▪ I. elf, n.1
(ɛlf)
Forms: 1 ælf, ylf (app. recorded only in pl. ylfe), 3 alve, 5 alfe, 5–7 elfe, 4– elf. pl. elves: 1 ylfe, 3 alven, 6–7 elfes, Sc. elvis, 8 elfs, 6– elves. See also elven, auf, oaf1.
[OE. ælf str. masc. = OHG. alp (MHG., mod.G. alp nightmare, ON. álfr (Da. alf) elf:—OTeut. *alƀo-z; a parallel type *alƀi-z (cf. Sw. elf, Da. elv) appears in late WSax. *ylf (found in pl. ylfe:—*ięlfe) = Mercian, Kent. *ęlf, Northumb. *ǣlf, one or other of which is represented in the mod. word. (The mod.G. elf is believed to be adopted from Eng.; MHG. had elbe a female elf.)
Some have compared the Teut. word with the Skr. ṛbhu, the name given to the three genii of the seasons in Hindu mythology.]
1. Mythol. a. The name of a class of supernatural beings, in early Teutonic belief supposed to possess formidable magical powers, exercised variously for the benefit or the injury of mankind.
They were believed to be of dwarfish form, to produce diseases of various kinds, to act as incubi and succubi, to cause nightmares, and to steal children, substituting changelings in their place. The Teutonic belief in elves is probably the main source of the mediæval superstition respecting fairies, which, however, includes elements not of Teutonic origin; in general the Romanic word denotes a being of less terrible and more playful character than the ‘elf’ as originally conceived. In mod. literature, elf is a mere synonym of fairy, which has to a great extent superseded it even in dialects. Originally elf was masculine, elven feminine; but in 13th and 14th c. the two seem to have been used indifferently of both sexes. In mod. use elf chiefly, though not always, denotes a male fairy.
| Beowulf 112 (Gr.) Fram þanon untydras ealle onwocon eotenas and ylfe. c 1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 296 Wið ælfe and wiþ uncuþum fidsan gnið myrran on win. c 1205 Lay. 19256 Sone swa he com an eorðe{revsc} aluen hine iuengen. c 1386 Chaucer Man of Law's T. 656 The mooder was an elf by aventure. 1426 Audelay Poems 77 (Mätz.) Alfe Rofyn be-gon to rug. c 1460 Towneley Myst. (Mätz.) He was takyn with an elfe. 1513 Douglas æneis viii. vi. 7 Wyth Nymphis and Favnis apoun euery syde, Quhilk fairfolkis, or than elvis, clepyng we. 1579 E. K. in Spenser's Sheph. Cal. June 25 Gloss., For Guelfes and Gibelines, we say Elfes & Goblins. 1610 Shakes. Temp. v. i. 33 Ye Elves of hils, brooks, standing lakes and groues. 1635 Herrick Hesper. (1869) II. App. 477 Come follow, follow me You fairie elves that be. 1700 Dryden Wife Bath's T. 3 The King of elfs..Gamboll'd on heaths. 1712–4 Pope Rape Lock i. 33 Airy elves by moonlight shadow seen. 1866 Kingsley Herew. xv. 193 You are an elf and a goddess. 1875 B. Taylor Faust i. i, Then the craft of elves propitious Hastes to help where help it can. |
† b. Sometimes distinguished from a ‘fairy’: (
a) as an inferior or subject species; (
b) as a more malignant being, an ‘imp’, ‘demon’; also
fig. Obs.| 1587 M. Grove Pelops & Hipp. (1878) 75 To exercise your selfe In feates of armes, thereby to shun of loytring loue the elfe. a 1593 H. Smith Wks. 1867 II. 483 Frenzies, furies (wayward elves): What need ye call for whip or scourge? 1623 J. Abbott Force Contrition in Farr S.P. Jas. I (1848) 353 The raine which this detested elfe must drowne Must from aboue..come downe. a 1628 F. Greville Mustapha, 3rd Chorus, What means..This finite Elfe of mans vaine acts and errors? 1651 Hobbes Leviath. (1839) 699 When the fairies are displeased with any body, they are said to send their elves, to pinch them. a 1700 Dryden (J.) That we may angels seem, we paint them elves. |
2. transf. a. (See
quot.)
| 1651 Hobbes Leviath. (1839) 699 The fairies..are said to take young children..and to change them into natural fools, which common people do therefore call elves, and are apt to mischief. |
b. A tricksy, mischievous, sometimes a spiteful and malicious creature.
to play the elf: to act elfishly, maliciously.
| a 1553 Udall Royster D. iii. iii. (1869) 46 Women be all such madde pieuishe elues. 1613 Uncasing of Machiav. 25 For never it was Ape but plaide the Elfe. 1740 Somerville Hobbinol iii. (1749) 174 This other Elf, in ev'ry Art Of smiling Fraud, in ev'ry treach'rous Leer, The very Hobbinol! 1800 Bloomfield Farmer's Boy, Summer 243 Happy the man that foils an envious elf, Using the darts of spleen to serve himself. 1820 Scott Abbot iv, Stray elf of a page. |
3. transf. A diminutive being.
