"Elf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no open house, as he should do, Delighteth in no game or fellowship, Loves no good deeds, and hateth talk; But sitteth in a corner turning crabs, Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale. Backwinter th'other, that's his nown[123] sweet boy, Who like his father taketh in all points. An elf it is, compact of envious pride, A miscreant born for a plague to men; A monster that devoureth all he meets. Were but his father dead, so he would reign, Yea, he would go good-near to deal by him As Nebuchadnezzar's ungracious son, Foul Merodach[124], by his father dealt: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... was assuredly this much change in him, that to-night Agnes was not even waking him to dispassionate interest; he had no attention to spare her. And yet it was not that Barbara had captured his mind; she was nothing but an elf of mischief, dancing in the sunshine backwards and forwards across his path, pelting him with flowers, vanishing and reappearing. Restlessness or discontent must have peeped from behind the suave mask. He had meant to be more ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... lore, Render him terrorless: his name's "No More." He is the corporate Silence: dread him not: 10 No power hath he of evil in himself; But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!) Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf, That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod No foot of man), commend thyself ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... am thy genius; and conduct thee to wealth, fame, and honour; what thou comest to do, do boldly; fear not; with this rod I charm thee; and neither elf nor goblin ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... my article and left Mrs. McGurk to deal with Sadie. Finally, after she had worked half-way around the room, she came to a portrait of a little girl occupying a leather frame in the center of the doctor's writing desk—a child with a queer elf-like beauty, resembling very strangely our little Allegra. This photograph might have been a portrait of Allegra grown five years older. I had noticed the picture the night we took supper with the doctor, and had meant to ask which of his little ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... the princely Idris should fail to recognize himself in the miserable object there pourtrayed. My tattered dress was that in which I had crawled half alive from the tempestuous sea. My long and tangled hair hung in elf locks on my brow—my dark eyes, now hollow and wild, gleamed from under them—my cheeks were discoloured by the jaundice, which (the effect of misery and neglect) suffused my skin, and were half hid by a beard of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... dashing fellow, held noisy revel during the dazzling winter days, night came every once in so often; and then a quavering call, tremulous yet unafraid, told the listening world that an elf of the moonlight was claiming his own. And if some shivered at the sound, others there were who welcomed it as a challenge to enter the realm of ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... bunches of star-like daisies and their soft round white little buds, gaudy marigolds, brown, yellow, and orange, crimson cock's-combs, branches of honeysuckle vines filled with honey, rich fairy trumpets, saucy elf-faced pansies, spicy pinks, hollyhocks in satiny dresses of many colors, bright-eyed verbenas and sweet-williams, brilliant geranium blossoms, and even great honest faithful sunflowers—those flowers that love the sun so dearly that they turn ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... fellow deserves to be of Oxford that talks so." I have heard him at other times relate how he used so sit in some coffee-house there, and turn M—- 's "C-r-ct-c-s" into ridicule for the diversion of himself and of chance comers-in. "The 'Elf-da,'" says he, "was too exquisitely pretty; I could make no fun out of that." When upon some occasions he would express his astonishment that he should have an enemy in the world, while he had been doing nothing but good to his neighbours, I used to make him recollect these circumstances. ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... changeful feeling that filled his breast. When excited his glance was magnificent, and the natural wildness of his whole aspect was increased by the luxuriance of his brown hair, which hung in long elf-locks over his shoulders. Among his intimates he was known by the name of ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite forget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to "twopence coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of it - crimson lake! - the horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear) - with crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, for cloaks especially, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vagabonds), of the most wretched kind. Some were dressed in coarse shirts and trowsers, and some had only one of these habiliments. None interested me, except a dirty, swarthy boy, with most brilliant black eyes, who lay flat on his stomach, and gazed at us in silence. His elf-like glance sparkles brightly ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... at work one day myself, In the castle ditch where the foxglove grows, A wrinkled, wizened and bearded elf, Spectacles stuck on the top of his nose, Silver buckles to his hose, Leather apron, shoe in his lap. