Dictionary

elfwife en · NOUN

Etymology

From elf + wife.

Meanings

1. A married female elf.
   • Elidyr, the elf-wife, Keeps a small tavern In a moss-carpeted, Fern-curtained cavern. 1924 June 7, Illustrated News Budget, Brisbane, page 25, column 4:
   • The Spanish Hidalgo loses his Elf-wife by pronouncing a sacred name, and the Metal Boat of the Prince Amrad sinks under the same bann. 1824, John Macculloch, The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, volume IV, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, page 326:
   • An elf wife hung her washing out Upon a cobweb line (Including socks and handkerchiefs), The articles were nine. 1931 November 11, The Northern Star, Lismore, page 12, column 3:
2. The human wife of a male elf.
   • Here the woman learned that the Elf-wife could not be delivered without the aid of a Christian woman, she being herself a Christian, but had been carried off by the Elf-man. 1851, Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology, volume II, London: Edward Lumley, page 128:
   • During his absence the elfwife took the opportunity of instructing her helper as to her conduct when he returned; and the first and chief point of her advice was to eat nothing that was offered her. 1891, Edwin Sidney Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales, London: Walter SCott, page 40:

Forms