Elf, from Iceland: what it is and what people believe

Elves are supernatural people in Germanic folklore, especially in North Germanic myth recorded in Iceland. Medieval tales treat them as beautiful, powerful beings who may help or harm people, cause illness, or seduce humans; belief varied by place and declined after the Middle Ages, with some continued popular belief claimed in Iceland.

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Old English medical texts link elves to sharp pain and mental illness.
The term elf-shot is first recorded around 1500 in a Scots poem.
Iceland is said to have some continuing popular belief in elves.
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream shaped tiny, playful literary elves.
Tolkien's works helped make elves human-sized in modern fantasy.

What it is

An elf is a kind of supernatural person in Germanic folklore. The idea is found across Germanic-speaking cultures, and elves are named in Old Norse texts from Iceland, including the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Medieval writers describe them as beautiful and powerful, with magic, and as ambivalent toward ordinary people: they might help, but they might also harm. Beliefs changed greatly over time and place, and existed in both pre-Christian and Christian settings. Old English medical texts link elves to sharp internal pain and mental illness. Later Scottish and Scandinavian sources treat them as hidden people living alongside rural communities, and as figures who could seduce or abduct humans.

Where it comes from

The word and the belief are old in the Germanic languages. Old English ælf, Old Norse alfr and Old High German alp point back to a reconstructed Germanic root that seems to have meant 'white being'. Much of the early picture comes from Christian writers, so the older idea is hard to rebuild. Elves appear in medieval medical texts, in Norse myth, in personal names and in place names. After the Middle Ages the word lost ground to fairy, Zwerg and huldra, but belief continued in Scotland and Scandinavia. In Iceland some popular belief is said to survive.

Tools and materials

Old English medical texts say elves could cause illness, sometimes with projectiles. The term elf-shot is first recorded around 1500 in a Scots poem, where it appears in a list of curses. In early modern Scotland, elf-schot and elf-arrowhead were used for Neolithic stone arrowheads, which were thought to have been made by elves. A few witchcraft trial accounts say such arrowheads were used in healing rituals, and sometimes that witches or elves used them to injure people and cattle.

Elf, drawn and placed

Emblem white, with the feather shape. Drawn from this page, not a photograph.

Living
Revived
Fading
Historical
Legendary
Performed

Standing: Legendary Known from myth, story and legend rather than from recorded practice. This says whether people still do it, not whether it works.

A feather: used in cleansing and blessing in some traditions, worn as a sign of office, and carried as a charm.

Lineage: Germanic folklore and Norse mythology

Where it sits The tradition it belongs to, and when it is done.

Peoples and places

Elves belong to Germanic-speaking cultures, and the clearest early manuscripts come from Anglo-Saxon England. Norse sources place them in North Germanic myth, especially in Icelandic texts. In early modern Scotland, people described elves as powerful hidden neighbours, and elves appear in witchcraft trial testimony. Scandinavian ballads and tales also name them. In Iceland, belief in elves has been said to continue in popular custom. The word elf itself spread through the Germanic languages, while related terms such as alfr, alp and ælf name the being in Old Norse, Old High German and Old English.

At a glance: who, where and when

Peoples

Germanic-speaking cultures Anglo-Saxons Scots Icelanders

Belief worlds

Pagan and Neopagan Christian Folk and village custom

Elf — Photo: Nils Blommér, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Alden Valley View down Alden Valley with ruins of Alden Old Mill on left of picture. Photo: liz dawson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What people believe

Behind the stories is a world of hidden people. Elves are held to have magic and striking beauty. They are not simply kind or cruel: medieval sources call them ambivalent, able to assist or obstruct ordinary folk. They are linked with the Norse gods, with illness, with magic and with seduction. Old English charms treat them as causes of sudden pain, while Scottish trial accounts treat them as invisible neighbours with power over health.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Twentieth-century scholars often pictured Anglo-Saxon elves as small, invisible, demonic beings who shot illness into people. That picture leaned on the term elf-shot and on an image in the Eadwine Psalter. Work from the 1990s onward found the medieval evidence for projectile-causing elves thin, and the psalter image is now read as a conventional scene of divine arrows and demons. Twenty-first-century scholarship instead treats Anglo-Saxon elves more like people, comparable to Scandinavian álfar or the Irish Aos Sí. The debate continues.

Cautions and what is closed

Belief in elves named dangers. Old English medical texts say elves afflicted people and livestock with sharp internal pain and mental disorders. Middle English and early modern sources increasingly describe elves as seducers or abductors, and from around the fifteenth century comes the belief that they might steal babies and leave changelings. In early modern Scotland, elves were mentioned in witchcraft trials, where witnesses spoke of healing powers or of people and animals made sick by elves. These are reports of belief, not medical explanation.

Compare and confuse

Elf was largely replaced in English by fairy, a French loan, by the end of the Middle Ages. In German, Zwerg ('dwarf') took over some of its ground, and in North Germanic languages huldra ('hidden being') did the same. Old Norse alfr, Old English ælf and Old High German alp are cognates, sharing a Germanic root. The being also overlaps with the Irish Aos Sí and with changeling lore.

Today

Belief in elves fell sharply with urbanisation and industrialisation, though Iceland is said to have some continuing popular belief. From the early modern period, educated writers and artists made elves into literary figures. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream helped shape tiny, playful elves; German Romantic writers took up the English word; and Christmas elves were popularised in the late nineteenth-century United States. Tolkien's twentieth-century fantasy gave new life to human-sized elves, and elves remain common in fantasy media.

Questions people ask about Elf

What is an elf?

An elf is a supernatural person in Germanic folklore, especially North Germanic myth. Medieval sources describe beautiful, powerful beings who may help or harm people, cause illness, or seduce humans. Belief varied widely and declined after the Middle Ages.

Where do elves come from?

The word and belief are Germanic. Old English ælf and Old Norse alfr point to a root probably meaning 'white being'. The earliest surviving manuscripts are from Anglo-Saxon England, and Norse texts from Iceland also describe them.

Do elves cause illness?

In belief, yes. Old English medical texts say elves could afflict people and livestock with sharp internal pain and mental disorders. The term elf-shot names this idea, though scholars now find the medieval evidence for projectile-causing elves thin.

What is elf-shot?

Elf-shot is first recorded around 1500, in a Scots poem listing curses. In early modern Scotland the term and elf-arrowhead were used for Neolithic stone arrowheads, thought to have been made by elves. Some trial accounts say such arrowheads were used in healing rituals.

Why did the word elf decline?

After the Middle Ages, fairy and other terms replaced elf in many contexts, including Zwerg in German and huldra in North Germanic languages. Belief declined with urbanisation and industrialisation, though Iceland is said to have some continuing popular belief and elves remained strong in literature and fantasy.

Good reading and sources

Where this page comes from

The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Elf", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryJaadu rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.

It may contain mistakes. Names and customs differ from one community to the next, and some knowledge is closed to outsiders and left out here. This page describes belief and practice. It does not say that any of it works, it is not a how-to, and it is not medical advice. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-18.

Elf