I can’t ever recall all the names of Snow White’s seven dwarves. (Truthfully, Snow White was never my favorite Disney princess.) But this week I’ve been making plans for the second novel in my series, which is an adaptation of Snow’s story. Therefore, my Google search history is full of dwarves (and simple two-syllable adjectives!).

Three things have surprised me about dwarves so far. In no particular order:

  1. There aren’t that many out there! Unlike fairies or mermaids, dwarves don’t have a worldwide folkloric-following. Most historians seem to agree that dwarves come from Germanic and Norse traditions, but that’s about it. In fact, most sources cite Tolkien as a major influence in bringing dwarves into the popular fantasy realm.
  2. Early dwarves were often thought of as cousins to — or even interchangeable with — elves. This doesn’t make much sense to a modern reader (dwarves = short, burly, bearded and elves = tall, willowy, graceful in most of today’s fantasy) but it’s particularly true of Norse myth.
  3. Dwarves aren’t necessarily short! These days even non-fantasy folks use the word “dwarf” to denote something small (dwarf varieties of plants, for example). But there’s some debate about whether the ancient Norse or Germans really considered their dwarves to be short. Some sources even suggest they were quite tall — more along the lines of giants. One article suggested that, as northern European regions were Christianized, dwarves in stories were depicted more as laughable or childlike characters. This would certainly have been true by the time the Brothers Grimm came along to write about Snow White.

The good side to this ambiguity is it leaves me with lots of room for creating my own story. 🙂 (Even if I still can’t recite all seven of the Disney dwarves!)

Selected Sources

Given how (surprisingly) little info there is on the internet, the Wikipedia page on dwarves is actually helpful.

For a much more in-depth look, World History has an article on both dwarves and elves.

Finally, “Dwarves in Norse Mythology” by Mike Greenberg on Mythology Source is a neat article with a modern interpretation.