Observations placeholder

Thorlacius - Noget Om Thor og Hans Hammer [Skandinavisk Museum 1803] quoted in Keightley

 Our heathen forefathers believed like Pythagoreans,  and the farther back in antiquity the more firmly, that the world was filled with spirits of various kinds, to whom they ascribed in general the same nature and properties as the Greeks did to Daemons. 

These were divided into the Celestial and the Terrestrial from their places of abode.  The former were, according to the ideas of those times, of a good and elevated nature, and of a friendly disposition towards men, whence they also received the name of White or Light Alfs or Spirits. 

The latter, on the contrary, who were classified after their abodes in air, sea and earth, were not regarded in so favourable a light.  It was believed that they… had their dwelling partly on the earth in great thick woods -  whence came the name Skovtrolde [wood trolls]  - or in other desert and lonely places, partly in and under the ground, or in rocks and hills.  These last were called Bjerg Trolde [hill trolls]. 

To the first on account of their different nature was given the name of Dverge [dwarf] ….. the underground ones were called Svartalfar, that is Black Spirits [or Dark Elves] and inasmuch as they did mischief.