elle-folk

English

Etymology

From Danish ellefolk.

Noun

elle-folk pl (plural only)

1. (mythology) elle-people
   • 1860, Harriet Elizabeth Prescott, Sir Rohan's Ghost: A Romance, Boston: J.E. Tilton and Co., page 293:

     "We're none of the elle-folk who dance in the hills and weave fates, ye mun go to them for that."

   • 1865 November, J[ohn] C[hristopher] Atkinson, “Comparative Danish and Northumbrian Folk Lore. […] Chapter VII. Elle Folk.”, in The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church, volume XXX, part 179, London: John and Charles Mozley, […]; and J[ohn] H[enry] Parker, […], footnote, page 476:

     Still the Elle-folk are often mentioned in the legends he proceeds to give as inhabiting houes, notwithstanding an explicit opening statement that they ‘dwell in the Elle-mosses,’ and notwithstanding the fact also that the so-called Elle-kone of the houes seems evidently to want the hollow back.

   • 1896, William Alexander Craigie, Scandinavian Folk-lore, London: Alexander Gardner, page 175:

     The ellefolk live in mosses, banks and mounds, under alder-trees and in alder-thickets.