Raised in rural South Dakota, baling hay and feeding cattle, I never saw an elf, though I sometimes rowed up a shallow creek overhung with low branches to read Mark Twain novels. Elves might have been present, but they didn't show themselves.

Years ago I hitch-hiked on an airplane out of Luang Prabang, Laos—no European-style elves there, nor in Kathmandu, Nepal—just monkeys. One summer I worked as a bellboy in a German hotel, a place elves seemed to avoid entirely. Another time, I hiked across the Wilderness of Judea from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, but the terrain was far too barren for any elf to call home.

In Japan where I taught English, the forests held very different creatures. But later, while earning a Ph.D. in theology in England, I might have seen an elf near Hartlebury Castle. Eventually I moved to Minnesota, knowing from friends visited in Denmark and Sweden, that elves enjoy the Northern Lights here, too.

Now, with a big backyard, a fishpond, and a treehouse nestled close to the forest, and with plenty of plants, I find myself expectant. Perhaps one day, I’ll see an elf at last.