Re: Elves [was IE, AA, Nostratic etc.]

From: John Croft
Message: 2834
Date: 2000-07-11

Mark wrote regarding "elf" and "albho" linked to Caucasian metal
workers

> It is an interesting word. *albho. It rests under English 'elf',
and
is said to be cognate with Indic r̥bhú (the R is supposed to
be combining ring below, but in my browser, looks like caron-below).
In Indic, they are described as divine craftsmen. Germanic myth makes
them magical dwellers of earthen mounds.
>
> So who were the elves? They could be nothing more than a VERY
ancient memory of pixies, faeries, and assorted other mythical beings
of the sort mothers entertain their children with.
>
> There is a temptation, however, to see this as the PIE word for
metal-working, metal-trading foreigners. They would have been either
Danubians or Caucasians, and they would have been those who brought
copper and bronze to the Urheimat.
>
> The attempt to link it to the alb-word (white) might be correct, or
it could be a very ancient example of folk-etymology relating a
foreign word to a native one. Certainly, if we are to call the elves
metal-smiths, the eerie light of the forge and their habit of
burrowing into the earth for ore is certainly suggestive.
>
> And if they really were (geographicall/ethnically) Caucasian, a la
blue-eyed blond Circassians, the evocativeness is even greater.
>
> At one point Sredny Stog got its metal from the Danube, at another
it got it from the Caucasus. As I write I forget which came first,
but I think Caucasian metal was later. Could 'elf' be the original
self-appellation for the PIE-speakers? No, I am not prepared to
defend this idea, but it is beguiling.

There is an intriguing association here in many ways. Albania was
the name of a kingdom of the Caucasas. The Elburz mountains of North
West Iran may contain a memory, and "Alb" gognates in Mountain names
stretch from Appenines, Alps, modern Albania to Albany, the old name
for the Scottish Highlands!

Given that mountain areas are often sources of ore, as well as being
linguistic refuges for people displaced by newer arrivals, your
associations Mark may be closer than we think!

How far back does this association with mountain mining folk go?
Obsidian was clearly the provinance of Hurro-Urarteans from Arratta
in Sumerian times, and Anatolian Hattic from possibly Natufian times
so it may in fact be very old. I know flint arrow heads, found in
the
middle ages in England, were called elf arrows and were considered
talismanic. There is also the stories of how iron could be used to
banish elves, so it would suggest that this association you mention
Mark is either Bronze Age or earlier. I know that pre-Pictish
settlements in Scotland used to hollow out the interior of conical
hills, re-roofing their circular wattle and daub huts with the sod
cut from the ground. Highlanders still today refer to "the hollow
hills", and state that they were ruled by women known as "the Queen
of
Elfhame". The strange matrilineal descent of the Pictish rulers is
well known.

Is Pict related to Pixie? Perhaps in Elf (*Albho) we have a common
IE designation for foreigner (or even "aboriginal"?). Beguiling
indeed!

Regards

John