1. An initial clarification
Medieval Norse sources do not contain a category simply equivalent to the “faeries” of modern tales: small, winged beings with a uniform appearance. The closest word is usually álfr (plural álfar), commonly translated as “elf”. But that translation can be misleading: the sources do not provide a single description of the álfar, and their characteristics vary according to the text and period.
For this reason, references to “Viking faeries” should be understood as a modern comparison. The sources show a world populated by different kinds of supernatural beings — álfar, landscape spirits, female figures called dísir, among others — whose boundaries do not always match our present-day categories. Nor should we take everything the sagas recount as a direct snapshot of the Viking Age: many were written in Iceland centuries after the events they describe.University of Iceland
2. Who were the álfar?
Álfr is the Old Norse term usually translated as “elf”; álfar is its plural. In Eddic poetry they appear associated with the gods, sometimes in the formula “Æsir and álfar”, as though they were distinct groups within the supernatural world. However, the poems do not explain precisely who they were or describe a complete society of elves. A recent study of Eddic references suggests that some of these ideas may relate to death and fertility, and to a connection with the world underground. This is a useful scholarly interpretation, but not a fixed definition supported by every source.Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
The best-known image comes from Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, written in the thirteenth century. It speaks of ljósálfar, “light elves”, who inhabit Álfheimr and are “more beautiful than the sun”, and of dökkálfar, “dark elves”, who live underground and have a very different appearance. The passage presents a sharp contrast between the two groups, but it appears in a Christian work written several centuries after the Viking Age. It is unwise to project that scheme automatically onto all pre-Christian Norse religion; specialists have noted that the division may have been influenced by Snorri’s own ideas and literary structure.northerntales.se
Consequently, the “light elf” and the “dark elf” are categories documented in Snorri, not necessarily a universal classification shared by all Scandinavians in the Viking Age.
3. The álfar and the dead
Some sources associate the álfar with burial mounds or with beings underground. There is also the title Óláfr Geirstaðaálfr, approximately “Óláfr, the álfr of Geirstaðir”, associated in medieval traditions with a dead king buried in a mound. This material suggests that, at least in certain accounts, the word could be linked to the deceased, to figures who remained powerful after death, or to the worship of an ancestor.
But it must be approached with caution. The medieval Ynglinga saga recounts that King Óláfr was buried beneath a mound at Geirstaðir, whereas the more explicit account of the name and worship of Óláfr Geirstaðaálfr comes from a later literary tradition. It is not direct evidence that the Vikings imagined all elves as dead people, or that this worship was uniform.researchgate.net
Modern research, in fact, finds several possible representations: the álfar may appear as prestigious supernatural beings, as inhabitants associated with the underground world, or as more threatening figures in later texts. Their meaning seems to have changed over time.University of Iceland
4. The álfablót: an offering to the elves
A particularly valuable reference appears in the Austrfararvísur, a series of verses attributed to the Icelandic skald Sighvatr Þórðarson, who travelled through Sweden in the early eleventh century. In the account, Sighvatr tries to enter a house, but a woman stops him: an álfablót, a ceremony or offering dedicated to the álfar, was being held there, and Christians were not welcome.
This is important testimony because it preserves an early mention of a religious practice explicitly connected with elves. At the same time, the information is brief: it does not describe the ritual, its participants, or the beliefs accompanying it in detail. The scholarly database of skaldic poetry emphasises that this is the only reference to an álfablót in surviving Norse poetry and that both the nature of the ceremony and that of the álfar remain difficult to determine.Lingue e Letterature d'Oriente e d'Occidente
We can therefore say that the sources mention an offering to the álfar, but cannot confidently reconstruct a calendar, a rite common to all Scandinavia, or an organised system of worship.
