Fantasy Creatures

Throughout history, men are known to be fascinated by beings that were close to what we are, yet entirely different. Creatures that resemble us or animals yet possess great mystical attributes like magic, wings, horns and so many others. We delight into watching these magnificent creatures in stories, games or movies almost as much as the people who create them. It is incredibly fortunate that we live in this modern technological world in which one’s fantasy can be given form with drawing, animation, graphics and so forth, to actually bring it to life, right before our very eyes.
And I’m glad to be here and present and talk about some of those marvellous creatures because I can.

Part One: Elves

Perhaps the closest to us humans in appearance, the elves distinct characteristic which defines them from humans is their long ears. Other than that, they are usually incredibly beautiful, with a grand lifespan far surpassing that of an average human, able to communicate with nature, whether we talk about animals or trees or just the very elements that shape our world like water and air. Elves are also known to possess a talent of doing things quite impossible to us, things that we call magic. These things can be anything, from creating fire from nothing or just being able to fly. It is interesting how many different kinds of elves have been created through the years. Goes to show how popular elves are, with their incredible beauty, and graceful manner.

Apart from the usual elves, that live hidden deep inside woods and caves, always close to nature with which they are so much associated, we can find lots of quite different kinds, which develop a different behaviour and lifestyle. Two of them are:

Dark Elves

Surely the most popular variation of the normal elves, the dark elves are evil elves that live deep underground. Instead of being associated with nature, they are closest to dark magic and an innate feeling for bloodlust and destruction. Stronger than the usual elves, more cunning, and bonded with dark magic that allows them to create darkness out of nowhere amongst other things, and feet stealthy enough to assassinate entire villages without anyone taking notice, the dark elves are a formidable threat to anyone.
Dark skin and red eyes is kind of a trademark for them, along with a vicious, cunning nature that makes even a weak dark elf, dangerous enough when it can’t really fight. Incredibly beautiful like their cousins, and graceful like cold aristocrats, they are probably the most dangerous variation of the usual elves.

House Elves

J.K.Rowling presented us with quite a different kind of elves than the ones above, inspired perhaps from the well-known Christmas Elves who work tirelessly for Santa Claus according to legend. Having almost NO resemblance than the pointy ears, house elves are short, big-headed creatures with wide eyes and a long nose. House elves are, the elves in the world of Harry Potter, as J.K.Rowling describes it. They are bonded servants to wizards, bound to serve their every command no matter how unreasonable or cruel that might be. Raised so that this almost slave-like life is their duty, house elves are even proud to be servants, and are glad to remain so for the rest of their lives. Like the usual elves, they possess their own unique magic powers, allowing them to perform feats that even wizards could not, which actually played an important role to the story as well. Kind, ready to serve and having an over-zealous commitment to their bonded masters, house elves are probably the weirdest variation of elves so far. And weird, is good in my book ;)

In general, we can possibly find an enormous amount of information about different kinds of elves with different history and different powers. In my research, I found elves who live in the water, winged elves, elves that can transform into wolves (and are not werewolves), a legend that says that elves are not actually a different race, but a rank in which men can be elevated into after death and so on. Incredibly charming, beautiful, and popular, elves are almost everywhere in modern fantasy, and frankly why shouldn’t they?