a. A dwarf, mannikin; hence as
adj. (
quots. 1710, 1725).
| 1530 Palsgr. 216/2 Elfe or dwarf, nain. 1547 Salesbury Welsh Dict., Nar, an elfe. 1710 Street Robberies Consid. Elf, little. 1725 New Cant. Dict., Elf, little. a 1763 Shenstone (J.), He..Wisheth, poor starving elf, his paper-kite may fly. 17.. Seven Wise Men in R. Bell Hist. Eng. (1840) X. vii. 143 note, The prince..Laughed at the merry elf; Rejoiced to see within his court One shorter than himself. 1840–5 Barham Ingol. Leg. (1877) 102 As a muscular Giant would handle an elf. |
b. Applied to a child (chiefly with some notion of 2 b), to a small animal or insect.
| 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 59 Looke to thy cattle, Serue yoong poore elues alone by themselues. 1660 J. M[ilton] in H. Morley King and Commons (1868) So the little wanton elf [a bee] Most gloriously enshrined itself [in amber]. 1786 Burns Despondency, Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport. 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 15 His own pretty little boys, and two or three other four-year-old elves. 1886 G. Allen Kalee's Shrine xii. 128 Herons..intent on the quick pursuit of the elusive elves in the stream below. |
† 4. By Spenser applied to the knights of his allegorical ‘faerie land’.
| 1596 Spenser F.Q. i. i. 17 Which when the valiant Elfe perceiu'd. Ibid. i. v. 11 Goe, caytive Elfe. |
5. In a vague depreciatory sense, ‘a (poor) creature’, ‘a (poor, pious) soul’, ‘a (poor) devil’.
| 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 208 Like worldly elfe, to moile and toile. 1703 De Foe Ref. Mann. Misc. 69 Magistrates, like Pious Elves, Let none be Drunk a Sundays but themselves. a 1849 Hor. Smith Addr. Mummy viii, Still silent, uncommunicative elf. |
6. Comb. a. appositive, as
elf-child,
elf-girl,
elf-knight,
elf-lady,
elf-woman;
b. attributive, as
elf-castle,
elf-craft,
elf-dance,
elf-flame,
elf-flower,
elf-folk,
elf-friend,
elf-horn,
elf-house,
elf-key,
elf-kingdom,
elf-land,
elf-light,
elf-rod,
elf-speech,
elf-wing;
elf-like adj. Also
elf-arrow,
-bolt, a flint arrowhead (see
elf-shot); also, a belemnite;
elf-bore, a hole in a piece of wood, out of which a knot has dropped or been driven;
† elf-cake, an enlargement of the spleen attributed to the agency of elves (
cf. ague-cake);
elf-cup, a small stone perforated by friction at a waterfall;
elf-dart = elf-shot 1;
elf-dock, a name of the Elecampane;
elf-fire,
ignis fatuus, Will o' the wisp;
elf-god, Cupid;
elf-knot = elf-lock;
elf-queen, queen of the fairies;
† elf-skin, a man of shrivelled and shrunken form;
elf-stone = elf-shot 2;
elf-stricken,
-struck ppl. a., bewitched; also
elf-striking vbl. n.;
elf-taken ppl. a. (in
quot. elfe y-take), bewitched by elves;
elf-twisted ppl. a., twisted or gnarled by elves;
elf-wort = elf-dock. Also
elf-lock, -shoot, -shot.
