Is Halloween Pagan?
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2024
- Is Halloween evil? Where does All soul's day come from? How have the different pagan festivals of Europe influenced the way it is celebrated today? Many European pagan celebrated an annual feast of the dead, from the Celtic Samhain to the Slavic Dziady. This indicates a common Indo-European origin.
In this video I look at all the pagan festivals that preceded the Christian Halloween, aka All Soul's day, and explain how they are connected.
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#Halloween #Samhain - Розваги
This is how my family celebrates the Day of the Dead here in Hungary:
We go together to the graveyard, and it's always the oldest family member who tells whose grave to visit next.
Flowers are being put on the graves and candles are being lit. Then we spend a few minutes in silence at each grave.
When we get home we light a candle there as well and eat 'kocsonya' which is an aspic made of pork legs.
As we eat we share stories about our ancestors and we collect the bones from our plates into a bowl in the center.
It's always been my favourite festival throughout the year by far.
Sort of like Dias de Morte in Mexico
Lovely to hear that -- interesting the gathering of the bones
Not sure if this is related, but I'll share it anyway.
I work as a chimney sweep in England and I see some very old buildings, lots of them listed, lots of thatch etc.
I was opening up a very old fireplace* that had been bricked up and covered over with lead so I could sweep/survey/reinstate the flue and inside the fireplace I found an extremely old small child's leather sandal........this was apparently placed in the fireplace to 'ward off witches' when it was being sealed.
In an old Tudor thatched listed Manor House/farmhouse.
I endorse your gaelic pronunciation
I am not very good! Sorry
@@Survivethejive You did great. Just a teeny note: Sidhe is pronounced "she". Thanks for your excellent videos. Great work .
All saints is known as Calan Gaeaf or Ysbryd Nos (Spirit Night) in Wales, a decorated horse's skull in rags is paraded around the houses, in the evening a great fire is made and when the fire builder calls out, everyone writes their names on white rocks and then place them in the fire. When the fire starts to die out everyone runs home as fast as they can to avoid being the last person at the fire because if they stay they would meet the demon at large, 'Yr Hwch Ddu Gwta' (a bad omen that took the form of a tailless black sow with a headless woman astride it that would roam the countryside). It is believed that the traditions and stories surrounding 'Yr Hwch Ddu Gwta' were survived by local parents as a means of ensuring their children would return home safely and as early as possible on this cold, dark night. One particular rhyme shows how the last child out on Nos Calan Gaeaf would be at risk of being eaten by the fearsome beast:
Adref, adref, am y cyntaf', Hwch ddu gwta a gipio'r ola'.
(Home, home, on the double, The tailess black sow shall snatch the last one.)
The following morning, all the stones containing villagers' names would be checked. If, however, a stone was missing, the person who wrote their name on the stone would die within one year. This tradition is know as the "Coelcerth". Many were afraid of going out on Allhallow's Eve as the night among the Welsh is one of the "tair nos ysbrydion" (three spirit' nights) where demons are free to roam the mortal world. Stiles, and crossroads were particularly avoided, since spirits are thought to gather there.
Nos Calan Gaea',
Bwbach ar bob camfa
(On Allhallow's Eve,
A bogie on every stile.)
In former times there were many more customs in connection with it that have now disappeared. In some places there was a ceremony of walking round the church at midnight to look in through the keyhole to hear a spirit call out the names all those who were going to die. The candle in a turnip is often mentioned as a means to scare folk on this night. In West Wales it was also known as "nos twca fale" (apple snatching night). In some parts of Carmarthen-shire it was customary to peel an apple carefully and thrown the peel behind the head. Particular notice was taken to what form it appeared and when it resembled a letter of the alphabet it would be the first letter of the thrower's wife's name. There is also the custom of "Eiddiorwg Dalen" where a few leaves of ivy is thought to give you the power to see hags on Allhallow's Eve. For prophetic dreams a boy should cut ten ivy leaves, throw away one and put the rest under his head before he sleeps. A girl should take a wild rose grown into a hoop, creep through it three times, cut it in silence, and go to bed with it under her pillow. Oh, and one should also avoid lighting a fire in the hearth on Calan Gaeaf as you don't want any demons to get too comfy in your house.
Great culture!
I am American but my British neighbor put flowers on my door May first. I had no idea what for at the time. Now I do it myself. I wish we had more traditional things from the old country. Tom if you ever come to the states stay out of cities. You will feel at home here in Rural Pennsylvania. When I went abroad It didn't feel that different at least in the Midlands Home of my ancestors.
