I'm posting this as future reference for myself, and doing so publicly in case someone find this quote of interest:

"My guiding assumption is that within Anglo-Saxon world-views, ælfe were a 'social reality'. They were not an objective reality, like houses and trees, which can be readily perceived in the physical world and, insofar as anything can be, objectively proven to exist. But, just as many societies accept the existence of the Christian God, a critical mass of Anglo-Saxons accepted the reality o ælfe, and this collective belief mad ælfe social reality. Social realities are not mere fantasies: individuals cannot wish them away, any more than Beowulf could the dragon ælfe ould have played a significant role both in societies' constructions of the world and individuals' constructions of experience. Indeed what looks like a social reality from an outsider's perspective may become an objective reality as the outsider becomes an insider." - Alaric Hall. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity. Anglo-Saxon Studies 8. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007. page 9.

Within the quoted passage, Hall cites the following works:

• Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Allen Lane, 1967.
• John R. Searle. The Construction of Social Reality. London: Allen Lane, 1995.
• Edith Turner, 'The Reality of Spirits', in Shamanism: A Reader, ed. Graham Harvey. London: Routledge, 2003. pp. 145-52.