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... creatures of the earth, but was one of the kane-bairns of the fairies, whilk they had to pay to the enemy of man's salvation every seventh year. The poor lady-fairy—a mother's aye a mother, be she elves' flesh or Eve's flesh—hid her elf son beside the christened flesh in Marion Irving's cradle, and the auld enemy lost his prey for a time. Now, hasten on with your story, which is not a bodle the waur for me. The maiden saw the shape ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... little Man, and tiny Maid, Who love the Fairies in the glade, Who see them in the tangled grass The Gnomes and Brownies, as they pass, Who hear the Sprites from Elf-land call Go, frolic with these Brownies small, And join these merry sporting Elves, But ever be your ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... says, has been the model on which man 'framed his ideas of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that sports in the grass up to the heavenly creator and ruler of the world, the Great Spirit.' Here it is taken for granted that the Heavenly Ruler was from the first envisaged as a 'spiritual being'—which is just the difficulty. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... and his greatest delight was to get other people into trouble. The country people had long wished to be rid of him but he had a long lease of his house and he meant to stay there. He was a homely little elf, with bright red hair, a slight squint in one eye and a wart on his nose. If a lesson had not been prepared, this fellow, who was called "I Forgot," was sure to be on hand in time to whisper into the ear of the culprit, "Say 'I Didn't ...
— Silver Links • Various
... Delight can't tempt the wight, Nor fond Regret delay him, Nor Love himself can hold the elf, Nor sober Friendship stay him, We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... he himself knew to be puppets tricked up for the entertainment of an idle hour. We are told by Lockhart, that the old man who told the story of Gilpin Horner to Lady Dalkeith bona fide believed the existence of the elf. Lady Dalkeith repeated the tale to Walter Scott, who worked it up with consummate skill into the Lay of the Last Minstrel. This is a case of a really believed legend of diablerie becoming the source of a literary fiction. Scott neither believed ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... yet pull them away," they all laughed, "and chuck them in her face! She has got you up in such a way as to make a regular old elf of you!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... elf! (But stop, first let me kiss away that tear,) Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite, With spirits feather light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... is not what man hates, Yet he can curse but this. Harsh Gods and hostile Fates Are dreams! this only is— Is everywhere; sustains the wise, the foolish elf. ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... a long Story short How to fill out a short Story General Changes commonly desirable Examples: The Nuernberg Stove, by Ouida; The King of the Golden River, by Ruskin; The Red Thread of Courage, The Elf and the Dormouse ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... of Northland, Was singing a song to herself, As she swung from a wreath of soft snow-flakes, And smiled to another bright elf. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to the newcomers. Soon thirty canoes were around the ships with some ten warriors in each. Still they came, shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the harbor smooth as glass, the grand tyee, or great chief of the tribes, standing erect shouting a welcome, with long elf-locks streaming down his back. Women and children now appeared in the canoes. That meant peace. The women were chattering like magpies; the men gurgling and spluttering their surprise at the white visitors. For safety's sake the guns of the two ships were pointed ready; but the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... hamper of ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf calling "Woe to you! Woe for ever! Darkness is coming, and I and Death await you with cold arms." Every timber complained with whining iteration, and the boom of the full, falling seas tolled as ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... A MARCH ELF should wear her hair in a plait at the back, tied up with a bow of ribbon, and curled a little in front. She is too young to need steels ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf, Before Lord Richard stands, And, as he crossed and blessed himself, 'I fear not sign,' quoth the grisly elf, 'That is made ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... with their elf-locks tossing in the wind, and their flaring matches casting a strange lurid light over their features. Taking up a position, one body began to fire upon the Utaybah robbers, whilst two or three hundred, dismounting, swarmed up the hill under ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... saying that a Venetian devil was travelling abroad in a German carriage. To describe the son of the Cup-Bearer himself would be a long story; suffice it to say that he seemed to us an ape or a parrot in a great peruke, which he liked to