moss-people en · NOUN
Etymology
Calque of German Moosleute.
Meanings
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(Germanic, plural, plural-only) moss-folk
In Southern Germany they believe in a species of beings somewhat like the Dwarfs, called Wild, Wood, Timber, and Moss-people.
1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 230:Happy they so visited, for loan or gift to the Moss-people was always repaid manifold !
1874, Archibald Maclaren, The Fairy Family, London: Macmilland and Co., page 29:A loan or gift to the Moss-people was always repaid manifold.
1920, Lewis Spence, An Encyclopædia of Occultism, London: George Routledge and Sons, page 280, column 2:A loan or gift to the Moss-people was always repaid manifold.
1978, Katharine M. Briggs, The Vanishing People, London: B.T. Batsford, page 76: