Vintage Christmas Elf Figures and Decorations

Christmas elves—like Santa Claus—may have their roots in Norse mythology, which talks about "álfar," also referred to as "huldufólk," or "hidden folk." These god-like creatures were seen as bringers of both fertility and disease. When the Scandinavians settled in Iceland in the 9th century and brought Celts as their slaves, the concept of álfar, combined a numerous Northern European myths about elves and fairies into "nature spirits." In other parts of Europe, similar mythological creatures were known as dwarves, brownies, or sprites. In medieval Europe, elves in the forms of dwarves and mermen became human-sized earth spirits that sexually seduced passers-by and attempted to entice them into leaving civilization for the elven world. Some religious references describe elves as evil, demon-like beings, who could bring paralyzing nightmares. In other Middle Ages folk tales, elves, similar to álfar, might help a baby be born healthy, or steal a human baby and replace it with a sickly elf baby. Elizabethan writers William Shakespeare and Michael Drayton were the first to describe elves and fairies as tiny human-like creatures. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Shakespeare's elf-like Puck is not an evil spirit, but a playful trickster figure. The first hard-working, handy, and helpful little creatures appear in 1812's "Grimms' Fairy Tales" in the tale "Die Wichtelmänner," which was translated in 1884 as "The Elves and the Shoemaker." In the 19th century, Victorian illustrators began to depict little elves with pointy ears wearing stocking caps. Christmas elves arrived around the same time as modern-day Santa Claus. The 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" is credited as the origin of the Victorian mythology of St. Nick that lives on as Santa today. In it, the magical gift-bringer is referred as a "jolly old elf." An 1857 poem "The Wonders of Santa Claus," published in "Harper's Weekly," explained that Santa "keeps a great many elves at work/ All working with all their might/ To make a million of pretty things/ Cakes, sugar-plums, and toys/ To fill the stockings, hung up you know/ By the little girls and boys." Santa's industrious little workers were a widely accepted part of the myth by the turn of the 20th century. Almost always, elves were depicted as having white skin. For the December 2, 1922, cover of the "Saturday Evening Post," Norman Rockwell painted a rotund human-size Santa Claus dozing off in a chair, pint-size elves in pointy caps and shoes busily preparing for Christmas Eve around and on top of him. A 1932 Disney cartoon, "Santa's Workshop," depicted elves as bearded little men—bearing more than a passing resemblance to the dwarves of 1937's "Snow White"—who do all manner of chores in the North Pole, from caring for the magical reindeer to building toys in a factory to helping Santa sort his "naughty or nice" list. As an established part of the mythology, Christmas elves, sometimes referred to as "Christmas pixies," became popular subjects for vintage Christmas figurines, ornaments, and other décor, whether they were childlike imps or short, elderly gents. In the postwar era, Japanese factories began to churn out cheap toys and kitschy novelty products for the United States. In the 1950s and '60s, a company called Yuletide of Japan produced popular bendable "knee-hugger" elves—with plastic doll heads and felt bodies—which could be displayed on a shelf or hung on a Christmas tree. Knee-hugger-style elves made a comeback in 2005 as Santa's spies. That was the year Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chandra Bell, self-published a children's book called "The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition," which was sold with this type of elf toy. The popularity of the book added a new layer to the Christmas myth: Every day in the Christmas season, an elf sits in your family home watching your children's behavior. Then every night, he or she flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa. When the elf returns, he or she camps out in a new location, which means parents are supposed to relocate the elf doll every night to surprise their children in the morning.