The Alfar
The Alfar are a tribe remembered in shadows.
Gods. Ancestors. Spirits. Or something else entirely.
By the time their names were written down, the meaning had already begun to shift.
What we have now is not a clean record, but a trail of smoke and memory.
They are rarely named as individuals.
Völundr is one exception, his story captured in the Poetic Edda.
The rest are echoed in phrases like Æsir ok Álfar — the gods and the elves —
a pairing repeated often, but never fully explained.
Some say the Alfar are kin to the gods.
Some say they are the ancestors.
Some say they are gods in their own right, too wild or too sacred to survive Christian ink.
What is certain is that they were never placed low.
Freyr was given Álfheimr as a gift in his youth.
He was called Lord of the Alfar.
Worshipped at Uppsala, his temple stood among great burial mounds.
Many of his titles name him as ruler of the dead.
Some believe this ties the Alfar to the honored ancestors.
Before Snorri’s time, the Vanir were not always counted as a separate tribe.
It is possible the Vanir and the Alfar were once the same people,
split by language and later interpretation.
Freyr’s rule over both muddies the lines, but the thread holds.
In time, the Alfar became the dead who were remembered.
Freyr kept lordship over them.
Frigga tended the dísir, the female ancestors.
And the people left offerings not just to the gods, but to those who had gone before.
Snorri later divided the elves into light, dark, and black, but the older poems do not.
They speak of the Alfar simply and with reverence.
Icelandic sagas show them with human form.
They farmed. They lived. They spoke.
In the Celtic lands, they find reflection.
The Aos Sí lived in the mounds too.
They may have once been gods, now folded into folklore.
A pattern seen again and again.
As Christianity spread, the Alfar were absorbed or rejected.
They became angels who would not choose sides.
They became the children of Eve left unwashed.
They became the fair folk, both feared and forgotten.
But the word never vanished.
It hid in names.
Ælfric. Alberich. Eldon Hill.
It held a charge long after the stories faded.
The Alfar were named for light.
Not skin, but spirit.
Their beauty. Their clarity. Their power.
Their signs are blossoms on graves.
White flowers. Stone markers. The silent hills.
If you have stood before a burial mound and felt the world grow quiet
If you have heard your name in the wind when no one was there
If you have poured a drink for the dead and felt it was received
You already know the Alfar.
They are not lost.
They are not gone.
They are simply not finished.
Signs and Symbols
White light. Blossoms on graves. Funeral flowers.
Burial mounds, barrows, and sacred hills.
Stone memorials, god poles, and carved markers.
The scent of clean air after grief. The presence of silence that feels full.
Images of the heroic dead. Offerings left without fanfare.
Ancestor worship. Land wights. The hush that follows truth.
Associated Names
Álfar. Elf. Ælf. Ælfric. Álfr. Alp. Alv. Ylf. Álpt. Huldra. Huldufólk. Ailbhín. Elves.
The Bright Ones. The Mound Dwellers. The Folk Who Came Before.