Alorya and Ljossalfheim: some information | Elves | Forums

Apologies if this is in the wrong part of the forum. I wasn't sure where it should go.

So, as some of you know from my introduction elsewhere, I'm from Ljossalfheim. I was originally Aloryan. My understanding of how I came to be in Ljossalfheim is that I was adopted there while still an infant.

Alorya and Ljossalfheim seem to have ties, as others have noted. I am very familiar with the Norse cosmological construct called the Nine Worlds, of which Ljossalfheim is one. It has long been my belief, and that of a few friends of mine who also work within this cosmology, that the Ljossalfar came from “elsewhere,” meaning that they did not originate along with the other races of the Nine Worlds (the Jotnar or giants, dwarves, Aesir, etc.) From what elven realm, none of us had any idea. They apparently built their realm alongside the other worlds that rest near Yggdrasil (which is popularly conceived of as a “world tree” — I have an idea it might be something else, but it is so large and old that a tree seems like a useful way to think of it.)

Recently I had a flash of insight, I guess you could call it, and it occurred to me that perhaps Ljossalfheim was “colonized,” if you will, by elves who were originally from Alorya. This would have been a long, LONG time ago. My understanding is that the elven population in the Nine Worlds has been there quite some time. Judging from my own experiences and interaction with the beings there, and from similar experiences I've heard about from others, there also seems to be a population of what most people call “fae” living in Ljossalfheim, with the elves descended from the Aloryans forming a separate ruling class…very much like popular conceptions of elves, I expect.

My personal experience with the Ljossalfar as they are now is that while they are fair-formed, typically “elven” in many ways and very keen on glamouring themselves and every square inch of their realm, they are also rather rigid and consider other races — the Jotnar in particular — to be beneath them. Apparently this attitude was part of a disagreement that created a schism at some point and a subsequent civil war, after which the losers were forced out of Ljossalfheim and sought refuge in the world inhabited by the Duergar (dwarves), known as Svartalfheim.

Another thing I have gleaned over the past few years is that the Ljossalfar's bloodlines are thinning out; centuries of inbreeding has left them weak and they seek to replenish their bloodlines by either abducting humans with elf blood and having children with them, or (in my case) arranging to adopt elf children from less inbred populations. If I had to say when, my rough guess is that I was adopted about two thousand years ago current Earth time…so evidently Alorya was still around at that time or at least some of its people were.

The Svartalfar, as far as I know, don't have the blood issue. They are fewer in number than the Ljossalfar but have half-elves among them, and although they seem insular they are less snobbish about bloodlines than their cousins. They tend to scare people more thanks to the fact that they are rather bloodthirsty.

Both populations know of their common origin but have long since stopped considering themselves Aloryans. They are so different as to be different sorts of elves entirely.

So that's what I know, or think I know. Some of this information is stored in the back of my brain where all the elf things are that I haven't bothered to unearth yet in this lifetime, and some of it has been corroborated by other Northern Tradition spirit-workers and people who deal with the elves of the Nine Worlds, and some of it is conjecture. Make of it what you will.

I hope this is useful to others, or at least entertaining 🙂

Elizabeth