Q: Is [European festivity] pagan?
A: Yes.
Adrijan Talić To what? An excuse for commercialised nothingness? Fuck that, I’d rather embrace the real meaning behind our festivals.
Also
Q: Is [Abrahamic festivity] pagan?
A: Yes.
@@najeyrifai1134 not all.
Q: is [Moral Custom] pagan?
A: Yes.
@@erwineichmann6959 Abrahamism is just a corruption of paganism.
I never want to hear anyone criticize STJ's intros ever again.
Thanks for another great video,
The first time I ever saw STJ was when he did the Irish Traveler wanting a fight.
I still laugh thinking about it now.
Genius
Fully grown Slav dressed as a rooster. Haunting.
Latvia isn't slavic you numpty.
ᛋᛖᚪᛉᛖ ᚹᚫᚳᚾᚪᚾ it's easy to mistake it as so
And don't forget it!! ;)
@@user-iq3xc5gc1f The Baltic are our older cousins
@Иван Распутин wile true. Today the difference is huge.
To claim they are the same us like calling Danish and English the same. And even they separated later than Balts and Slavs.
The connection with corn reminds me of a reference in pagan England where a grain of corn would be burned in a house where a man has died.
Corn is a new world crop.
Jeremy Corbyn not barley, rye or wheat. Corn is also an old English word.
corn is english word for all kinds of grains, not just sweetcorn
This is why everyone thinks Caesar wrote about literal corn in his writings, right? I mean, he actually wrote about grains, but the translation is such that the word corn is used.
Best way to spend a Sunday evening: Watching STJ
W E L C O M E T R A V E L E R
I think he's enticing virgins with that intro
Want to hear something really scary?
There is a skeleton inside you!
Philippus Cluverius I hear an eerie xylophone fading in from the distance.
What's even scarier is the soul. Aaaaggghhhh!
Philippus Cluverius nice🤣
Captain Obvious
the skeleton is outside of us actually
We wuz Elves!
Ayo hol up, where da human women at?
ROFL!
You actually got Slavic tradition very right. Thank you!
Wonderful commentary and history! Just an observance at the end. In Slavic countries, and in many others, one NEVER takes red flowers to the dead, they are ALWAYS white. Also, they must be presented in ODD numbers, 3-5-7-9, and so on, etc. We, as the living, take RED to be "alive" and "in the blood", the white stands for spirit and aether, the dead carry odd things, while we carry "even" things. Did you know of this? Many floral designers that come from the Slavic tradition here in Chicago, where there are large Polish and other Slavic (Serbian, Czech, Slovak, Russian, Croatian,) peoples here remember this and automatically do this when making floral tributes for a funeral or bringing flowers to a deceased loved one. For example, you could buy roses for your deceased mom, but only in white and in odd numbers. To do so otherwise would be considered "strange"..
Odd numbers? Here in Russia odd numbers of flowers are for the alive and even numbers are for the dead. So, if you buy 3 (or 5, 7) flowers, you are probably going to gift it to someone, if you buy 2, it's fair to assume you are going to put them on a grave.
This upcoming Saturday on "All saints day" or Zadusnica which translates in Macedonia "For the spirit", we'll visit the graveyards and light candles and bring some food and drinks. It's also important to leave drink and food on the graves too, for the deceased(The church actually from time to time, fights this custom and tries to dissuade people from bringing and leaving food claiming it's unchristian to "waste it").
Korea has Chuseok, which is very similar I'd say. They give offering and pray to their past ancestors/deceased relatives and eat a feast similar to a Thanksgiving meal (most refer to it as a Korean Thanksgiving).
East Asian do anything to be white
In Serbia and many contemporary Christian countries, we have Zadušnice, which are a sort of Christian successor to Dziady, where we go to the graveyard to light candles, but it's usually determined by the church, however in the aforementioned cycles
If you see this comment while scrolling, know that you have been visited by the Spooky Skelly of Samhain! Great ancestral and spiritual gains will come your way, but only if you say out loud: "Thank you, based Skelly!"
Thank you, based Skelly!
Megaloceros I said it, but I was brushing my teeth.
Thank you, based Skelly!
