[…] if theyr children at any time vvere frowarde and vvanton, they would ſay to them that the Guelfe or the Gibeline came. VVhich vvords novve from them (as many thinge els) be come into our vſage, and for Guelfes and Gibelines, we ſayElfes & Goblins.
The extensive commentaries and glosses included with the work are ascribed to an “E. K.”, who is sometimes assumed to be an alias of Spenser himself.
The man whom heauens haue ordaynd to bee / The ſpouſe ofBritomart, isArthegall: / He wonneth in the land ofFayeree, / Yet is noFary borne, ne ſib at all / ToElfes, but ſprong of ſeed terreſtriall, / And whylome by falſeFaries ſtolne away, / Whyles yet in infant cradle he did crall; / Ne other to himſelfe is knowne this day, / But that he by anElfe was gotten of aFay.
1594,Tho[mas] Nashe,The Terrors of the Night or, A Discourse of Apparitions, London:[…] Iohn Danter for William Iones,[…]:
Their Robbin-good-fellowes,Elfes, Fairies, Hobgoblins of our latter age, which idolatrous former daies and the fantasticall world of Greece ycleapedFawnes,Satyres,Dryades & Hamadryades, did most of their merry prankes in the Night.
Everyelf, and fairy sprite, / Hop as light as bird from brier.
1649,ΕΙΚΩΝ Ἡ ΠΙΣΤΗ. Or, The Faithfull Pourtraicture of a Loyall Subject, in Vindication of ΕΙΚΏΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΉ.[…], page16:
[…] I had rather have a Child which my Wife ſhould bring me, though by another man, then to have a Changeling brought me by a company of Fairies,Elfs and Goblins:[…]
1657,Peter Heylyn,Cosmographie in Four Books. Containing the Chorographie and Historie of the Whole World, and All the Principal Kingdoms, Provinces, Seas, and Isles Thereof., 2nd edition, London:[…] Henry Seile,[…], page131:
The quarrel ſpreading into parties, called theGuelfs and theGibellines, became at laſt the wonder and amazement of all good people: inſomuch as ſome are of opinion, that the fiction of theElfs andGoblins, wherewith we uſe to fright young children, was derived from hence.
1678,The Shepherds Calendar: Containing Twelve Æglogues, Proportionable to the Twelve Months.[…], London:[…] Henry Hills for Jonathan Edwin,[…], page26:
The opinion of Fairies andElfs is very old, and yet ſticketh very religiously in the minds of ſome. But to root that rank opinion ofElfs out of mens hearts, the truth is, that there be no ſuch things, nor yet the ſhadows of the things, but only by a ſort of bald Friers and knaviſh ſhavelings ſo faigned;[…]
[…]the Devaſtations under theGoths,Guelphs, andGibelines [whence ſome would derive the Terms ofElfs (orElves) orFairies, andGoblins (orHobgoblins) orSpectres, &c.][…]
1845, Eric Gustave Geijer,The History of the Swedes, London: Whittaker and Co., page17, column 2:
Here in the interior the saga placed the descendants of the demons (Troll) andelves (Alfvar), more hateful than all other men.
1850, Matthew Stewart,Remarks on the Subject of Language, with Some Observations in the Form of Notes, Illustrative of the Information Which Language May Afford of the History and Opinions of Mankind, London:[…] Richard and John Edward Taylor,[…], for,[…] the Author, page14:
These Picts are the ClanAlpin, the Alps, orElfs orElves,—[…]
Theelfs orelves were inhabitants of the fields and groves, the progenitors of the fairies of the middle ages;[…]
1879, William Henderson, “Index”, inNotes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders.[…], London:[…][F]or theFolk-Lore Society by W. Satchell, Peyton and Co.,[…],page364:
Eve, Danish legend of her concealing her unwashed children, from whom comeelfs, trolls, &c.
NAT,[…]; a term applied to all spiritual beings, angels,elfs, demons, or what not, including the gods of the Hindus.
1917 November, Elizabeth Clendenning Ring, “Florence Earle Coates: Some Phases of Her Life and Poetry”, inThe Book News Monthly, volume36,page109, column 1:
Elfs and fays, from their haunts in the mountains, whistle their eerie ballads above the gray roof of “Dove Cottage,” and dance their ghostly jigs on the huge hearthstone, among whose blazing logs the Fire God paints his immortal canvases, with colorings splendid beyond the dream of man.
Cain got no good from committing that murder because the Almighty made him anathema and out of the curse of his exile there sprang ogres andelves and evil phantoms[.]
a.1690,William Cleland,A Collection of Several Poems and Verses, Composed upon Various Occasions, published1697, page59:
For there and ſeveral other places / About mill dams and green brae faces, / Both Elrich,Elfs and Brownies ſtayed, / And Green gown’d Farries daunc’d and played;[…]
IN Days of Old whenArthur fill’d the Throne, / Whoſe Acts and Fame to Foreign Lands were blown; / The King ofElfs and little Fairy Queen / Gamboll’d on Heaths, and danc’d on ev’ry Green.
1802,J[ames] Sibbald, “Glossary; or An Explanation of Ancient Scottish Words”, inChronicle of Scottish Poetry; from the Thirteenth Century, to the Union of the Crowns: To Which Is Added a Glossary, volume IV, Edinburgh:[…][F]or J. Sibbald,[…],[b]y C. Stewart & Co.[…]:
Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christian child,—ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughtyelfs or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?
