sylph
Sylphs or Sylvani are mythical nature spirits that are assigned to the element air, just like undines are water spirits. The salamander in turn is assigned to fire and the dwarfs or gnomes to earth. Sylphs are therefore an example of the spiritualization of matter . They have a filigree, fine human-like body and are able to reproduce. In contrast to humans, however, they are soulless .
A well-known sylph is Ariel .
Paracelsus (1493–1541) is considered the literary creator of the sylphs. In describing the nature spirits, he probably oriented himself towards the sub-beings of Kabbalah .
Grimmelshausen had his Simplicissimus abducted by sylphs into the Mummelsee and plunged to the center of the earth; here sylphs seem to be seen more as water spirits.
In Goethe's Faust , Faust calls upon the elemental spirits. The sylphs are also represented (including Chapter 6, Study Room 1, 1275).
Sylphide
Until the first half of the 20th century, a tender and graceful girl was also called a Sylphide (after the ballet La Sylphide ). Men can also be sylphid (or sylphen-like , sylphid-like ). Today the term is all but forgotten in these meanings.
In the fairy tale The steadfast tin soldier by Hans Christian Andersen , the dancing paper princess at the end of the fairy tale, after she fell into the fire with the one-legged steadfast tin soldier, is compared to a sylph because of her elegance and grace:
“Then a door opened, the wind seized the dancer and she flew like a sylph into the furnace to the tin soldier, blazed up with flames and she was gone! Then the tin soldier melted into a lump, and when the girl took out the ashes the day after, she found him as a little tin heart. "
See also
literature
- Pagel, Walter, The medical world view of Paracelsus , Wiesbaden 1962, p. 98 ff.
