Christmas elves feel like they’ve been around forever, and people have strangely consistent ideas of what they’re all about—they’re small, they wear green, they make toys out of some innate magical compulsion, they love shelves— but that variety of elf is a recent invention; “real” elves were often anything but jolly little pieceworkers. The elves' thousand-year transition from supernatural nightmare creatures to friendly factory workers is a cultural Rorschach test revealing Western culture's changing attitudes about work, wealth, and what it means to be a "useful" member of society.
The early origin of elves can’t be pinned down exactly because the idea of elves predates the written word. Magical, man-like races were mentioned in mythology and oral traditions in cultures all over the world; but elves, specifically, were common in Norse and Germanic folklore. This variety of elf was (usually) more like Legolas than Hermey from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer—human-sized and magical, although sometimes mischievous.
Various elven misdeeds
Elves did all kinds of bad things. Kind of, anyway: The names and deeds of elves, fairies, hobs and other creatures were basically interchangeable and regional, so it's hard to ascribe anything specifically to elves (it could have been a nixie or brownie, after all).
So how did we get from disease-causing, child-stealing nightmare creatures to Santa’s personal toy-making proletariat? By the medieval and early modern period in Britain, there is widespread belief in what I call “transitional elves.” These were household spirits that came out at night to perform chores while families slept. Useful, for sure, but these elves were mercurial and easily offended. They would leave forever if they felt insulted or taken advantage of. You couldn’t even do something nice for them—if you made them clothes, they might decide to quit forever, shouting, “Gie Brownie a coat, gie Brownie a sark, Ye'se get nae mair o' Brownie's wark."
How Elves became associated with Christmas
Along with establishing much of Santa’s mythology, Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (better known as "The Night Before Christmas") described Santa Claus himself as "a right jolly old elf,” This line laid the foundation for the association of elves with Christmas. An 1857 poem called “The Wonders of Santa Claus” spelled it out clearly. Santa, the poem says, “keeps a great many elves at work,” making “a million of pretty things” like “cakes, sugar-plums, and toys.”
Here’s the first picture of Santa’s Workshop, from Godey's Lady's Book in 1873. At the time, Godey’s had a huge circulation in the United States, and this image cemented the modern idea of Santa’s Workshop.
Credit: Public DomainModern Christmas elves
The next time you see a green-suited helper in a Christmas movie, remember, that the jolly little toymaker was cobbled together from medieval folklore, German fairy tales, and 19th-century magazine illustrations, and shaped by the rise of industrialization. The modern elf is the domesticated, sanitized, capitalist-approved descendant of supernatural creatures that stole babies, drove people mad, and shot invisible arrows at your ancestors. Merry Christmas!
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