My own take on the situation is that the wizards are exploiting a hard-wired factor of Elvish character.
The Elves in folklore have always bound themselves to their "places", and served the property, with the interests of the family secondary, and only insofar as the interests of the family advanced the interests of the land (the Brownies are a variety of earth spirit, after all). What the wizards seems to have done is to extend the Elf's bond with his household, to the humans who claim to own it, and to add various geasa against working directly against the household's human owners.
And I suspect that there is no single model either. The original contract was probably between a freed Elf with a new wizard master, who offered him a new "place" to serve. These contracts probably varried to begin with and several generations down the track, no one probably is clear on the original agreement, since it has had several generations of casual interpretations on both sides.
To the point that some wizards are unclear as to whether House Elves are even capable of leaving their houses. And I doubt that is the only point of confusion.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-07-02 04:53 pm (UTC)The Elves in folklore have always bound themselves to their "places", and served the property, with the interests of the family secondary, and only insofar as the interests of the family advanced the interests of the land (the Brownies are a variety of earth spirit, after all). What the wizards seems to have done is to extend the Elf's bond with his household, to the humans who claim to own it, and to add various geasa against working directly against the household's human owners.
And I suspect that there is no single model either. The original contract was probably between a freed Elf with a new wizard master, who offered him a new "place" to serve. These contracts probably varried to begin with and several generations down the track, no one probably is clear on the original agreement, since it has had several generations of casual interpretations on both sides.
To the point that some wizards are unclear as to whether House Elves are even capable of leaving their houses. And I doubt that is the only point of confusion.