Editing Elf (section)

=== Christmas elf ===

{{main|Christmas elf}}

[[File:ChristmasFest 2016 (30822904564).jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|A person dressed as a Christmas Elf, Virginia, 2016]]

With industrialisation and mass education, traditional folklore about elves waned; however, as the phenomenon of popular culture emerged, elves were re-imagined, in large part based on Romantic literary depictions and associated [[medievalism]].{{sfnp|Hall|2014}}

As American Christmas traditions crystallized in the nineteenth century, the 1823 poem "[[A Visit from St. Nicholas]]" (widely known as "'Twas the Night before Christmas") characterized St Nicholas himself as "a right jolly old elf." However, it was his little helpers, inspired partly by folktales like ''The Elves and the Shoemaker'', who became known as "Santa's elves"; the processes through which this came about are not well-understood, but one key figure was a Christmas-related publication by the German-American cartoonist [[Thomas Nast]].<ref name="america">{{cite book |title=Christmas in America: A History |last=Restad |first=Penne L. |year=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-510980-1 |page=147}}</ref>{{sfnp|Hall|2014}} Thus in the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland, the modern children's folklore of Santa Claus typically includes small, nimble, green-clad elves with pointy ears, long noses, and pointy hats, as Santa's helpers. They make the toys in a workshop located in the North Pole.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Belk |first=Russell W. |author-link=Russell W. Belk |title=A Child's Christmas in America: Santa Claus as Deity, Consumption as Religion |journal=The Journal of American Culture |volume=10 |number=1 |date=Spring 1987 |pages=87–100 (p. 89) |doi=10.1111/j.1542-734X.1987.1001_87.x}}</ref> The role of elves as Santa's helpers has continued to be popular, as evidenced by the success of the popular Christmas movie ''[[Elf (film)|Elf]]''.{{sfnp|Hall|2014}}