Great video, well researched, eloquent and classy presentation sealed with pinky signet ring. Thank you for mentioning Slavic traditions as well. Subscribed. Slava!
very interesting particularly the Slavic people's customs. irish/Scottish Sidhe is pronounced 'she' though. Think Banshee (Ban:female. sidhe: spirit)
hi thomas. kinda added up to ancestor worship to me. perhaps ancestor respect is a better word. i liked it. i think our grandfathers and mothers did to. thank yew gare
Greetings, Sensei! :)
This is the 3rd year I've watched this in October and I will continue to do so every year after for as long as this video exists on UA-cam
What an amazing video! Thank you for sharing this (with me, and other Americans)... perhaps this would be "common knowledge" were I born in another time or place, but here, now, in America, I feel disconnected from my Germanic, Northern European blood. As always, your videos are a great treasure, thank you.
In Ireland as well as being a celebration of the dead,is also the respect given[in folklore] to the ''Pooka',who really is a horned earth spirit,parts of the harvest were left the Pooka to ensure good harvests for the next year,if not the Pooka would bring retribution on you hence"trick or treat?" The problems the Pooka challenged you with would be tricky,unless you paid the Faerie..
Trick or treat is American I think, when I young we said "Any apples or nuts". We dressed up to confuse the spirits as the tradition said they roamed the living world on that night
As a Hindu kid growing up in Canada, I always thought that Halloween was the European equivalent of "Pitru Paksha", the 15 day period for the ancestors, in which ghosts also hitch rides as both are celebrated in autumn. Pitru Paksha is definitely closely related to the European festivals of dead. In Pitru Paksha, we offer food, water, and "shraddh" to our ancestors. The food is offered by feeding crows, cows, or Brahmanas (the priestly caste). In this period, the sacrifices to the gods and goddesses is haulted, and sacrifices to the ancestors are made solely. In this period our elders stopped us from going outside at night as we also believed that the dead who died unpeacefully also come back to earth looking for their food.
Then later they told me that they were separate festivals, but I never stopped believing that they were related to each other.
Courtshannon Of course, the commonality between European, Iranian, and North Indic religions is obviously no coincidence, it is a remnant of our Indo-European past thousands of years ago.
you guys sound like you have some fun lore too
Nilesh Nath Your intuition is gut wise and strong. May it continue to become more clear!!!
@@nileshnath541 Or Mediterranean
I loved this, well done. It's clear that the human sacrifice angle of the 'Crom Cruach' in Ireland was Christian propaganda. Some intersting ideas have come to light in recent years that the Crom was a veneration of the period between the planting and harvesting season and some evidence does appear to support this. Also the Crom Cruach was venerated in Ireland in County Cavan until the 1500s which incidentially is also where his main ritual centre was located and which Saint Patrick destroyed.
I don't know even Caesar reported human sacrifices by the Gauls.
I think that human sacrifices were made as a last resort in a desperate situation.
Since the mediterreneans had food imports and thus no no existential angst by failed crops etc.; they refrained from human sacrifices (like the ones done by Achilleus at the grave of Patroklos).
Maybe that was already propaganda, who knows.
But I don't think that the Christians faked those accounts since false testimony is strongly forbidden by the ten commandments.
Some practices that seemed to be wildly exaggerated or made up could be later be proven to have some truth to it.
Like that Anglo-Saxons had a ritual that involved sexual acts with a horse. A depiction of that can be found on the Slagsta petroglyphs.
Hail Crom
"St Patrick" was the personification of nothing other than a Vatican military campaign that closed 300 Druidic universities and threw the Druid magi into the sea
@@DrCorvid Please provide sources to support your claim please (because that seems like something to look into.)
@@DrCorvid could you give some proof of a Vatican military campaign in Ireland
In Finland we called this feast as Kekri. It was the biggest feast and celebration of the year, the end of the harvest season. It was celebrated after Mikkeli day and was kept before november which we call as marraskuu. Marras means dead. Kekri means most probably a "wheel", which I believe is related to the year(sun) circle.
During the feast everyone had to eat and drink, and nobody was left hungry, even the lowest servants. It was believed that if someone was left hungry, the harvest would be bad next year and kettle don't get fertile. They also served food for the ancestors.
