Those Rankin-Bass animatronic Christmas specials were really a thing of wonder; almost nobody since has captured quite the same sense of wonder that those did, as far as Christmas stories are concerned.
The Norse had "light" and "dark" alfar (or elves), but I don't know that even the ljos-alfar were especially benign where mortals were concerned. Then as the cultures cross-pollinated, the mythologies blurred. The light-elves are more or less supplanted by the Celtic/Gaelic traditions of the Sidhe or Tuatha de Danaan (who themselves then shape the "classic" faerie folk from Spenser's Faerie Queen and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream). And the folk the Norse call dark-elves actually evolve pretty directly into our conception of "dwarfs" or "dwarves" -- compact folk who live underground, who are wondrous miners and craftmasters, and are not so much evil as merely reclusive. In fact, it makes rather more sense for mythological purposes to consider Santa's toymaking legion to be of dwarven or dark-elven stock.
I can't prove it off the top of my head, but I think the modern idea of "Mrs. Santa Claus" has more behind it than the Rankin-Bass specials. I distinctly recall learning a song called "Mrs. Santa Claus" in junior high choir class -- this would have been in the early to mid-1970s -- that had the concept pretty firmly nailed, and which I am sure didn't arise out of the R-B version of the character. Unfortunately, all I remember specifically is the title -- no melody, no author, no lyrics.
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Date: 2008-12-14 09:30 am (UTC)The Norse had "light" and "dark" alfar (or elves), but I don't know that even the ljos-alfar were especially benign where mortals were concerned. Then as the cultures cross-pollinated, the mythologies blurred. The light-elves are more or less supplanted by the Celtic/Gaelic traditions of the Sidhe or Tuatha de Danaan (who themselves then shape the "classic" faerie folk from Spenser's Faerie Queen and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream). And the folk the Norse call dark-elves actually evolve pretty directly into our conception of "dwarfs" or "dwarves" -- compact folk who live underground, who are wondrous miners and craftmasters, and are not so much evil as merely reclusive. In fact, it makes rather more sense for mythological purposes to consider Santa's toymaking legion to be of dwarven or dark-elven stock.
I can't prove it off the top of my head, but I think the modern idea of "Mrs. Santa Claus" has more behind it than the Rankin-Bass specials. I distinctly recall learning a song called "Mrs. Santa Claus" in junior high choir class -- this would have been in the early to mid-1970s -- that had the concept pretty firmly nailed, and which I am sure didn't arise out of the R-B version of the character. Unfortunately, all I remember specifically is the title -- no melody, no author, no lyrics.