Re: Dark Elves Jenny jennyg@compuserve.com Tue Apr 13 12:06:50 1999 Merry meet, Silver Dove!*p*I'm with Topaz Owl. If these are really dark elves, they're not evil or malevolent. They are different, as Owl says, and the ones I've encountered were rather fiercely territorial. But that can work to your friend's advantage!*p*Before we were married, my husband-to-be bought a house that turned out to be "haunted", so to speak. There was a dark, brooding presence, that seemed to follow you about glaring at you. There was one bedroom in particular that it seemed to concentrate on, and people who tried to sleep in it constantly had nightmares and woke up feeling that someone, some angry, hostile person, was standing beside the bed, staring at them.*p*Like your friend, my first thought was protections and banishings. However before I do any spell I sit down and pray for guidance. And when I sat down before this one, the Gods clearly said to me, "This creature lived here long before you did. Perhaps you should pay it some respect."*p*I realized, then, that I'd allowed myself to become frightened. I hadn't spoken to this creature, or figured out what it was. Hell, I hadn't even introduced myself! It seemed to be very territorial, so I began to wonder if it was "malevolent" because it thought I was invading its house. I remembered all the stories I'd heard about boggans, and brownies, and hus-things -- all the domestic fairies that guarded hearth and home. Maybe that was what my creature was.*p*So what I did was this. First, I warded myself well (just in case it wasn't friendly). Then I carried a bowl of incense around the borders of the house and introduced myself to the land-spirits. I told them my name, and that I was one of the new owners of the house. Finally I took a cup of wine and more incense and went to the top of the basement stairs, a place where this creature had "haunted".*p*I sat down and introduced myself and asked who it was. No answer. I placed the wine and incense there for it, and asked what it wanted. No answer, but I felt something watching me very closely. Then I explained that it was frightening me and that we had to work out some sort of a compromise. Would it be willing to accept the basement as its own and leave the upper half of the house to us humans? We'd ask permission before entering its "realm" and we'd give it offerings of wine and incense at the new moon.*p*Again, I didn't feel I got an answer. But I saw an IMMEDIATE result: the "presence" retreated to the basement, leaving the rest of the house "unhaunted". The malevolent tinge to it vanished, leaving a creature that was fiercely protective -- but protective of me and my house. I came to love the Thing in time, though it was never particularly friendly or talkative. But I felt like I had the world's greatest guard dog on duty, 24 hours a day. Some nights when I came home late, I'd feel it as I opened the door. Sometimes I could almost see it, a large black dog with over-sized eyes, standing at the top of the cellar steps.*p*My mom has a dark elf in her house, and she did something similar, with the same results. So my advice to your friend would be: talk to this thing. Try and find out what it is and why it's there. Be polite and respectful, and she may be able to turn her "haunt" into a wonderful guardian.*p*Jenny*br* Dark Elves Silver Dove 349 Tue Apr 13 04:37:18 1999