Dancing Fairies (Swedish: Älvalek, 1866) is a painting by the Swedish painter August Malmström (1829–1901).
The elves believe that their ancestors were fertility gods who delighted in nothing more than being at one with nature. Back then, when there were no mortal humanoids, the elves were happiest. They had nature, and nature had them. Life was harmonious and in balance. They and nature were at one and both were whole, and they were together the whole world. But after many eons, the world somehow got sick.
It is then that humanoids were created and they evolved, opposable mortal thumbs and all, and for a while this was good. At first, the humanoids lived in harmony with nature and ate only fruits and slept in trees and on the ground like the other animals. But soon enough they evolved to live disharmoniously with nature, for as time went on they began to fear nature more and more… the more they questioned, the more they feared. They learned how to destroy nature in order to live less fearfully. They began to kill the other animals. They began to dwell in buildings cut from the living woodlands. They burned forests to make farms. They replaced nature with cities.
Despite all this, many of the ancestors had patience with the humanoids who seemed ignorant of the harm they did to nature, and yearned for them to return to the old ways. Some of the humanoids worshiped the ancestors, seeking guidance. This was good, but it was also bad, because it was this two way link between the humanoids and the ancestors that eventually made some of the ancestors mortal.
Arthur Rackham (1867–1939)
But now, there are humanoids who indeed live according to the old ways, such as the druids. Also now, the ancestors are the elves, and cannot be called upon to grant divine wisdom to a believer. Nowadays, the only way they, the elves, can grant harmony with nature is to teach by example. But not all of them do. The mortal humanoid taint had affected some of the ancestors to the point that not only are their descendants mortal, but they also don’t live according to the old ways.
Some of the ancestors despised the humanoids for their unnatural actions, for the humanoids seemed to find new ways to destroy nature everyday. These hateful ancestors despised the humanoids so much that they sought to destroy every last one of them. For this, the ancestors who believed the humanoids to not be to blame for their ways banished the hateful ancestors to the underground, where they eventually evolved into the Drow, the first humanoids to live underground, at least according to the elves… the dwarves hold dear to and tell a much different story.
Not all of the ancestors lost their immortality, nor did any of them lose all of their immortality. The ones who led the most frivolous and enchanted lives are fertility gods to this day and are at present vitally at one with nature. Either they simply don’t have enough interest in the humanoids to become a part of their lives, or they are naturally incapable of separating themselves from the whole of nature to engage in any one particular detail. And so it is.
A new version of this story is found in my book…
TBoan’s Tales of the Fantastic 1: Fragments of Mind (CENSORED Edition)
TBoan’s Tales of the Fantastic 1: Fragments of Mind is a collection of fantasy genre short stories. The author calls them fragments because some of them are excerpts from larger bodies of unfinished works in progress. They are a mere taste of more yet to come! Yet, they stand on their own, each an escape from your everyday life into worlds of the fantastic… the epic, the paranormal, the magical, the mythical, and the macabre! Explore these new worlds, experience their different cultures and lifeways, and learn about characters and situations far different from your own! If you’re into RPGs (Role Playing Games), and especially if you like fantasy anthologies in general, you’ll love TBoan’s Tales of the Fantastic 1: Fragments of Mind. Look forward for more to come from the TBoan’s Tales of the Fantastic series!
Leave a Reply