We also had kekripukki (a male goat). It was made of straws and it got burned. People dressed up as kekripukki too. They had big fur coats and a mask and horns. They went from house to house and people had to feed them and give them booze. They also spanked the kids or atleast threat them with spanking. Sometimes men offered their wifes to lay with the kekripukki, and wifes were happy to do that, to please the ancestors and spirits. It was believed that good and bad spirits walked on earth during kekri, and you never knew if the masked guest in the house was good or bad. Bonfires were burned to keep the bad spirits away. And...something hasn't changed during hundreds of years in Finland: ofc we had sauna warmed up during kekri :D
It is assumed that the legend of Santa Claus (joulupukki) is originally kekripukki. Before it became the happy Disney Santa Claus.
What do you mean by lat with them?
"Lay" (in tge biblical sense)
Not watching this, too spoopy 😱👻👽
baby!
Really good video! Great content as per usual. Love the anglo saxon history side of it and how you integrate others European traditions.
Sídhe (sí) Fairy folk.
Maypole in the Basque Country.
About the seventh of November is the halfway mark., whenever the sun sits at 16 degrees declination.
Thank you for another video STJ!
Happy Halloween!
Let us all honor our ancestors.
Great work. I’ve been looking forward to this one for years.
Thank you for another great video. A small correction from a Latvian pagan. As far as my research goes Mārtiņdiena is more orientated on celebration of the end of harvest related work and welcoming of winter. Dressing up is used to scare evil spirits and attract fertility. Ancestor worship is happening only during veļu laiks.
keep up the great work bro, i always look forward to your videos
Thank you for all of your amazing videos! I am Persian and follow Zoroastrianism. Could you please do a video on Zoroastrianism and pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion which was a Vedic type religion? Thank you!
Great video, love when you talk about us icelanders! The mood in this video was particularly mystic and the atmosphere accordingly, know its a ''halloween' special but would be cool seeing more videos with this mystic atmosphere.
We are all part of the same extended European family
Again, a very interesting presentation Tom. Particuilarly your mention of the Land of the Elves. These lands seem to also be visited when psychonauts partake of some entheogens. I'm going to watch this again. Theres so much information here, it's hard to absorb in one listening. Thanks Tom 👍
Great video to watch again this week! Thanks Tom!
In Lithuania, the fall festival is called Velines. If you want to see some videos that show the customs look up ''Mores Deginimas'' Oooooh, spooky, scary!!!
when is Mores Deginimas?
It used to be held over the moon of October, so from the end of September until mid-November. It was much longer in the past. Now, the ''day of the dead'' is celebrated on November 1 alongside the Christian holiday. It's actually ''Old man's day.'' Old women are supposed to mourn the death of old men. Grandma makes pancakes to give kids who come to her door. Swastikas and other geometric shapes are made out of straw. These were later burned . These kinds of shapes are always made but now they have an intent (The swastika is a symbol of turning or motion in this instance.) There are all kinds of little things that fit into these preparations for the coming winter and they vary in different regions.
Alternate namae of Vėlinės is Ilgės.
Morės deginimas is at the end of the Winter on Užgavėnmės - Ash Wednesday.
Juras Visockis You are correct, but the Halloween type pagan Customs for the dead are shown on Mores deginimas. Velines is pretty Christianized and doesn't show a lot of pagan customs. There aren't any videos on youtube for Ilges or Velines so my comment is probably misleading. From what I was told Velines (Ilges) was originally the entire period of the October moon and Uzgavenmes was the formal ending of the winter period of the season cycle. Mores deginimas is usually represented as Mardi Gras and Christian. To be clear Velines is All Saints Day (Christian, visiting and lighting candles at graves) Uzgavenmes is the Romuvan celebration culminating on the night before Ash Wednesday (although that too was probably a lunar celebration.) Sorry if my mash up was confusing.
@Survive the Jive I've worked with UC Dublin recently on archaeological excavations at Tlachtga, and that report should be forthcoming in the next year or two.
Nice to see Israel war ads when I'm trying to learn about my history.
A very Indo-European looking jack o' lantern.
My mum used to carve jack o lanterns out of swedes
@@sharoncooke1719 the original practice
@@sharoncooke1719Mangel wurzels.
Growing up in Northern Ireland (near Belfast) in the 1970s & 80s, we always celebrated Hallowe'en - with turnip lanterns, which were incredibly hard & dangerous to cut out with a sharp knife. Back then, and to an extent into the 1990s, England only celebrated Guy Fawkes Night. A friend told me today that when she lived in Dublin about 15 years ago the southern Irish there did not celebrate Halloween - is this true?
I live in Kildare and Halloween is indeed celebrated.
