Editing Elf (section)

==== "Elf-shot" ====

[[File:Eadwine Psalter f 66r detail of Christ and demons attacking psalmist.png|thumb|upright=0.8|right|The Eadwine Psalter, f. 66r. Detail: Christ and demons attacking the psalmist.]]

In one or two Old English medical texts, elves might be envisaged as inflicting illnesses with projectiles. In the twentieth century, scholars often labelled the illnesses elves caused as "[[elf-shot]]", but work from the 1990s onwards showed that the medieval evidence for elves' being thought to cause illnesses in this way is slender;{{sfnp|Hall|2007|pp=96–118}} debate about its significance is ongoing.{{sfnp|Tolley|2009|loc=vol. I, p. 220}}

The noun ''elf-shot'' is first attested in a [[Scots language|Scots]] poem, "Rowlis Cursing," from around 1500, where "elf schot" is listed among a range of curses to be inflicted on some chicken thieves.{{sfnp|Hall|2005|p=23}} The term may not always have denoted an actual projectile: ''shot'' could mean "a sharp pain". But in early modern Scotland, ''elf-schot'' and other terms like ''elf-arrowhead'' are sometimes used of [[Elf-arrow|neolithic arrow-heads]], apparently thought to have been made by elves. In a few witchcraft trials, people attested that these arrow-heads were used in healing rituals, and occasionally alleged that witches (and perhaps elves) used them to injure people and cattle.{{sfnp|Hall|2005}} A 1749–50 ode by [[William Collins (poet)|William Collins]] includes the lines:<ref name="Carlyle 1788">{{harvp|Carlyle|1788}}, i 68, stanza II. 1749 date of composition is given on p. 63.</ref>

{{Blockquote|<poem>
There every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,
Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.<ref name="Carlyle 1788"/></poem>}}