5. They were not the same as landscape spirits
Another relevant group is the landvættir, a term usually translated as “spirits of the land” or “of the territory”. They should not automatically be identified with the álfar: the sources present them as distinct categories, although both may be associated with the landscape and local religion. A study of medieval Icelandic religion highlights that the role of the landvættir in pre-Christian religion is not entirely clear and that the texts do not allow them simply to be merged with the álfar.hcmc.uvic.ca
The Landnámabók, an Icelandic work about the settlement of the island, preserves a rule attributed to ancient Icelandic law: ships had to remove their figureheads with threatening heads before approaching land, so as not to frighten the landvættir. The passage suggests a concern with maintaining an appropriate relationship with supernatural forces associated with the territory. Since the rule reaches us through a medieval compilation, we must distinguish between the information transmitted and what we can demonstrate about its historical application.hcmc.uvic.ca
The sagas also recount that spirits could protect or repel those approaching a territory. In an episode of the Heimskringla, four guardians of Iceland — a bull, an eagle, a dragon and a giant — confront a magical scout. This account reveals an imagination in which powerful beings could defend the landscape, although it neither calls them “faeries” nor describes them as elves.The Old Ways
6. What about supernatural female figures?
Norse sources also mention the dísir, a term difficult to fit into a single category. The dísir may be associated with supernatural female figures, prosperity, and places or communities; in poetry, dís can also function as a poetic word for different female figures. A specialised study warns that we should not imagine all dísir as a homogeneous species.Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
The nornir (Norns) and valkyrjur (Valkyries) are also supernatural women, but they have their own functions in the accounts: the Norns are associated with fate; the Valkyries, with battle and the choosing of the fallen. Their boundaries and relationships with other female figures may vary between texts, but that does not automatically make them “faeries”. Medieval categories do not form an orderly zoological catalogue like that of a modern bestiary.Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
7. Were they beautiful, dangerous or benevolent?
There is no single answer. In Snorri, the ljósálfar are extraordinarily beautiful. Other testimonies show the álfar as beings worthy of ceremony or associated with prosperity. In later medieval texts, however, they can acquire unsettling characteristics or be associated with ailments and illnesses. The surviving literature therefore supports neither the image of always kindly creatures nor that of necessarily evil beings.The Medieval Review
A cautious way to describe them is as supernatural beings of variable nature, whose relationship with humans could be favourable, dangerous or ambiguous according to the account. The sources do not allow us to claim that all Scandinavians shared the same image of them.
8. From the álfar to the “hidden people”
Later Icelandic folklore speaks of huldufólk, the “hidden people”, and of beings associated with mounds, rocks and features of the landscape. It is tempting to see them as an intact survival of Viking beliefs, but direct continuity has not been demonstrated. The researcher Ármann Jakobsson stresses that ideas associated with álfar changed from the Middle Ages to the present and should not be treated as a tradition unchanged for centuries.University of Iceland
Later beliefs may preserve ancient elements, mix them with subsequent traditions, or acquire new meanings. Icelandic huldufólk can therefore help us study the long history of narratives about hidden beings, but not serve as a direct description of what every Viking community believed.
What we know about the álfar
In Norse sources, the álfar are the beings closest to what we now call faeries, although the resemblance is limited. Some texts connect them with the supernatural world, with offerings and, in certain accounts, with the dead or with places underground. The landvættir and the dísir also belong to that universe, but they are distinct figures.
The sources do not describe the álfar as small, winged creatures. They offer varied images that are sometimes difficult to reconcile, because they were written in different periods. Speaking of “Viking faeries” can therefore serve as an approximation, provided we remember that álfar had a broader, changing meaning.
Principal sources and studies
- Simon Nygaard, “Beyond ‘ása ok álfa’: Eddic Discourses of the Álfar and their Chthonic Semantic Centre”, Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 74 (2022).Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
- Ármann Jakobsson, “Beware of the Elf! A Note on the Evolving Meaning of Álfar”, Folklore 126, no. 2 (2015).University of Iceland
- Luke John Murphy, “Distinguishing Discourses of the Dísir”, Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 74 (2022).Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
- Prose Edda, Gylfaginning, ch. 17, passage on Álfheimr and the light and dark elves.northerntales.se
- Sighvatr Þórðarson’s Austrfararvísur and its reference to the álfablót.