Elf

An elf is a creature of Germanic mythology which still survives in northern European folklore. The elves were originally a race of minor nature and fertility gods, who are often pictured as youthful-seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and underground places, or in wells and springs. They have been portrayed to be long-lived or immortal and as beings of magical powers. Following J. R. R. Tolkien's successful The Lord of the Rings—in which a wise, angelic people named Elves have a significant role—elves became staple characters of modern fantasy (see Elves in fantasy fiction and games).

Elf can be pluralised as both elves and elfs. Something associated with elves or the qualities of elves is described by the adjectives elven, elvish, elfin or elfish. According to a convention of modern fantasy, the 'v' in elven or elvish refers to human-sized elves (who correspond more closely to those of the old Germanic paganism), whereas the f in elfin or elfish refers to tiny-sized elfs (who correspond more closely to the folklore of the Renaissance and Romantic Eras). They are also called:


The word elf (álf) may possibly trace back as far as the theoretical Proto-Indo-European root word *albh meaning "white", from which also stems the Latin albus "white", and its derivatives in Portuguese, Spanish and English albino.