Post-Tolkien literary elves (popularized by the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game) tend to be human-sized or only slightly smaller than humans, and tend also to be capable warriors, especially skilled in archery. Terms like hob or brownie or other genuine regional folklore terms are seldom used of such creatures: they are unlikely to sneak in at night and help a cobbler mend his shoes. The canonical role-playing style elf is Deedlit, a major character of the anime series Record of Lodoss War.
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Modern fantasy literature has revived the elves as a race distinct from fairies. Fantasy elves are different from Norse elves, but are more akin to that older mythology and to the Irish sdhe than to folktale elves.The twentieth-century philologist and fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien had little use for Shakepearean fairy portrayals or for Victorian diminutive fairy prettiness and whimsy, aligning his elves with the god-like and human-sized elves of Norse mythology, the Ljoslfar. He conceived a race of beings similar to humans but fairer, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, and a closer empathy with nature. They are great smiths and fierce warriors on the side of good. Tolkien's Elves of Middle-earth are not deathless and can be killed by injury, and while they are sufficiently long-lived to be called immortal by humans, they do age.Elves are mythical creatures of Germanic mythology that have survived in northern European folklore. Originally a race of minor gods of nature and fertility, they are often pictured as small, youthful-seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and other natural places, underground, or in wells and springs. They have been imagined to be long-lived or immortal and magical powers have been attributed to them. Something associated with elves or the qualities of elves is described by the adjectives elfin, elven, elfish, or elvish. Elves are staple characters in modern fantasy. They are also called:However, in Elizabethan England, Shakespeare imagined elves as little people. He apparently considered elves and fairies to be the same race. In Henry IV, Part 1, i. 4, he has Falstaff call Prince Henry, "you starveling, you elfskin!", and in his Midsummer Night's Dream, his elves are almost as small as insects. On the other hand, Edmund Spenser applies elf to full-sized beings in The Faerie Queene.Tolkien's elves were enemies of goblins and orcs and had a longstanding quarrel with the dwarves: these motifs also often reappear in Tolkien-inspired works. In gaming, and to some extent fantasy, elves have a great depth of knowledge (especially regarding magic) due to a racial inclination as well as their extreme age. There are also "dark elves" popularized by TSR as drow.English folktales of the early modern period typically portray elves as small, elusive people with mischievous personalities (see illustration). They are not evil but might annoy humans or interfere in their affairs. They are sometimes said to be invisible. In this tradition, elves became more or less synonymous with the fairies that originated from native British mythology, for example, the Welsh Ellyll (plural Ellyllon) and Y Dynon Bach Tg.