compare to the Golden Fleece, and we to elf-locks.19 At that time even if any one felt that the Polish costume was more comely than this aping of a foreign fashion, he kept silent, for the young men would have cried out that he was hindering culture, that he was checking progress, that he was ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... will." It is a tall, stout, downy plant, from three to five feet high, of the Composite order, with broad leaves, and bright, yellow flowers. Campania is the original source of the plant (Enula campana), which is called also Elf-wort, and Elf-dock. Its botanical title is Helenium inula, to commemorate Helen of Troy, from whose tears the herb was thought to have sprung, or whose hands were full of the leaves when Paris carried her off from Menelaus. This title has become corrupted in some districts to Horse-heal, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... outlet, fathomless and dim To wild uncertainty and shadows grim. There, when new wonders ceas'd to float before, And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore The journey homeward to habitual self! A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf, Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar, Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire, 280 Into the ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... for a long time with the dwindling firelight playing about him, his manhood and his desires locked in a grim struggle, wondering at the hold this forest elf had gained upon him, wondering how it was that she had stolen into his heart and head and taken such utter possession of him. It would be no easy task to shut her out of his mind and put her away from him. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the parlour, to be spectators of the interview. My grandfather entered; I was dressed as genteelly as every effort of the village taylor could contrive; an appearance so different from that of the beaten, bruised, and wounded poor elf he first had seen, with clouted shoes, torn stockings, and coarse coating, dripping with water, and clotted with blood, was so great as scarcely to be credible. The ugliness of my companions did but enhance the superiority of my look; he could not be mistaken in which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... common but often overlooked truths which serve so well as the themes of fable. Emerson's "Fable," the story of the quarrel between the mountain and the squirrel, is a most excellent presentation of the same idea (see No. 363). "The Little Elf," by John Kendrick Bangs, makes the same point ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Aasa's thoughts had taken a widely different course; it was but seldom she had found herself under the necessity of making a decision; and now it evidently devolved upon her to find the stranger a place of rest for the night; so instead of an elf-maid's kiss and a silver palace, he soon found himself huddled into a dark little alcove in the wall, where he was told to go to sleep, while Aasa wandered over to the empty cow-stables, and threw herself down in the hay by the ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Fairy Book Norman Gale Fairy Songs William Shakespeare Queen Mab Ben Jonson The Elf and the Dormouse Oliver Herford "Oh! Where Do Fairies Hide Their Heads?" Thomas Haynes Bayly Fairy Song Leigh Hunt Dream Song Richard Middleton Fairy Song John Keats Queen Mab Thomas Hood The Fairies of the Caldon-Low Mary Howitt The Fairies William Allingham ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... sinewy, red hands; he had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-compressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as though chewing, which, added to his customary taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent impression; his grey hair hung in elf-locks over his low brow; his tiny, motionless eyes smouldered like coals which had just been extinguished; he walked heavily, swaying his clumsy body from side to side at every step. Some of his movements were suggestive of the awkward ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... breast, and watched her sleeping. She had always thought of her mother as so long dead as to be no more than a nameless pinch of earth; but now it occurred to her that the once-young woman might be alive, and wrinkled and elf-locked like the woman she had sometimes seen in the door of the brown house that Lucius ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... 'troth'; 'pennon' and 'pinion'; 'quail' and 'quell'; 'quell' and 'kill'; 'metal' and 'mettle'; 'chagrin' and 'shagreen'; 'can' and 'ken'; 'Francis' and 'Frances'{111}; 'chivalry' and 'cavalry'; 'oaf' and 'elf'; 'lose' and 'loose'; 'taint' and 'tint'. Sometimes the difference is mainly or entirely in the initial consonants, as between 'phial' and 'vial'; 'pother' and 'bother'; 'bursar' and 'purser'; 'thrice' and 'trice'{110}; 'shatter' and 'scatter'; 'chattel' and 'cattle'; 'chant' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Scottish chieftain, found in her creed at last something more precious than herself; while his brother or his cousin became, at Dublin or Wexford or Waterford, the husband of some saffron-robed Irish princess, 'fair as an elf,' as the old saying was; 'some maiden of the three transcendent hues,' of whom the ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... Enid, is perhaps