Dictionary

elf-dance en · NOUN

Etymology

Compare words in other Germanic languages: German Elfentanz and Dutch elfendans have similar meanings to the English term, whereas in North Germanic, Swedish älvdans and Norwegian Bokmål alvedans refer to the shifting of mist across the ground or water.

Meanings

1. A dance performed by elves, especially one in which humans are enticed only to find that when released years or centuries have passed.
   • Just then, in the far distance, swept along a whirlwind which had caught up the dust of the plains into columns — two, three, four, all at once dancing some wild elf-dance, like weird spirits doomed to do penance for ever upon, those arid tracks. 1872 December 7, The Sydney Mail, page 729, column 4:
   • Many village musicians have been known, who have learned from him to play this elf-dance, and have sometimes played the first parts of it at Christmas parties and elsewhere. 1896, William A. Craigie, Scandinavian Folk-Lore, London: Alexander Gardner, page 242:
2. Synonym of fairy ring (“a ring of fungi; a place where fairies dance”).
   • The Elves are extremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form those circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elf-dance (Elfdans). 1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 81:
   • This notion as to the cause of the rings being the dancing of the fairies was held by Drayton [...] In Wales, too, the same notion is prevalent, and it is to be found also in Sweden and Belgium, where they call these rings "elf-dances." 1880 April 23, The Burrowa News, NSW, page 3, column 2:

Forms

Synonyms

fairy ring