What remained of the belief in elves in German folklore was that they were mischievous pranksters that could cause disease to cattle and people, and bring bad dreams to sleepers. The German word for nightmare, Albtraum, means "elf dream". The archaic form Albdruck means "elf pressure"; it was believed that nightmares are a result of an elf sitting on the dreamer's chest.
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Buy celtic jewelry online in the largest celtic storeElves are mythical creatures of Germanic mythology that have survived in northern European folklore. Originally a race of minor gods of nature and fertility, they are often pictured as small, youthful-seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and other natural places, underground, or in wells and springs. They have been imagined to be long-lived or immortal and magical powers have been attributed to them. Something associated with elves or the qualities of elves is described by the adjectives elfin, elven, elfish, or elvish. Elves are staple characters in modern fantasy. They are also called:Wendy and Richard Pini's long-running comic book Elfquest attempts to avoid the usual Tolkienesque elven clichs by placing their elves in a setting inspired by Native American rather than European mythology. It later turns out that they are actually the descendants of a shape-shifting alien race rather than mythological beings.In 1954, Poul Anderson introduced grim Norse-style elves in his fantasy novel The Broken Sword and made them full-sized.There are also in the Heimskringla notions about a line of local kings who rule over lfheim, situated between the Gautelfr and the present border between Norway and Sweden on the Swedish westcoast. The last king is named Gandalf.Elf, fairy, and other terms for nature spirits like pwcca, hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow, the Scots brownie, and so forth are no longer clearly distinguished in popular English folklore, nor are similar terms in other European languages.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954-1958), became astoundingly popular and was much imitated. In the 1960s and afterwards, elves similar to those in Tolkien's novels became staple non-human characters in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games (RPGs).
