An elf is a mythical creature of Germanic mythology and Germanic paganism which still survives in northern European folklore. In Norse mythology elves were originally a race of minor nature and fertility gods. Elves 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 sucessful The Lord of the Rings—in which a wise, angelic people named Elves have a significant role—elves became staple characters of modern fantasy
