Go Elf Yourself!

Like most people, I tend to only think about elves when reading one of J. R. R. Tolkien's books or around Christmas time.

An elf is a creature of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of human like creatures who are often pictured as youthful seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and underground places such as caves. They have been portrayed to be very long lived and as beings of great magical powers.

As far as I can tell there seem to be only six skills that an elf tends to have so although the versatility of these pointy-eared little freaks is not that great they do seem to exceed at what they can do.

Toy Makers

Most commonly elves are known as tireless workers employed in Santa's Workshop making the toys that Santa Claus delivers to all the good little girls and boys on Christmas Eve.

Shoemakers

Perhaps not so commonly known is that elves can craft leather shoes so fine that they would make an Indonesian Nike sweatshop worker cry himself to sleep.

When the shoemaker in the story finally catches a glimpse of the elves at work he notices that they are all buck naked. For safety's sake and as a means of saying "thanks" he decides to knit them some clothing. The elves take the clothing and never return.

Elves can make toys and shoes, but can't make themselves shirts and pants? Maybe it's a strange rite of passage. All elves have to start out making shoes until someone gets tired of looking at their butts and gives them something to wear. Only then can they change craft.

Bakers

Elves seem to prefer doing their baking in large hollow trees, despite the enormous fire hazard. Each year hundreds of elves and woodland creatures die in baking related forest fires, but their chocolate chip cookies taste awesome, so its a statistic I can live with.

Cereal Makers

Snap, Crackle and Pop are best known for inventing Rice Krispies cereal. Legend has it they had a fourth brother named "Soggy," who died suspiciously the night before the cereal was unveiled in 1928. The three assailants were never found.

Archers

If the Lord of the Rings has taught us one thing about elves its that when they are not sending out joy in the form of toys, cereal and cookies, they are sending razor sharp arrows deep into the skulls of their enemies. A good rule of thumb is: Don't bother them, and you won't get an arrow in your eye.

Dentists

In at least one documented case, a misfit elf named Hermey quit Santa's Workshop to strike out on his own and become a practicing dentist. Maybe he was a cousin of the Tooth Fairy or something. He was last seen crying on a glacier after trying to perform a root canal on a Yeti.

Now that you've got all that elf-ing information...

Click the picture and go and Elf Yourself!