Editing Elf (section)

=== The Romantic movement ===
[[File:Erl king sterner.jpg|thumb|left|Illustration of ''Der Erlkönig'' (c. 1910) by [[Albert Sterner]]]]
Early modern English notions of elves became influential in eighteenth-century Germany. The [[Modern German]] ''Elf'' (m) and ''Elfe'' (f) was introduced as a loan-word from English in the 1740s<ref>{{cite journal |last=Thun |first=Nils |year=1969 |title=The Malignant Elves: Notes on Anglo-Saxon Magic and Germanic Myth |journal=Studia Neophilologica |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=378–96 |doi=10.1080/00393276908587447}}</ref>{{sfnp|Grimm|1883b|p=443}} and was prominent in [[Christoph Martin Wieland]]'s 1764 translation of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''.<ref name="kluge-elf-de">"Die aufnahme des Wortes knüpft an Wielands Übersetzung von Shakespeares Sommernachtstraum 1764 und and Herders Voklslieder 1774 (Werke 25, 42) an"; {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/etymologischesw09kluggoog |title=Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache|last=Kluge|first=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Kluge |publisher=K. J. Trübner|year=1899 |edition=6th |place=Strassbourg|page=[https://archive.org/details/etymologischesw09kluggoog/page/n124 93]}}</ref>

As [[German Romanticism]] got underway and writers started to seek authentic folklore, Jacob Grimm rejected ''Elf'' as a recent Anglicism, and promoted the reuse of the old form ''Elb'' (plural ''Elbe'' or ''Elben'').{{sfnp|Grimm|1883b|p=443}}{{sfnp|Grimm|Grimm|1854–1954|loc=s.v. ''Elb''}} In the same vein, [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] translated the Danish ballad ''[[Elveskud]]'' in his 1778 collection of folk songs, ''{{lang|de|Stimmen der Völker in Liedern}}'', as "{{lang|de|Erlkönigs Tochter}}" ("The Erl-king's Daughter"; it appears that Herder introduced the term ''Erlkönig'' into German through a mis-Germanisation of the Danish word for ''elf''). This in turn inspired Goethe's poem ''[[Der Erlkönig]]''. However, Goethe added another new meaning, as the German word "Erle" does not mean "elf", but "black alder" - the poem about the ''Erlenkönig'' is set in the area of an alder quarry in the Saale valley in Thuringia. Goethe's poem then took on a life of its own, inspiring the Romantic concept of the [[Erlking]], which was influential on literary images of elves from the nineteenth century on.{{sfnp|Taylor|2014|pp=119–135}}

[[File:Tomtebobarnen.jpg|thumb|right|Little ''älvor'', playing with ''Tomtebobarnen''. From ''Children of the Forest'' (1910) by Swedish author and illustrator [[Elsa Beskow]].]]
In Scandinavia too, in the nineteenth century, traditions of elves were adapted to include small, insect-winged fairies. These are often called "elves" (''älvor'' in modern Swedish, ''alfer'' in Danish, ''álfar'' in Icelandic), although the more formal translation in Danish is ''feer''. Thus, the ''alf'' found in the fairy tale ''The Elf of the Rose'' by Danish author [[Hans Christian Andersen]] is so tiny he can have a rose blossom for home, and "wings that reached from his shoulders to his feet". Yet Andersen also wrote about ''elvere'' in ''The Elfin Hill''. The elves in this story are more alike those of traditional Danish folklore, who were beautiful females, living in hills and boulders, capable of dancing a man to death. Like the ''huldra'' in Norway and Sweden, they are hollow when seen from the back.<ref name=erixon/>

English and German literary traditions both influenced the British [[Victorian era|Victorian]] image of elves, which appeared in illustrations as tiny men and women with [[Pointy ears|pointed ears]] and stocking caps. An example is [[Andrew Lang]]'s fairy tale ''Princess Nobody'' (1884), illustrated by [[Richard Doyle (illustrator)|Richard Doyle]], where fairies are tiny people with [[butterfly]] wings. In contrast, elves are small people with red stocking caps. These conceptions remained prominent in twentieth-century children's literature, for example [[Enid Blyton]]'s [[The Faraway Tree]] series, and were influenced by German Romantic literature. Accordingly, in the [[Brothers Grimm]] fairy tale ''[[The Elves and the Shoemaker|Die Wichtelmänner]]'' (literally, "the little men"), the title protagonists are two tiny naked men who help a shoemaker in his work. Even though ''Wichtelmänner'' are akin to beings such as [[kobold]]s, [[dwarf (mythology)|dwarves]] and [[brownie (folklore)|brownies]], the tale was translated into English by Margaret Hunt in 1884 as ''[[The Elves and the Shoemaker]]''. This shows how the meanings of ''elf'' had changed and was in itself influential: the usage is echoed, for example, in the house-elf of [[J. K. Rowling]]'s [[Harry Potter]] stories. In his turn, J.&nbsp;R.&nbsp;R. Tolkien recommended using the older German form ''Elb'' in translations of his works, as recorded in his "[[Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings]]" (1967). ''Elb, Elben'' was consequently introduced in 1972 [[Translations of The Lord of the Rings|German translation of ''The Lord of the Rings'']], repopularising the form in German.{{sfnp|Hall|2014}}{{clear}}