GOOD books about elves

Friends have reassured me that, because I am writing a work of fiction, it absolutely does not matter if I get the date of a 2006 snowstorm or the price of a video rental special wrong, forgetting that I am the kind of person who gets angry at fantasy novels if they are mythologically wrong about elves. "Which books are mythologically right about elves, Rose?" I'm so glad you asked!

What irks me about many fictional portrayals of the fair folk is that the authors try to make things up about them out of whole cloth and in so doing miss a lot of the fascinating details that make elves so interesting. The vast body of existing lore, encompassing "fictional" accounts as well as "true" memoirs of fairy encounters, contains so much ornate weirdness that it's always disappointing to me when authors pass it up as source material. 

One of the greatest books on elves is of course Sylvia Townsend Warner's Kingdoms of Elfin, a wonderful short story collection that portrays its fairy protagonists as capricious, glamorous, and bizarre, just as mythology holds them to be. Townsend Warner's particular genius lies in situating these mythical figures in their own social and political contexts, and the court dynamics of the elfin kingdoms are fascinating. Many of their customs are incomprehensible in the human world, but their fascination with us has led them to copy some of our more baroque traditions, with uncanny distortions that are very fun to read about. I described it in my print newsletter as like "The Favourite, but with elves," since it touches on political intrigue, the gross decadence of the ruling class, weird bodily functions, and arcane races between unwilling farm animals. Superb book.

Following in these exalted footsteps, Susanna Clarke's understanding of fairies and their realms, as described in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as well as her short fiction is to my mind spot on. Her freaky fairy balls where nobody really enjoys themselves are incredibly well done and have a solid grounding in Cornish mythology.

Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean, situates the kingdom of faerie in the Classics department of a small liberal arts college and, in addition to being correct about the caprice and weird humor of its elfin characters, it is a creditable addition to the subgenre of books about creepy Classics majors at small liberal arts schools (see also The Secret History). (In my experience, Russian majors at small liberal arts schools could definitely give the Classics crew a run for their money in the cultiness department, and while it is set at a larger university, I am grateful to Elif Batuman's The Idiot for capturing this reality).

Books for young readers often romanticize elves to a dangerous degree—think of the story of the student who was mauled by a panda bear because stuffed animals led him to believe it would be cuddly. A few stand out as particularly good, however: The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw is a great story about a changeling trying to make sense of life among humans, complete with negative reactions to salt, iron, and holy water, and The Folk Keeper, by Franny Billingsley, also includes an interesting take on the selkie myth.

Terry Pratchett's books based on elf lore don't totally fit into this category because Discworld is an invented setting distinct from our own world and thus any inconsistencies with the basic myth can be attributed to the specific weirdnesses of the Pratchett universe. This is inoffensive to me. He does an excellent job of bringing in aspects of earthly fairy lore in ways that are consistent with Discworld logic, and a particular innovation I like is the idea he proposes that, since they are sensitive to iron, fairies must have green, copper-based blood, like crawfish. 

I hope you will enjoy these books and won't let inaccurate portrayals of elves distract you from their power and importance. Leave them nice offerings of sweets and dairy, honor their paths and architecture, and appreciate them from a respectful distance, but don't enter into any deals with them if you don't absolutely have to and take protective measures as necessary.