| 1590 in Pitcairn Crim. Trials I. 198 Thow directit George Cuik to twa wemen..for ane *elf-arrow-heid. 1679 Plot Staffordsh. (1686) 396 These..they there [at Aberdeen] call Elf-Arrows. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 151 The stones which the country people call elf-arrow heads. 1855 Smedley Occult Sc. 31 The triangular flints, Belemnites, so numerous in Scotland..are popularly termed Elf arrows. |
| 1773 Johnson Journ. West. Isl. Wks. 1806 IX. 208 The stone heads of arrows..The people call them *elf-bolts. 1883 G. Allen Col. Clout's Gard. xxxix. 223 The neolithic arrows came to be regarded as elf-bolts. |
| 1814 Northern Antiq. 404 (Jam.) If you were to look through an *elf-bore in wood. |
| 1579 Langham Gard. Health (1633) 2 To heale the *elfe cake and hardnesse of the side. 1586 Lupton 1000 Notable Th. (1675) 157 The hardness of the side called the Elfcake. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §37. 321/2 After some description of the life at the *elf-castle. |
| 1856 R. Vaughan Mystics (1860) II. 74 When the *Elf-children scatter gold-dust on the ground. |
| 1919 W. de la Mare Flora 5 Lovely as *elf-craft. |
| 1810 Cromek Rem. Nithsdale Song 290 (Jam.) *Elf-cups were placed under stabledoors..as a safeguard against witchcraft. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §42. 375/1 Why are you so pale, as if you had been in an *elf-dance? |
| 1879 Prior Plant-n., *Elf-Dock, the elecampane, from its broad leaves called a dock. |
| 1855 Smedley Occult Sc. 31 The ‘Ignis fatuus’ has been named ‘*Elf fire’. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §42. 375/2 Olaf..has to make his way through the *elf-flame. |
| 1919 W. de la Mare Crossings 47 A steeple hat bound round with *Elf flowers. |
| 1922 ― Down-adown-derry 12, I saw from concealment a company of *elf-folk. |
| 1937 J. R. R. Tolkien Hobbit iii. 62 The master of the house was an *elf-friend. |
| 1871 Rossetti Poems 9 Poets' fancies all are there: There the *Elf-girls flood with wings Valleys full of plaintive air. |
| 1859 Tennyson Vivien 98, I saw the little *elf-god eyeless once In Arthur's arras hall at Camelot. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §41. 360/1 Lady Isabel..hears an *elf-horn. |
| Ibid. §42. 375/1 He rides to the hills and comes to an *elf-house. |
| 1924 R. Graves Mock Beggar Hall 78 The *elf-key at the rainbow's rise. |
| 1954 J. R. R. Tolkien Fellowship of Ring i. xi. 203 A story of the *Elf-kingdoms. |
| 1884 Child Ballads i. §4. 23/1 An *elf-knight, by blowing his horn, inspires Lady Isabel with love-longing. |
| 1824 Heber Jrnl. II. xxii. 416 Ghastly Yogis, with their hair in *elf knots. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §37. 320/1 The *elf-lady's costume and equipment. |
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 113 *Elfe lande. 1847 Tennyson Princ. iii. 357 O sweet and far from cliff and scar, The horns of elfland faintly blowing. |
| 1913 W. de la Mare Peacock Pie 172 *Elf-light, bat-light, Touchwood-light and toad-light. |
| 1583 Stanyhurst Aeneis iii. (Arb.) 80 Shee sowns, and after long pausing thus she sayd *elflyke. 1841 Lytton Night & Morn. i. vi. I. 65 His..hair hung elf-like and matted down his cheeks. |
| c 1386 Chaucer Wife's T. 860 The *elf-queen, with hir joly compaignye. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §41. 362/2 He strikes her with an *elf-rod. |
| 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 270 Away..you *Elfe-skin. |
| 1955 J. R. R. Tolkien Return of King App. F 409 Fragments of *Elf-speech. |
| 1778 Phil. Surv. S. Irel. 281, I have seen one of those *elf-stones. |
| 1825 Scott Betrothed (1860) 290 He looks as if he were *elf-stricken. |
| 1699 E. Lhwyd in Phil. Trans. XXVIII. 99 Some on May Day put them into a Tub of Water, and besprinkle all their Cattle with that Water, to prevent being *Elf-struck, bewitch'd, &c. |
| Ibid., As to this *Elf-stricking, their Opinion is, that the Fairies..do sometimes carry away Men in the Air. |
| a 1500 MS. in Promp. Parv. 138 note, A chylde that ys *elfe y-take..may nat broke hys mete. |
| 1885 Chamb. Jrnl. 371 Lo—instead of the Hunter in Green, there was only a brown withered twig, so *elf-twisted and dry. |
| 1929 Blunden Near & Far 49 *Elf-wings set out on visit and patrol. |
| 1884 Child Ballads ii. §29. 259/1 Three *elf-women had been not less than fifteen years in weaving it. |
| 1878 Britten & Holl., *Elfwort, Inula Helenium. |
▪ II. elf, n.2 S. Afr. Also
elft.
[Afrikaans, f. Du. elft shad.] The spiny-finned sea-fish
Pomatomus saltator.
| 1731 G. Medley tr. Kolben's Pres. State Cape G. Hope II. 190 In the Table-Bay, and in Bay-Falzo, is caught a Sort of Fish the Dutch call Elft. The Elft is Three Quarters of a Yard long or more; and is scal'd much like a Herring. 1902 Trans. S. Afr. Philos. Soc. XI. 215 The Elf (Temnodon saltator), which somewhat resembles the Elft (Clupea alosa) of Holland, though the two are by no means scientifically related. 1947 K. H. Barnard Pict. Guide S. Afr. Fishes iii. 108 The Elf (Pomatomus saltator)..known in Natal as the Shad (quite different, of course, from the true Shad of the Herring family), and in other parts of the world as the Bluefish, Skipjack, Tailer, etc. 1949 Cape Times 22 Nov. 13/6 Three elft..have been landed by..anglers. |
▪ III. † elf, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. elf n.1] trans. To tangle or twist (hair) as an elf might do.
| 1605 Shakes. Lear ii. iii. 10 Ile..elfe all my haires in knots. 1721–1800 Bailey, To Elfe the Hair, to tie it up in Knots or Ringlets. |