Tolkien was a medievalist, so not surprisingly, he drew heavily from period primary sources. These, in turn, drew on actual folk traditions, although one must use a great deal of caution to see them as accurately capturing contemporary folklore.

One of the more important deviations that Tolkien imposed on the world of his creation was the idea of good and evil, which was largely absent from Northern European folk tradition. The dichotomy was a Church-based importation, and the folk were not quick to embrace it. Tolkien, perhaps because he was a committed Catholic but perhaps also for the facility of his concept of plot and literature, embraced the good-versus-evil approach to his world, and this required some "tweaking" of the legendary traditions that served as his inspiration.

Although Icelandic sources include an odd reference to light and dark elves, there is no clear manifestation of such a concept in pre-modern Scandinavian, Icelandic, or British and Irish tradition. Nevertheless, Tolkien - drawing on this or simply setting off on his own - created a dichotomy where his elves were good and their counterpart, the orcs, played the role that one might imagine could have been assumed by "dark elves." In reality, folk traditions regarded all supernatural beings a dangerous even though most were neither good nor evil. They were to be treated with caution and respect, and they were to be avoided if at all possible.

Tolkien's dwarves are more at home in medieval primary literature than they are in pre-modern folk tradition. There are entities that seem to fall into that line (living within mountains, focusing on smithing, and various other attributes), but with dwarves we see the clearest, exclusive use of medieval sources.

One source I would recommend is John Rateliff's History of the Hobbit. He goes into a fair amount of detail on Tolkien's sources for some of the important concepts of the mythology; some of what's in there has already been brought up in this thread but it's an interesting book in any case. Rateliff's book can also point you to primary sources (like the Eddas) that have been mentioned in the thread.

For instance, in the notes about the Dwarves (on pp 76-80), Rateliff notes that previous treatments of the Dwarves that are similar to Tolkien's are found in the Volsunga Saga, the Prose Edda, and the Nibelungenlied, as well as the Heidreks Saga (which was later translated by Christopher Tolkien). He also notes a connection between the "Lombards" and Tolkien's "Longbeards", as well as parallels between the origin of Dwarves in Tolkien's early writings and the Edda.

There are similar sections about goblins, elves, hobbits, dragons, and other elements of Tolkien's lore that first came out in published form in The Hobbit.

Also this may be going beyond the scope of AskHistory, but the notion that Tolkien "singlehandedly" created modern fantasy is somewhat exaggerated; although you can certainly say The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are by far the most influential fantasy books, there are precursors to Tolkien like Lord Dunsany and George MacDonald, both of whom Tolkien read. In addition, the pulp fantasy novels of writers like Robert Howard and Jack Vance have had a large influence on modern fantasy (due in large part to Dungeons and Dragons). But if you want to pursue this question further I would suggest a thread on /r/Tolkienfans or a fantasy-related subreddit.

Lets give this another shot.

Elves and dwarves have changed appearance and attitude throughout history. The two mythologies where you'll find elves are the closely related Nordic and Celtic mythologies. /u/itsallfolklore already talked about the Prose Edda and their "elves." However, the dark elves seem closer to dwarves, as they live underground and were able to craft new hair for Sif after Loki cut it off, both of these are main themes in for Tolkien's dwarves.

But for elves and dwarves in celtic literature. In celtic myths, elves are seen as more mischievous if not out-right malevolent. Old medicine books like Balt's Leechbook and Wio Faerstice list elves as the cause for such maladies as elfshot, a pain caused my elves shooting you with arrows. Later we can see the myth of elves have stayed mostly the same in Romeo and Juliet, during Marcutio's speech about Queen Mab, how she may give women pleasure nightly pleasure or warts. Here we see fairies and elves used interchangeably. Even as late as 1884, when Princess Nobody was published and The Shoemaker was translated, elves were both described as, and drawn as little fairy people.

Scandinavian elves are much more similar to celtic elves than Tolkien's elves, though they would fall between the two. While some elves were small like celtic elves, as in The Elf of the Rose, but they could also be the size of a human when luring men into their elven dances.

Dwarves are much less interesting. Tolkien's dwarves are closer to the myths of gnomes, which Paracelsus used interchangably with pygmys, called them earth elementals who live underground and are only about a foot tall. Later, closer to Tolkien's life, gnomes were described as small people who live underground and protect riches in Among the Gnomes: An Occult Tale of Adventure in the Untersberg.

Tolkien elves, dwarves, and humans are a christian allegory. The Silmarillion is a bible of sorts. Dwarves as a sort of Ishmael - an interference with God's (Illuvatar's) providence brought about by impatience, who would throughout history be at variance with the Elves. Abraham and his sons compare with Fanwe. Faenor is not Joseph, but instead is cast from Eden. Earendil has something in common with Enoch and Elijah, in that he, as mortal, achieved passage to the blessed realm. The devil was imprisoned for 1000 years and allowed free again, exactly the same as Melkor. There are several differences that I wont go into, but the parallels are many.

Tolkien grabbed bits and pieces of several myths, kept some characteristics, and added heavy christian framing. While he didn't invent them entirely, he did put a new spin on elves and dwarves that has lasted into current pop culture.

I did not forget about orcs, I just have no idea where they came from.

My understanding was that all of the races were representative of the different races and classes of Europe at the time. With the elves representing the upper class, rich, beautiful, full of themselves etc and the dwarfs representing the Jews, a race of craftsmen kicked out of their ancestral homeland, more scared amongst the other worlds populations and with the hobbits being the ideal, English countryside-dweller.

Hello everyone,

In this thread, there have been a large number of incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments, including many asking about the deleted comments, which merely compounds the issue. As such, they were removed by the mod-team. Please, before you attempt answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed.

Now, I know that people get curious about what the removed comments say, and especially in a thread of this size, there is simply no way that we can provide removal notices to everyone as it would be incredibly cluttered. But here is a run down for those wondering:

• Of 243 comments, 33 of them (not counting this one) are Top Level responses, 32 of which have been removed.

• 1 response is a reasonably substantive answer, from an accomplished author in the field, I would add, if you want something more in-depth.

• 13 responses were removed because they consisted of no more than 3 actual substantive sentences.

• 3 responses were removed for being entirely speculative.

• 5 responses were removed because they were asking why all the responses were removed.

• 7 responses were removed for being composed mostly or entirely of a link or quoted block of text without contextualization.

• 2 responses were removed because, while sourced, they were reliant on published material from the game Dungeons and Dragons as their source, which does not meet the standard or academic literature.

• 2 responses were removed for making jokes.

I digress though. I know people love to talk about META concerns, but if you're one of them, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread, where the conversation may continue. Thank you!