Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs

See also Fairy, Pixie, Plant spirit

Keywords:

Elf, fairy, popular belief, supernatural

Description of this motif: Fairies are very small, supernatural beings, who usually are attached to nature, as opposed to goblins (pixies), who often live in buildings. Fairies are woodland creatures and correspond to the nymphs and satyrs of Greek myth.

Example :

In the midst of a garden there grew a rose bush, quite covered with roses, and in the most beautiful of them all there lived an elf – an elf so tiny that no mortal eye could see him. But he was as well made and as perfect as any child could be, and he had wings reaching from his shoulders to his feet. Behind each petal of the rose he had a tiny bedroom. Oh, how fragrant his rooms were, and how bright and transparent the walls, for they were the beautiful pale pink petals of the rose! All day long the little elf rejoiced in the warm sunshine as he flew from flower to flower or danced on the wings of the fluttering butterflies and measured how many steps he would have to take to pass along all the roads and paths on a single linden leaf. You see, what we call the veins on a leaf were highroads and byways to him. It was a long journey, and he had begun it rather late, so before he finished, the sun had gone down!

Comment on this quote: "The Rose Elf" differs from the spirits in "The Dryad" and "The elfs on the heath": it lives in roses, but not in only one rose and not out of neccesity. It has its own, independent nature and may leave the rose.