Do Dwarves and Elves really exist? I think so

[WizardKing]

give me your thoughts on this, i believe some time ago we had such a thing.

[jallan]

Tolkien didn't think his fictional Elves and Dwarves really existed.

He was very aware that he had invented them and that they were based in part on the Elves and Dwarves of some folklore and some mythology but were not altogether like them.

Supernatural beings in most fairy stories and legends are vaguely defined, sometimes confused or identified with ghosts of the dead, sometimes beings that we might call lesser gods.

One version of a traditional fairy story may have the hero meet a little man in the forest. In another version it may be a talking animal, in another an old woman. It usually doesn't matter much for the story.

In his essay "On Fairy-Stories" Tolkien does speculate that fairies or elves might exist. We have tales of sightings of course, just as we have tales of sighitngs of ghosts, gods, aliens, giants, flying saurcers and so forth.

Some of the tales ascribe actions to a "goblin" or "pukka" or "hob" or "elf" or "demon" that we would today more likely ascribe to a poltergeist. But the name is unimportant. The stories speak of objects moving, voices, etc.

Do these things exist? Should we call them Elves? I don't know. I've never never seen such things, myself.

Some of the tales might come from normal differences in size between different peoples, later exagerated. If the first metal-users in the north were shorter than normal, eventually they might in tales be shortened even further.

These people themselves might speak of the giants in the north, and so eventually long after both peoples had mixed together their tales might still tell of both dwarfs and giants.

Of course, some kinds of dwarfs actually exist, people born with that defomity.

In the Middle Ages this was sometimes explained by claiming that the dwarf was a changeling, a being of fairy stock substituted in the cradle by "elves" for the true human baby.

The same might be said of those born born metnally retarded or born with Down's syndrome. The word oaf is only a dialectical variation on elf, probably getting its current meaning throiugh some such path. Or it might mean that a person so stupid was under some kind of elf spell.

[FoolOfATook]

Awesome answer, Jallan, but methinks you might have put more effort into that then was really necessary ;)

[ms Greenleaf]

maybe not but it would make a great RPG... forinstance people with something semi-common like elf ears could be elves shorter people dwarves... perhaps even situated in a modern world...

[krash8765]

there was once a species of humanoids that very much resembled dwarves, because they were built very large and pretty short and i bet most of them had beards to but they were killed off shortly before the takeover of the cro-magnons or something. I think they were a related to the neanderthals

[ms Greenleaf]

If anyone thinks I should make the RPG pm me if enough do i will make one

[faila]

Originally posted by krash8765
there was once a species of humanoids that very much resembled dwarves, because they were built very large and pretty short and i bet most of them had beards to but they were killed off shortly before the takeover of the cro-magnons or something. I think they were a related to the neanderthals THats petty much a bunch of balogne their is no evidece of a neanderthal, its all speculation, all of those prehumans can either be proven to be all monkey or all man, or a hoax. THeir could be a Subspiecies that wasnt as tall and most had beards.

[FoolOfATook]

I really hope that this thread isn't going to turn into the long, drawn out, bitter and fruitless argument that I see coming...

[faila]

Originally posted by FoolOfATook
I really hope that this thread isn't going to turn into the long, drawn out, bitter and fruitless argument that I see coming... I agree thats why I am not going to post in this thread after this post.

For trulywho the heck cared if their used to be drawfs or elves,they are not here now,and their is no way t prove their existenct, theirfore no point in arguing, byebye.

[krash8765]

well thats a pretty negative way to look on things

[ms Greenleaf]

gettting back