Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I've tended to consider his elves divergent from their source material in not being a pack of terrifyingly unpredictable psychopaths ... I grant you the reversion from the Victorian nonsense, but he's still a long way from most Anglo-Scottish mythos, likewise Scandinavian Troll-lore. I suppose if he had been aiming for Irish Tuatha we might have a point ... because they match his elves reasonably well.

Chaotic Neutrality did not fit with the Tolkien franchise well. The first edition of Broken Sword was written at the time(it was sent back because fantasy was out of fashion then) and had elves a bit like that.

Tolkien's elves do have Irish counterparts. Russian ones too. There were a few other's. If I remember reading Gurps Faerie "White Ladies" have some characteristics like that. The "Fair Folk" is subverted in Tolkien, as men of Gondor and Rohan think elves are like that.

Actually the predominant element of elves before the Victorian ones was not so much evil(that's as may be)but wildness and mystery. It is not so much that they are hostile as you cannot tell what they will be because they are to strange to you.