Dictionary

moss-maiden en · NOUN

Etymology

Calque of German Moosfräulein.

Meanings

1. (Germanic) A young female of the moss-folk.
   • In pouring out of a dish, when drops hang on the edge, don't brush them off, they belong to the moss-maiden. 1888, Jacob Grimm, translated by James Steven Stallybrass, Teutonic Mythology, volume IV, London: George Bell and Sons, page 1427:
   • Urselberg became her retreat as the good fairy mother; but the attractions of herself and her moss-maidens, which the Church wished to borrow, were taken on a long voyage to Rome, and there transmuted to St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. 1881, Moncure Daniel Conway, Demonology and Devil-Lore, volume II, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 379:
   • The object of this phantom hunt varied greatly, and was either a visionary boar or wild horse, white-breasted maidens who were caught and borne away bound only once in seven years, or the wood nymphs, called Moss Maidens, who were thought to represent the autumn leaves torn from the trees and whirled away by the wintry gale. 1895, H.A. Guerber, Myths of Northern Lands, volume II, New York: American Book Company, page 31:

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