• The Elves in Medieval Belief

  • Jun 19 2023
  • Length: 26 mins
  • Podcast

The Elves in Medieval Belief

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  • Summary

  • In addition to God, the devil, and the angels and demons, medieval people believed in a class of beings living just outside of sight, of creatures that you'd see only from the corner of your eye. These creatures associated with glens and groves were often known as the fairies, or the elves, and they're going to be the topic of this episode.


    Further Reading


    Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.


    This book covers the way that medieval people understood the structure of the universe, from the earth at the center all the way to the heavens that surround what we moderns call the solar system. And in his chapter The Longaevi, he discusses medieval belief in elves, those creatures that didn't really fit into that cosmology.


    Green, Richard Firth. Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.


    This is an excellent book that has more recent scholarship than Lewis on medieval belief in elves, and also has an excellent discussion of how medieval churchmen dealt with belief in elves.


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