The dubliners probably didn't, because of the Anglo Irish population there.
Growing up in Lancashire in the 70s and 80s we carved turnips, dressed up a bit spooky, ducked for apples , etc. Some of us were from Irish families but our English friends celebrated in the same way too.
We celebrated Halloween in Northumberland in the 1970s with turnip lanterns and dooky apples.
@@Fioneenacockeen The English are at least half celtic. Lots of Celticness survived. We certainly did Halloween.
You make some of the best content on UA-cam! Keep it up
Happy upcoming Samhain friend. The Gods All High Bless. Skal
Halloween is coming my Indo Europeans! Happy Samhain!
As always very well presented and articulate and compelling.
The Finnish version was known as Kekri.
Ages ago I wrote an essay called Samhain Remains -- remains in this context meaning leftovers. In it I highlight a strange coincidences where elements of ancient Samhain are expressed in a series of modern holidays and observances. For example, the Samhain bonfires are now the Guy Fawkes bonfires on 5 November and the remembrances of the ancestors is now Remembrance Day on 11 November. Some of the Samhain practices for the end of the Celtic year were moved to new New Year of 1 January for Hogmanay in Scotland.
I heard you mention this video on the red ice halloween stream. Lots of nice content here for this season and others: thank you.
Great video!!! You always make me 🤔 keep up the wonderful 👷
Nice video! Thank you very much. Lémures by the way. In Latin, the penultimate syllable always carries the accent, unless it ends with a short vowel. Then the stress falls back on the antepenultimate. Here the penultimate syllable, -mu-, ends with a short vowel.
In the west country in England there is a festival held in October called Punkie Night, where children march through the streets with jack O' Laterns made from Mangel Wurzels singing a song declaring its Punkie night tonight, and asking for candles or pennies. A punkie is an old english word for a latern.
Great video. You are an enrichment to Sweden.
I spent a lot of my life as an Orthodox Christian. But I decided to reject the foreign religion and accept our native religion since the majority of our religion was co opted by foreign powers anyway. It is back to native Pagan religion, worship, and spirituality for me and for my family. Thank you Thomas for all your work.
Saw this durning the PERFECT time of year!
Happy Halloween!
Missing the videos bro, youre a gem
An unbiased, enlightening and introspective video as usual. When are you going to finish your book?
Hail Odin! Hail to the Alfar! Hail to the ancestors!
Once again a most fascinating video. I"ve learned a few things. And Thomas, if we ever perfrom "Menologium" live (I'm dreaming about that), you must wear this shirt and bow tie.
That intro was an automatic like :)
Very educational Tom, teaching us about our heritage and ancestors
Fabulous customs ...loved hearing about them. Fancy alfred meaning advised by elves! Very interesting 👌 thank you
Great work!
Wonderful video. Just to point out that Sidhe is pronounced as "Shee"'. Fantastic stuff and thank you for promoting Irish paganism.
#SurviveTheJive I like this video. I imagine that you and James G. Frazer (He who wrote The Golden Bough) would agree upon many things.
Still one of my favorite StJ videos.
Love the herein narrative (epic). Exciting.
Wonderful video, thank you!
And thank you for this video!!
As Halloween commemorates the ancestors; it’s a rather special coincidence that Remembrance Sunday, for those fallen in combat, takes place around the same time of the year.
agreed!
Brilliant as always
Essential viewing for the lost young souls who think they need to go thousands of miles away and drink jungle juice in the Amazon to get in touch with the ancestors! Stay in Europe🙏
On elves, what do you think the significance might be of the existence both light and dark elves in the Norse religion? Is there a distinction between the honoured dead, and another kind? One of my granddads was a bit of a prick, and as far from honourable as you can get, maybe he's a dark elf.
I think not all elves represent ancestors, some are primordial/elemental. It is like a level of being. Also, I said grandfathers does not literally mean grandfathers!
Survive the Jive You have a bachelors of arts in history right?I'm going to post your video in some reconstructionist pagan groups i belong to and i want to make sure it's good
MA not BA
Appreciate you mentioning Slavs
All Saints for Eastern Orthodox Christians (like myself) follows the next sunday after Pentecost, which was during summer.
Very informative. Thank you.
The beginning of winter, nightfall on October 31st, was called Gamhain. Hence according the Coligny Calendar Samhain would occur in May and it does! Cet-Samhain is the former name of May Day.
