Svartálfaheimr

“...wherefore All-father sent Skirnir, the messenger of Frey, into the country of the Dark Elves (Svartalfaheim) to engage certain dwarfs to make the fetter called Gleipnir.”

Gylfaginning names Svartálfaheimr in the story of the wolf’s binding: the god Skírnir is sent there to dwarfs who forge Gleipnir. Blackwell calls it the country of the Dark Elves and Anderson says Skírnir went to some dwarfs in Svartalfaheim. In both, the craftsmen found there are dwarfs, so the text does not clearly separate dark elves from dwarfs.

In another passage Gylfaginning says that the light elves live in Alfheim, while the dark elves live down in the earth, are unlike the light elves in appearance and much more so in deeds, and are blacker than pitch.

The name means home of the black or swart elves. Blackwell’s glossary calls it the region of the elves of darkness, in contrast to that of the elves of light.

How the dark elves relate to the dwarfs is uncertain. Anderson’s notes say the dark elves are often confounded with the dwarfs, with whom they seem identical, although they are distinguished in the poem Odin’s Raven’s Song. Whether Svartálfaheimr is simply the dwarfs’ own land is not stated in the sources.