We Are Santa's Elves

[vovat]

The idea that St. Nicholas had helpers in his annual mission to spread joy to children seems to be a relatively recent one, although it's hard to tell. Wikipedia says that the earliest known helper for Nick was a captive devil, who presumably evolved in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter. He was commonly portrayed

Comments

[revme]

Definitely! It was on today, and my entire family watched it again. We all love it. It's really well done, honestly.

"Yaaay! I'm NOT a Loser!"

[vovat]

I have it on tape, so I'll probably watch it sometime soon (assuming I didn't put the tape in storage).

[ozma914]

is that the Sawhorse that Santa's riding in your icon?

[vovat]

Yeah, it's a picture Dick Martin drew to illustrate this event in The Road to Oz. It's in one of his books of Oz sketches that the Oz Club offers.

[ozma914]

Ah, I see!

[colbyucb]

Hermey doesn't like to make toys!!!111111

[vovat]

http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/friday-december-5-2008

[colbyucb]

ahahaha

[graycardinal]

Those Rankin-Bass animatronic Christmas specials were really a thing of wonder; almost nobody since has captured quite the same sense of wonder that those did, as far as Christmas stories are concerned.

The Norse had "light" and "dark" alfar (or elves), but I don't know that even the ljos-alfar were especially benign where mortals were concerned. Then as the cultures cross-pollinated, the mythologies blurred. The light-elves are more or less supplanted by the Celtic/Gaelic traditions of the Sidhe or Tuatha de Danaan (who themselves then shape the "classic" faerie folk from Spenser's Faerie Queen and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream). And the folk the Norse call dark-elves actually evolve pretty directly into our conception of "dwarfs" or "dwarves" -- compact folk who live underground, who are wondrous miners and craftmasters, and are not so much evil as merely reclusive. In fact, it makes rather more sense for mythological purposes to consider Santa's toymaking legion to be of dwarven or dark-elven stock

[vovat]

Then as the cultures cross-pollinated, the mythologies blurred.

Yeah, I notice that a lot in studying mythology. Now, all of the magical beings of diminutive size (brownies, kobolds, hobgoblins, etc.) are more or less interchangeable, even though there were probably differences in how each group was originally presented. Then again, there were probably also situations in which one myth spread to another culture, and the new recipients gave the creatures new names.

In fact, it makes rather more sense for mythological purposes to consider Santa's toymaking legion to be of dwarven or dark-elven stock.

I've sometimes seen Santa's staff portrayed with beards, which the Tolkien variety elves never seem to have.

I'm pretty sure I've heard the "Mrs. Santa Claus" song before, but I don't remember too many of the words. I think it was about how Santa's wife basically keeps his household together, which seems to be how she's usually shown.