English folkloreElves were imported into Britain with the Anglo-Saxons.
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 Têg.
Elf, fairy, and other terms for nature spirits like pwcca, hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow, the Scots brownie, and so forth are no longer clearly distinguished in popular English folklore, nor are similar terms in other European languages.
Before they became diminutive and whimsical, elves were probably akin to powerful pre-Christian forest spirits like the woodwose, the Green Man, and the drusi in the mythology of the Gauls — beings to be respected and even feared. A trace of the former importance of elves in Germanic culture exists in names like Alfred (Old English Ælfræd, "elf-counsel") and Alvin (Old English Ælfwine, "elf-friend").
The term ælfsciene ("elf-shining") is used in the Old English poem Judith referring to elven beauty. On the other hand oaf is simply a variant of the word elf, presumably originally referring to a changeling or to someone stupefied by elvish enchantment.
Little documentation exists on English rustic beliefs and terminology before the nineteenth century, but it seems that the term elf was used, at least on some occasions or in some places, for various kinds of uncanny wights, either human-sized or smaller. But other terms were also used.
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.
Elf-shot was the name use for found neolithic flint arrow-heads, imagined as created and used by the elvish folk, and sudden paralysis was sometimes attributed to elf-stroke.
There every herd by sad experience knows,
How winged with fate their elf-shot arrows fly;
When the sick ewe her summer-food foregoes,
Or stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie."
— Collins, The Fairy Mythology (1870) Lists
Fairy tales with elves in them include:
Addlers & Menters
Ainsel & Puck
Childe Rowland
The Elf Maiden
Elfin Woman & Birth of Skuld
Elle-Maids
Elle-Maid near Ebeltoft
Hedley Kow
Luck of Eden Hall
The Shoemaker & the Elves
Sir Olof in Elve-Dance
Wild Edric
The Young Swain and the Elves
Elves of myth include:
Helfrat (elf father of Sigurd, Volsung Saga)
Argante (Elven Queen of Avalon)
Summer (Queen of the Elves of Light, in Algonquian myth)
Elves in Victorian English literature
The influence of Shakespeare and Michael Drayton made the use of elf and fairy for very small beings the norm. In Victorian literature, elves usually appeared in illustrations as tiny men and women with pointed ears and stocking caps. There were exceptions, such as the full-sized elves who appear in Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf
