It’s not so much that he invented the conception of elves, but he made certain choices from the traditional sources. If you know were you want to look, you can justify Tolkiens conception from earlier sources, but it was far from obvious. The concept of elves in Germanic mythology, folklore and 19th century culture is very vague and often contradictory.
Depending on your choices you either get tiny creatures dancing on flowers, a superhuman warrior race, (the cause of) nightmares, little household helpers, non-human souls in general or folks that try to cause sickness among your cattle…
How tall do you want your elves? A few cm? like a four-year-old child? Average human size? Variable, possibly even with shape-shifting powers?
Are dwarfs (Tolkien spelled them “dwarves”) a subdivision of elves? the same thing as dark elves? as elves in general?
How about mares? Valkyries? the “Holde”?
Compared to the possible sources many modern writers just seem to stay relatively close to Tolkiens vision.
Bingo. If you want elves only they’re ugly, short-lived, and like to drink beer and belch, you’re better off calling them something else. The trope is too fixed for them.
I play an online RPG and the only ‘standard’ races are elves and giants. The rest (but one) have characteristics unique to the game, so got different names. Anyone seeing a misalen or chayani has no preconceptions of what it is like. The exception is aggernen. They’re stocky, strong, live underground for the most part, like to craft things, and swing a hammer or an axe. I guess the designer had something about the word ‘dwarf.’ I play a female aggernen and met a new player once, who did a double-take and exclaimed, “Why you don’t have a beard at all!” (He was just playing with me.)
I looked at him cooly and replied, “Oh, I have a beard. It’s just lower down.” He didn’t reply for a couple minutes. Broke up too hard, he told me later.
You understand wrong. “Orc” is Old English, and usually translated as “monster” or “revenant” (animated dead -> see zombie)
. The race he describes are essentially a variant of the traditional goblin, and that’s what he calls them in “The Hobbit”.
I love Tolkien to bits, but you have to remember that the man forgot more about medieval history and folklore than I could ever hope to learn. So there was a rich history he mined, his elves, orcs, ents, none of them are original names. Most of the magic lies in what he does with them.
Hobbits, though, are made-up from scratch (with maybe more hob (kind of small goblin) than Tolkien was willing to own up to, but not too much)
And here’s another amazing thing: most giants tend to be on the tall side. :smack:
Terry Pratchett has Corporal Carrot, a large human who was raised by dwarfs and identifies himself as such. Of course, Pratchett loves playing with the common tropes and subverting them in various ways.
BTW, he’s Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston over Labor Day weekend.
Miller mentioned Steven Brust’s Gypsy above, but if you want a somewhat different approach to elves, you should check out Brust’s Dragaera novels. The majority of the characters are elves, more or less, but they are not particularly Tolkienesque.
Brian Froud’s Faeries features a variety of creatures from faery folklore, including Fir Darrig, red caps, and (I think) merrow. I don’t recall if there were any actual elves, though.
Mercedes Lackey also deviates from the standards a bit with her urban fantasy setting. While the books aren’t her best work, they do offer a well-developed background for the nonhuman characters, built in part from folklore sources rather than genre. The elves are tall, mostly fair, and very long-lived, but I can’t imagine a Tolkien elf driving a race car. Her recent Fairy Godmother also treats the faerie court as thoroughly unhuman–more so than Tolkien’s elves.
Oh, and the “dark elf” and “drow” thing is almost entirely from D&D settings. Most works involving evil elves refer to the Unseleighe (or Unseelie) Court. The dark elf precedent may be from Scandinavian folklore references to dokkalfar, though.
China Mieville is an amazing author who, among other attributes, has created fascinating, “non-standard,” non-human races in his books. He does a great job of making them seem real, with cultures and alien ways of communication all their own. Very different from elves and dwarves, and fascinating for it.
I always considered them variations on the Fae… but not all of those are Elves.
Tiny creatures dancing on flowers: Fairies
Superhuman Warrior Race: Elves/Sidhe
Cause of Nightmares: yeah, elves but Unseelie ones
Little household helpers: Brownies
It varies really. Some other variations on elves/sidhe can be found with Laurell K Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series… more of a take on the Unseelie court. You see mainly the Sidhe, but also other Fae. (for example if a Sidhe has pointed ears they are not pure Sidhe, instead they are part something else and looked down upon). For a Celtic flair, they don’t show up all that often but they are there, check out Patricia Keneally Morrison’s Keltia series.
Lackey has been mentioned, I enjoy those books. Maybe not traditional but definately a take I like.
Tam Lin was mentioned but I also recall Tanith Lee did a rewrite as well. I’ve been meaning to pick it up.
There are also the novels/anthologies by the Twin Cities-ish group of writers about what they call The Borderland. Emma Bull, Patricia Wrede, Kara Dalkey, Will Shetterley–the same folks that brought you novels of Liavek. They’re modern-age stories with mythology roughly based on western european celtic stuff. They depict elves slightly out of type, with my favorite quote being “she had features we would have called ‘elfin’ before we found out how big the damn elves really are…”
If not, it’s still a great read. It is about various cliches in fantasy literature, especially male and female magic, and it already mentions many of the ideas Pratchett explored in the discworld novels. (It was written between the first and second discworld novel)
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