Re: Myths around the Victorians
*Capers about with glee and jubilation*
I LOVE talking about mythology and the origins and evolution of it. It makes me giggle to hear about it and share what I know.
BUT, in interest I will keep my commentary about mythology specifically to as it pertains to the Victorian era. While talking about elves and where they originate, what they did, all that fun stuff is very interesting, it pertains more to standard fantasy...NOT Steampunk or Victoriana.
(Side note: the British Isle Elf in many instances were basically a catch-all category where any fae creature could be described as an Elf, and while some "Elves" were more classically elvish than others, the term is used for a vast variety of faerie creatures in various myths. The Classical version is more akin to what you see in Harry Potter with Dobby. The Tolkien Elf is based on Norse mythology elves...and interestingly there is some confusion within the myths themselves itself about whether Elves were Elves, or whether they were Drow, or Duegar, or Dwarves. It depended really on whether the elves came from Niflheimr or Alfheimr. D&D and Tolkien Myth pull heavily from Norse myth...)
BUT, one myth that does pertain to the Victorian Era is Vampires. Popular in many genre's, and I have seen more than one instance in which Vampires were inserted into a Steampunk story/game/concept. In a more important sense, Vampirism wasn't really popularized until Bram Stoker, which happened near abouts to our wonderful period (1897). Before then Vampires were just more or less glorified zombies (As we envision zombies today...with so much language available and mixing of mythologies, undead classification can get confusing) who would rise from the dead with a ruddy flush (from drinking the blood of loved ones), were soft and squishy, and the folk-method of getting rid of them was to lay a brick on it's chest in the grave, or drive a stake through it's chest to pin it to the ground.
Then Bram Stoker decided to take the myth, make Vlad the Impaler a romantic, gothic figure whose bloody habits were akin to a demonic pact, and you have this really fantastic story (Written in a *beautiful* format that was unique at the time and very dynamic). And that stuck around for a long time.
Then Anne Rice came along and changed things up a little (Not alot) and made things contemporary and sexy and so on. And that's the kind of Vampire most of us envision today, but When Bram Stoker added on to the original tale, he really did reinvent the vampire, and Anne Rice has been the closest we have come to a good re-envisioning of the vampire.
BUT, if you want to be true to the mythology of vampires before Bram Stoker (Who came late to the Victorian Era), you have yourself some walking dead with only some very minor unique qualities. No superior strength, no flying. No turning into wolves or bats or anything like that. Not that anything is wrong with it, just that when we think of vampires today, we think of Dracula or Anne Rice, not the old myth.
...Those of you who are wondering about the Twilight vampire, all I have to say is: Replace the word Vampire in those books with Faerie (Or elf if you prefer) and the book is fixed. No offense (And if you feel offended, chock up this statement to a matter of opinion).
So...enough rambling...