26 embla
in the mythology that the surviving stories do not
explain.
Snorri Sturluson, the 13th-century Icelandic
poet and historian, categorized the elves, distinguish-
ing the light-elves who lived in Alfheim (elf-world),
a kingdom high in Heaven, from the dark-elves who
lived in Svartelfheim, a land deep below the earth.
While the light-elves were fairer than the sun, the
dark-elves were pitch black. Some translators and
scholars see similarities between the dark-elves and the
dwarfs, as both types of beings lived underground.
People offered sacrifices to elves in a ceremony
known as an alfablot, which was usually held in
the privacy of the home, though at the beginning of
winter some communities held the ceremony as a
public event.
Elves are also important to the skaldic poetry
and to the sagas of Iceland and Scandinavia, works
that are more closely tied to folklore than to the gods
and their stories.
E mbla
The first woman, who was created from
an alder or elm tree by the first three Aesir gods,
Odin, Vili, and Ve (see “The First Humans,” under
creation). In Norse mythology, all humans were
descended from Embla and Ask, the first man.