the least popular of the four Books. No pleasure, we grant, can be felt from the character either of the wily woman, between elf and fiend, or of the aged magician, whose love is allowed to travel whither none of his esteem or regard can follow it: and in reading this poem we miss the pleasure of those profound moral harmonies, with which the rest are charged. But we must not on these grounds ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... played, so delicately, so melodiously, and, withal, with an individuality so elf-like in its quaintness, that Joseph's quivering nerves were stilled and relaxed as by the caresses of a woman's hands. Then, when count of time had ceased, when the room was filled with velvet shadows, and the rich, dim glow of the crimson-shaded lamp touched ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... do,' said Mrs Jo, who was in such a wild state of dishevelment with her varied labours that she might have gone on as Madge Wildlife, without an additional rag or crazy elf-lock. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... ancient course conceal'd by bushes. Where the hollow was, a mound Rises from the upheaved ground. Doubting, shouting with surprise, How the fool stares, and rubs his eyes! All's so changed, the simple elf Fancies he is changed himself! Ho! ho! 'tis a merry sight The hag shall have when dawns the light. But see! she halts and waves her hand. All is done ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... whirl'd aloft he falls; a timely check, Enough to dislocate his worthless neck: For lo! of old, he boasts an honour'd wound; Behold that broken wing that trails the ground! Thus fools and bravoes kindred pranks pursue; As savage quite, and oft as fatal too. Happy the man that foils an envious elf, Using the darts of spleen to serve himself. As when by turns the strolling Swine engage The utmost efforts of the bully's rage, Whose nibbling warfare on the grunter's side Is welcome pleasure to ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... had dreaded this child—the little black-haired elf that had seen him hiding. It had made him shiver to think of her—the small woodland demon, the devil's spy whose lisping treble might be distinct and loud enough to utter his death sentence. A thousand times he had wondered about her—thinking: "She is growing up. She belongs ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... discovered the cause, from hearing the footsteps of several persons in the neighbourhood. I was about to inquire, in a whisper, who they could be, when I observed him glance up at the top of the wall above us. I turned my eyes in the same direction, and then I saw, by the light of the fire, the elf-like locks and red-coloured countenance of a wild Indian, who was gazing down upon us. He looked as much surprised to find us there as we were to ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... caves and the snowy crags, they could see no signs of the cunning fugitive. Then they went back to his house again to consult what next to do. And, while standing by the hearth, Kwaser, a sharp-sighted elf, whose eyes were quicker than the sunbeam, saw the white ashes of the burned net lying undisturbed in the still hot embers, the ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep: Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep? Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... neckcloth, call'd a rope, Of robbing cure this elf; If so I'll write, without a trope, His dying ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... yesterday,' I was beginning to say, but I didn't. For I thought to myself, if there was any real trouble about Peterkin, it wouldn't be at all a good time to tease each other. I don't think Elf—that's Elvira's pet name—had understood about him being lost. Indeed, I don't think I had quite taken it in myself, till I saw how grave the two eldest ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... be found; and when dinner-time, and much calling and searching, failed to produce him, his grandfather declared that he was gone back to Elf-land; but Leonard recollected certain particular inquiries about the situation of the Grange and of Cocksmoor, and it was concluded that he had anticipated the Doctor's intentions of taking him and Mr. Seaford there in the afternoon. The notion was confirmed by the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blonde, sweet, serious, timid and a little slow, and Dorothy Rose—a sparkling brunette, quick, elf-like, high tempered, full of mischief and always getting ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... thank thee for giving of me somewhat to do for her memory. And doesn't she fall a weeping for her mother? And doesn't that set me off a-snivelling for my good brother that I love so dear, and to think that a poor little elf like me could yet speak in the ear of princes, and make my beautiful brother vicar of Gouda; eh, lass, it is a bonny place, and a bonny manse, and hawthorn in every bush at spring-tide, and dog-roses and eglantine in every summer ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... upon his forehead and his throbbing temples, so calm and cool but a moment before. He stood trembling, his damp elf-locks dangling over his brow. Through the half-open door a little breath of wind threaded in and made the lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outside through the lilac-bushes