origami_8 wrote:Well, I'm not quite sure. I've took the direct translation from the German word "Elfe" and those "Elfe"-creatures definitely do have wings, but I don't know whether this is true for the English "Elf". It is a bit confusing because the translation for "Fairy" seems to be "Fee" and when talking about a "Fee" I wouldn't imagine a winged creature, whereas fairies always seem to have wings. To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure what the differences between fairies and elves really are.
I must admit I don't know German
I'm quoting this from Wikipedia in English (
Elf):
Elf in Wikipedia wrote:In the Victorian period stereotype of the elf, appearing in illustrations as tiny men and women with pointed ears and stocking caps. An example is Andrew Lang's fairy tale Princess Nobody (1884), illustrated by Richard Doyle, where fairies are tiny people with butterfly wings, whereas elves are tiny people with red stocking caps.
This are images from that book:
She's a fairy and he's an elf.
Nowadays elfs are considered to look almost like a human, except that they are very attractive, they're just a bit shorter then humans and they have pointy ears.
Legolas from
The lord of the rings books and movies is an excellent example

.