1852, William Bell,Shakespeare’s Puck, and His Folkslore, Illustrated from the Superstitions of All Nations, but More Especially from the Earliest Religion and Rites of Northern Europe and the Wends, London, page58:
The next species of these airy nothings are theelfs, orelves;[…]
We may add, and our author has knowledge of the fact, that not even the Germans, those masterly delineators andimaginators of fairy-land, have shown greater or more exquisite insight into the lives and ways ofelfs and fays than that which was shown by George Cruikshank.
All the fairy tales of my childhood were conjured up before my startled imagination, and appeared to be realised in the forms which surrounded me; I saw the whole forest filled with trolls,elves, and sporting dwarfs.
(fantasy) A member of a race of tall,slender,graceful beings with pointed ears, typicallyimmortal or very long-lived and possessingwisdom and magical abilities.
1889 May, “[Literary Notices.]The Folk-Lore of Plants. ByT. F. Thiselton Dyer.[…]”, inPopular Science, page128, column 1:
Much of fairy lore clusters around the so-called fairy rings, that is, the green circles in old pastures within which theelfs were supposed to dance at night by the light of the moon.
He was not speaking troll-talk now, but the language of Elfland, that grander tongue that he had had to speak when he was before the King: for he knew the language of Elfland although it was never used in the homes of the trolls, who preferred troll-talk. This language was spoken in those days also by men, for there were fewer languages then, and theelves and the people of Erl both used the same.
So they laughed and sang in the trees; and pretty fair nonsense I daresay you think it. Not that they would care they would only laugh all the more if you told them so. They wereelves of course. Soon Bilbo caught glimpses of them as the darkness deepened. He lovedelves, though he seldom met them; but he was a little frightened of them too.
2018, Virginia Loh-Hagan,Elves, Ann Arbor: 45th Parallel Press, page 9:
Fantasyelves have human shapes. They're thin. They're tall. They're beautiful. They're blond. They have pointy ears.
1877,Sidney Lanier, “The Hard Times in Elfland. A Story of Christmas Eve.”, in[Mary Lanier], editor,Poems of Sidney Lanier, New York, N.Y.:Charles Scribner’s Sons, published1884,page159:
Since you’ve been out, the news arrives / TheElfs’ Insurance Company’s gone.
^James Knowles (1835), “ELF,elf´,n.”, inA Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language.[…], London: F. de Porquet and Cooper,[…];Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh; and Webb, Dublin,page241, column 1: “Pl.elfs andelves.”
^James Bamford (1844),Elements of English Grammar, Simplified, page53: “Elf changes in the plural intoelfs orelves;[…]”
^Henry E[lliot] Shepherd (1883), “Nouns”, inA Grammar of the English Language, Baltimore, Md.: John B. Piet & Co.,page19:
In words ending inf, of native origin, preceded by a long vowel sound, exceptoo, and in words ending inlf, thef is converted into its kindred letter,v, and the plural is formed by the addition ofes; as,leaf,leaves; sheaf,sheaves; shelf,shelves. Under this rule also fallsbeef,beeves, which is of French origin. To this general rule, the great diversity of English usage will furnish exceptions; thus we have bothelfs andelves,shelfs andshelves.
^K. T. B. (1885), “On the Plural of Substantives in English”, inTaalstudie. Tweemaandelijksch tijdschrift voor de studie der nieuwe talen., Blom & Olivierse,page89:
Wherever this struggle has not come to an end, both plural forms are occasionally found, as inelfs andelves,shelfs andshelves,wharfs andwharves (the dirty stream that ran oilily about thewharves; Murray: Life’s Atonement, II, 77),turfs andturves,mastiffs andmastives.
^Norman Foerster; J. M. Steadman, Jr. (1941),Writing and Thinking, pages268–269: “Nouns ending in-f are so variable in the plural (loaf: loaves, butchief: chiefs; dwarf: dwarfs;elf:elfs orelves) that one should be guided by the pronunciation of the plural, or, better still, should consult the dictionary when in doubt.”
^Bertha M. Watts (1944),Modern Grammar at Work,Houghton Mifflin, page96:
A very few nouns ending in-f or-fe may be pluralized either by adding-s or by changingf orfe tov and adding-es: “scarf,” “scarfs” or “scarves”; “wharf,” “wharfs” or “wharves”; “staff,” “staffs” or “staves”; “elf,” “elfs” or “elves”; “hoof,” “hoofs” or “hooves.”
^Morton S. Freeman (1983),A Treasury for Word Lovers, Philadelphia, Pa.: ISI Press,→ISBN,page225: “Others have been dignified with two forms, both in good usage—elfs andelves,hoofs andhooves,scarfs andscarves,staffs andstaves.”
^Steve Ettlinger (1990),The Complete Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Garden Centers (Except the Plants),Macmillan Publishing Company,→ISBN: “also known as: Dwarfs, dwarves,elfs,elves, trolls, leprechauns”
Marshall Jones Company (1930).Mythology of All Races Series, Volume 2Eddic, Great Britain: Marshall Jones Company, 1930, pp. 220-221.
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor,A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published1867,page38
