Elves are a type of creature from the realm of the Fae, so they are closely related to fairies. They are found quite often in various myths and legends such as the legend of Santa Claus and all over pop culture in popular stories and movies such as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. However, elves are depicted completely different in all of these sources, whereas the elves in Lord of the Ring are tall regal and beautiful, the elves seen in Harry Potter are small ugly and capable of magic. Then, there are the elves that are said to work with Santa at the North Pole. These elves are small and cute. Even though all of these mythical creatures are referred to as elves, they are vastly different in a variety of different ways. The earliest mention of elves are found in Norse mythology. Authors of different tales and mythological stories must have taken the elves found in Norse mythology and changed them to fit their own stories, or joined them with creatures from stories that they already knew. As…show more content… Especially when you look at the word elf from the Anglo-Saxton times, “There are some ten words for "elf" in Old English, the male and female forms ælf and ælfen, and the compound words land-, dún-, feld-, munt-, sæ-, wæter-, wudu-, and possibly berg—ælfen, or, more rarely, -ælf, i.e., "hill-, land-, field-, mountain-, sea-, water-, wood-," and once again "mountain-elf.” and that’s only looking at the Old English language. They also took some of these words and used them in their day to day language. For example, women could be described to be “ælfsciene”, which translated to "elf-beautiful." “ This fascination with elves also went into the names that they would give their children, "names like Ælf-wine, Ælf-red, Ælf-stan, and so on, "Elf-friend, Elf-counsel, Elf-stone." Some of the names, like the common Alfred and the rare Elwin (as in Elwin Ransom), have remained in use to this