Of Elves and Ogres... etc, etc.

It is now time in our series of expoundatory de-mythsification articles for the complex topic of the inter-relationships between Elves, Giants, Ogres, Dragons, and People. Well, the executive summary, anyway.


Giants, like Elves, are space-travelers, but Giants aren't traders, they're "sportsmen"... or rather, sports-Giants, except they don't play football, they hunt Dragons. Or rather, they use Ogres to hunt Dragons, kind of like the English aristocracy uses Hound Dogs to hunt Foxi. That's clear enough, right? So where do the Elves and People fit in?

Well, as we're all now well aware, Elves are traders, but they need other sentient Creatures to trade with. Having monitored humankind's evolutionizing for a long time, they were just getting hopeful that our Ancestors would be developing into traders in a few thousand more generations, when People were threatened with extinction! Annihilation! And higher cave taxes! That's because this was all during our cave-dwelling period, and caves were also the preferred habitat for Dragons. I'm sure you now see how this ended up...

The Giants sent the Ogres into caves to flush out the Dragons, not knowing if the caves were Dragon-caves or People-Caves. The Ogres, being really strong, slow-witted, ornery, Ruthless, stinky, and inclined to kill anything that moves or makes noise, killed more People than they flushed Dragons. The clever Elves taught our Cave-cestors to kill the Dragons, so as to eliminate the Giants' incentive to include Earth in their Giant Guide to Dragon-Hunting-Planets and Cold Rocks (see Pluto post). So that got rid of the Dragons, which got rid of the Giants and Ogres, and allowed us to developicate our sophisticated interstellar-commerce interests.

Now, I know what those of you who are left-handed and eating eggs for breakfast are thinking... you're thinking, "I'll bet that's where the stories of Medieval Knights fighting Dragons comes from!" Naaah. The Dragons were all gone by the time the Knights started Knighting. The stories of Knights fighting Dragons is merely a myth, based on stories brought back to Europe from Asia by swimmers playing Marco-Polo. And they got the stories from the Asians who had passed down the stories by word of mouth, eventually leading to stories that little resemble THE TRUTH.

So, I for one, am glad the Elves kept such good records and are willing to sell those records to those of us who trade with them. Not to mention the commemorative "Moving Target" t-shirts, which are now available at The Elf Ink Emporium, and are exactly like the ones the Elves got the Ogres to wear so long ago. Happy Hunting!