I love European paganism. It sounds exotic and special.
In ancient Russia the night after 31 October to 1 November was called "Velesova Noch'", which is also a night of ancestors.
Has anyone told you that you sound like David Thewlis? Thank you for the astounding compilation of research you provide!
The Swedish word for "river" is "älv" (pronounced "elv" (elf/elves)... And it's only our own rivers that is called älv. In any other part of the world we call the rivers "flod". We've also got several other names for "streaming water" as such, but it is only the biggest ones that is called älv.
In Old English, the river Elbe is called "ælf" and is the same word for "elf".
Yggdrasil Stories .In GREECE we have a river with name Alpheus = Αλφειός (Alfios). The Alpheus is the most important river of the Peloponnese. The name of the river is from the ancient Greek verb alfano= offer wealth "valuables" . He was the son of Oceanus and Tethys. Once killed his brother Cercaphus and chased by Furies. Arriving in Nyctimus river fell in and drowned and since the river was named Alfios. According to Pausanias had common altar of Artemis and Alpheus at Olympia. The Alpheus had two sons, Orsilocho, father of Diocles, king of Feres Magnesia, and Arcadian Phegeus.(Fegeus)
So proud and glad to be a descendant of mighty Europeans! Wish all you glorious Samhain! Diady!
Very good film, it is great you explain it from each European tradition point of view.
Survive the Jive is surprisingly cheerful to watch when he's being hammy
very informative and entertaining thank you
Nice vid!
For sure one of the worthiest channels I have come across. Rejoicing content, Tom. A question if I may: I have read before that there are records of the so called jack-o’-lantern in the ancient British Isles, but they never say what they used for them. Clearly would not have been plants of the Cucurbita genus, since it is native to the Americas. Any ideas?
Great video. Thank you
I grew up in 1960s and 70s Scotland , we liked Halloween, it was nothing like USA halloween, we didn't even know they celebrated it, we had turnip lanterns. I didn't see a pumpkin until I was an adult in the 1980s.
Hallo Thomas, thanks for this interesting video. I should like to add, that here in Holland and in Belgium, as in Latvia, on 11 November, Feast of Sint-Martin (Saint Martin), costumed children go out in the evening from house to house singing and begging for sweets, as the children do in Germany on 6 January (Three Kings Day). In Lithuania, Christmas Eve (Kucios) is associated not only with Christ's Birth, but also with the family Dead. At the solemn Christmas-eve meal, which begins only after the first star shows up in the night sky, upon the white cloth bedecked table there is set a plate for the family's dead, with a bit of each of the twelve non-meat dishes in it. After the meal, this plate is left all night long for the dead to come and eat in peace. On the night between All Saints & All Souls, dedicated to the Dead, in Lithuania candles are placed at all the graves, and prayers are offered. It used to be the custom to eat at the graves or to leave food and drink there for them. but nowadays only the Russians still do this. I have seen it myself: there is often a small stone table permanently set before the gravestone. Early roman christians also kept this custom, though i donot know whethjer there is a bond. In connexion with another Video of yours, in LIthuania mead is called ''Midus'' and is made from ''medus'' (honey), and it is an ancient alcoholic drink. On Christmas Eve, honey and oats are eaten and are left for the dead, and this is called ''kucios'', from which the Lithuanian name for Chirstmas Eve is derived.
there's a 19th cent. drama written by great Polish-Ruthenian poet named Adam Mickiewicz, called Dziady. it's translation in English: Forefather's Eve. It's about a pellar calling down 3 restless souls and deciding if he wants to help them
You forgot to mention Pitru Paksha. In that festival sometimes a pumpkin is offered to the ancestors.
I think "elf" or something like that is the word for "river" in the Scandinavian languages .I come from south-eastern Europe and when we visited my grandma in the countryside she used to tell me stories about the elves who lived in the nearby river/current and about the dwarves who dwelled deep inside the Earth .This folklore and many other examples seem to be commom amongst people in various parts of Europe .It blatantly signifies (at least) partial common ancestry since pre-history because in the historical years there hasn't been a documented migration of foreign populations displacing the local ones .In this particular area of south Greece there are strong legends of migrating Goths and Slavs (which indeed happen) but not at volumes large enouph to displace the existing peoples and their culture .Therefore these beliefs (as Varg and Marie said) must have roots in the deep prehistory of the peoples of Europe .
It's ok to be elvish
Outstanding!