Long before men gathered at campfires to ward off the cold and fear of the black night, my people knew the intricate paths of nature. There was nothing hidden from us, we lived unfettered, free to roam, to contemplate, we were perfect. We have never suffered, like men, from any curse.

No one knows at what moment the perfect conjunction took place for the colours of the flowers to appear on the earth, the birds in the skies, or the creatures of the waters. Nor does anyone know where the gnomes, the fairies, or we elves came from.

When the wise men speak of the most ancient age, when men were made of gold, they are referring to us. Even our skin retains the shades with which gold is clad, shades that run through golden, bronze, silver gradations. We spontaneously sprout from mother earth as a flower sprouts, as a diamond is formed. Whoever doubts it can stop and look at us. He can see our eyes, always different, with the shades of precious stones. Our veins do not flow red blood, but a thick and transparent sap.

When we are born, mother nature dresses us, shades our wings with her watery gleams and dresses us once and for all in the ochre and orange colours of nature. This is our birthmark and our destiny. Wherever there is a bit of dust, a plant, a nest in danger, a being to be saved, there we will be, in camouflage with them.

When at the end of the earliest times, when all the power of magic had been shaped - when the earth was full of metals and precious stones, of sweet and salt waters, of food, of honey, of nuts, of myriad seeds, when the earth began to renew itself in each cycle of the seasons, when fairies, elves and goblins already existed - the gods appeared.

We elves watched them come, indifferent. We have never desired, therefore we do not suffer, nor hunger, nor heat, nor cold. We elves are born immortal. The gods contemplated us and seeing that we did not need them, and wanting a species that would serve them, to build them temples and to worship them, in our image and likeness, they made attempts to create a new species.

We watched them make successively, men of gold, of silver, of bronze, of copper, of iron. With the sight of the erect trees they tried to make stick men. Later they tried with the mud. Some gods shaped the body with the dough of the golden corn and with that of the red corn they nourished it with the first blood. Each attempt failed as time passed. Some specimens of each attempt are still dispersed in the world.

After a while the gods were satisfied. They withdrew to distant heavens, leaving man incomplete. Men making themselves, in infinite circuits, in an eternal struggle.

Unbeknownst to them we elves are their allies. We have seen them rise, innocent. We have seen them wander, across seas and mountains. We have seen them blunder through senseless wars. We have also seen them grow, as they settle their affairs.

I have already said that we are immortal. We abound in untouched nature, but we are everywhere on our planet. Some of us like big cities, with huge buildings, with inner gardens, where nature emerges in a different way. Others of us like small towns, with clear skies, streams and ponds that we defend.

There are many stories that tell, without naming us, of the difficulties of building highways and buildings, in places where people know that we elves live (we are called by different names in each village). What men do in the daytime, we disrupt at night. Eventually the engineers get tired and give up. We never tire.

In appearance we are only distinguishable by the way we dress and our ears, so we can easily be confused among humans.

I have stopped to tell you this story - I have learned to read and write among men - because we know that the fate of humanity is the same as ours.

They will learn to return to nature and we, angelic, cold-blooded, will find a way to assimilate a little human warmth. In the meantime, the story is beginning, we enjoy contemplating their innocence.