“The concept of calling the prince/essly race of the Grail the ‘Shining Ones’, while also defining them as Elves, dates well back into ancient Bible times and can be traced into Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Canaan (Palestine). Some of the best modern research into the etymological roots of the long distant BC years has been conducted by the writers Christian and Barbara Joy O’Brien. Christian, who read Natural Sciences at Christ’s College, Cambridge, subsequently spent many years as an exploration geologist in Iran, where he was involved in the discovery of the Tchoga Zambil ziggurat. Since 1970 he has concentrated his research into many enigmas of prehistory, and the O’Briens have some excellent books to their credit. In ‘The Genius of the Few’ they explain that the ancient »El, which was used to identify a god or lofty one (as in El Elyon and El Shaddai) actually meant ‘Shining’ in old Mesopotamian Sumer. To the north in Babylonia, the derivative »Ellu meant ‘Shining One’, as did »Ilu in Akkad, and the word spread across Europe to become «Ellyl in Wales, »Aillil in Ireland, »Aelf in Saxony and »Elf in England. The plural of »El was »Elohim, they very word used in the old Bible texts to denote the gods, but strategically mistranslated to conform to the Judaeo-Christian ‘One God’ image. Interestingly, in Gaelic Cornwall, South West England, the word »el was the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon »engel and the old French »angele which, in English, became ‘angel’.”

— Laurence Gardiner, The Realm of the Ring Lords, Beyond the Portals of the Twilight World