Elves

Early Anglo-Saxon texts show the Old English term ælf, which morphed into our Modern English elf. The word was cognate with the Old Icelandic alfar, and Old High German alp ("evil spirit").

Some of these earliest Anglo-Saxon references are contained in medical texts such as Bald's Leechbook, a collection of remedies. Elf influence was blamed for many otherwise unexplainable ailments, especially sudden stabbing pains that were often attributed to "elf-shot," an arrow or other projectile from an unseen elf attacker. The illustration shows the victim of "elf-shot" by demons, depicted as arrows, from the 12th-century Eadwine Psalter.

What did elves look like?  The consensus is that they looked like human beings, often depicted as very attractive physically. Interactions in folklore do not suggest that they were diminutive. They were also seen as their own race or people: the use of Old English ylfe in Beowulf is a grammatically plural ethnonym, the term for a people or tribe.

Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, written about 1200, even lists different elf races: he talks about svartálfar, dökkálfar and ljósálfar ("black elves," "dark elves," and "light elves"). Snorri, however, is the only source for these different species of elf, and it is thought that he was "elf-ing" (my term) the existence of dwarves, demons, and angels; trying to take some spreading Christian concepts and "paganizing" them (again, my term).

The spread of Christianity turned elves from invisible creatures living alongside humans and occasionally helping or hurting into evil forces that must be defied and destroyed. Scottish witchcraft trials frequently refer to the evil influences of elves. Eventually, the word "elf" began to be replaced by the French loan-word "fairy." Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, has Sir Thopas set out to find the elf-queen in the "countree of the Faerie." Iceland has retained some belief in alfar as we saw in yesterday's post.

I want to talk about the reference to Snorri Sturluson's "paganizing" Christian concepts that were spreading across Europe. The spread of Christianity was enhanced by a particular text created to explain it to ordinary people who had no education. It attempted to explain common folklore in the context of Christianity. This work was called the Elucidarium, and we'll open its pages tomorrow.

Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet on the Bayeaux Tapestry

The nice thing about astronomy is that some celestial events are so predictably cyclical that they can help confirm dates in history, or be spotted in the historical record. Halley's Comet has appeared numerous times while human beings have been on Earth, and many of those appearances have been noted by record-keepers.

BCE records suggest Halley's was spotted as early as 467 BCE by the Greeks and the Chinese, but the first report detailed enough to be certain of Halley's pattern was in 240 BCE by a Chinese chronicle.

The 1493 Nuremberg Chronicles used many early sources, one of which mentioned the comet appearing over Europe in 684. The 837 approach—recorded by astronomers in Germany as well as across the Middle East and Asia—was the closest the comet ever came to earth: a mere 3.2 million miles away, and took place on 10 April. The Annals of Ulster—an Irish chronicle extending from 431 to 1540 CE—says of 912 "A dark and rainy year. A comet appeared."

1066 saw the appearance of an invading Norman army in England and the appearance of the comet in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the Irish Annals of the Four Masters, and later in the Bayeaux Tapestry.

Drawing and note from Eadwine Psalter

The Bayeaux Tapestry wasn't the only attempt to record visually what they saw in the sky. The 1145 appearance was drawn up by a monk, Eadwine, who was copying a psalter at Canterbury Cathedral. On the bottom of the page with the Fifth Psalm, Eadwine added a drawing and a note: “Concerning the star ‘comet’. The star ‘comet’ has a ray such as this, and in English it is called the long-haired star.* It appears rarely during the course of many years, and then as a portent.”

The next appearance of Halley's is scheduled for 28 July 2061.

*comet is from Greek and means "hair" or "long hair."