beings, causing illnesses with arrows. This was encouraged by the idea that "elf-shot" is depicted in the [[Eadwine Psalter]], in an image which became well known in this connection.<ref name=grattan&singer/> However, this is now thought to be a misunderstanding: the image proves to be a conventional illustration of God's arrows and Christian demons.{{sfnp|Jolly|1998}} Rather, twenty-first century scholarship suggests that Anglo-Saxon elves, like elves in Scandinavia or the Irish ''[[Aos Sí]]'', were regarded as people.<ref>{{harvp|Shippey|2005|pp=168–76}}; {{harvp|Hall|2007|loc=esp. pp. 172–75}}.</ref>
[[File:Beowulf - ylfe.jpg|thumb|"⁊ ylfe" ("and elves") in ''Beowulf'']]

Like words for gods and men, the word ''elf'' is used in personal names where words for monsters and demons are not.{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=55–62}} Just as ''álfar'' is associated with ''[[Æsir]]'' in Old Norse, the Old English ''Wið færstice'' associates elves with ''ēse''; whatever this word meant by the tenth century, etymologically it denoted pagan gods.{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=35–63}} In Old English, the plural {{lang|ang|ylfe}} (attested in ''Beowulf'') is grammatically an [[ethnonym]] (a word for an ethnic group), suggesting that elves were seen as people.<ref name=huld/><ref>{{harvp|Hall|2007|pp=62–63}}; {{harvp|Tolley|2009|loc=vol. I, p. 209}}</ref> As well as appearing in medical texts, the Old English word ''ælf'' and its feminine derivative ''ælbinne'' were used in [[Gloss (annotation)|glosses]] to translate Latin words for [[nymph]]s. This fits well with the word ''ælfscȳne'', which meant "elf-beautiful" and is attested describing the seductively beautiful Biblical heroines [[Sarah]] and [[Book of Judith|Judith]].{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=75–95}}

Likewise, in Middle English and early modern Scottish evidence, while still appearing as causes of harm and danger, elves appear clearly as humanlike beings.<ref>{{harvp|Hall|2007|pp=157–66}}; {{harvp|Shippey|2005|pp=172–76}}.</ref> They became associated with medieval chivalric romance traditions of [[fairy|fairies]] and particularly with the idea of a [[Fairy Queen]]. A propensity to seduce or rape people becomes increasingly prominent in the source material.<ref>{{harvp|Shippey|2005|pp=175–76}}; {{harvp|Hall|2007|pp=130–48}}; {{harvp|Green|2016|pp=76–109}}.</ref> Around the fifteenth century, evidence starts to appear for the belief that elves might steal human babies and replace them with [[changeling]]s.{{sfnp|Green|2016|pp=110–46}}

==== Decline in the use of the word ''elf'' ====

By the end of the medieval period, ''elf'' was increasingly being supplanted by the French loan-word ''fairy''.{{sfnp|Hall|2005|p=20}} An example is [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s satirical tale ''[[Sir Thopas]]'', where the title character sets out in a quest for the "elf-queen", who dwells in the "countree of the Faerie".{{sfnp|Keightley|1850|p=53}}