like the ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... sorrow seiz'd those gentle youths, who'd given cureless pain— In haste they sought their priestly sire, in haste return'd again; Return'd to view the elf enthron'd in waters as before, Whose music now was sighs, whose tears gush'd e'en from his heart's core. "Why weeping, Neck? look up, and clear those tearful eyes of blue— Our father bids us say, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... granted to me?" said Eochaid. "'Tis for that I have come hither under thy safeguard," said she. "And indeed twenty years have I lived in this place, ever since I was born in the mound where the fairies dwell, and the men who dwell in the elf-mounds, their kings and their nobles, have been a-wooing me: yet to never a one of them was granted sleep with me, for I have loved thee, and have set my love and affection upon thee; and that ever ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... this house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire: Every elf, and fairy sprite, Hop as light as bird, from brier; And this ditty after me Sing, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Peregrine Oakshott," said Lucy passionately. "He had a cord across the Slype to trip us up. I heard him laughing like a hobgoblin, and saw him too, grinning over a tombstone like the malicious elf he is." ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Elf, Exclaim'd a thundering Voice, Nor dare to thrust thy foolish self Between me and my choice!" A falling Water swoln with snows Thus spake to a poor Briar-rose, That all bespatter'd with his foam, And dancing high, and dancing low, ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... on a time, old Legends say, 'Twas on a sultry Summer's day, A Grecian God forsook the Skies, To taste of Earth's felicities. Clad like a rusticated elf, (Perhaps incog. 'twas Jove himself) He travers'd hills, and glens, and woods, And verdant lawns, by crystal floods; For sure, said he, if Earth has joys, They dwell remote from pomp and noise. He loitering pass'd the vacant hour, For Strawberries stoop'd, or pluck'd ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... were harsh as ever, but his red shock peruke, for such it proved, was laid aside, his sable elf-locks were trained, by a little of Joceline's assistance, into curls, and his fine black eyes shone from among the shade of these curls, and corresponded with the animated, though not handsome, character of the whole ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... like a skein of silk, which, if you take by the right end you may wind off at pleasure on the bottom or card of your discourse in a tale or so—how you will; but if you light on the wrong end you will pull all into a knot or elf-lock, which nothing but the shears or a candle will ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... with painful humiliation while she read. Philip was not now the trim and dainty stripling first introduced to the reader. He had outgrown his faded suit of funereal mourning; his long-neglected hair hung elf-like and matted down his cheeks; there was a gloomy look in his bright dark eyes. Poverty never betrays itself more than in the features and form of Pride. It was evident that his spirit endured, rather than ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Jock's breast and crossed the work-scarred hands upon it. "It's something by the ordinar' to find a gude auld country body in such a foul place." He stooped and patted Bobby, and noted the bun, untouched, upon the floor. Turning to a wild elf of a barefooted child in the crowd he spoke to her. "Would you share your gude brose with ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... was gone, the main-yard sprung, the rigging hanging in elf-locks, the hull shot through and through in twenty places, the deck strewn with the bodies of nine good men, beside sixteen wounded down below; while the pitiless sun, right above their heads, poured down a flood of fire ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... varan to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalon, To vairest alre maidene To the fairest of all maidens, To Argante ethere quene, To Argante the queen, Alven swiethe sceone; Elf surpassing fair; And heo scal mine wunden And she shall my wounds Makien alle isunde, Make all sound, Al hal me makien All hale me make Mid halweige drenchen. With healing draughts. And seoethe Ich cumen wulle And afterwards I will come ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... The 'elf' is flourishing in all good fairyhood, with a scarlet rose leaf on each cheek. Wilson says she never knew him to have such an irreproachable appetite. He is charmed with Paris, and its magnificent Punches, and roundabouts, and balloons—which last he says, looking up after them gravely, 'go to God.' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... what her joy was, when, one day as she wandered alone, gazing on gorgeous blossoms rich in brilliant colours, down at her feet she spied, waving its delicate-tinted elf-bells in the warm, soft breeze, ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... company was sometimes mellow: And, Although he was a priest, Thought it no sacramental sin—to feast. I can't say much for his morality: But for his immortality, Good luck! Why he's bound in calf, and squeezed in boards, And scarcely a good library's shelf But boasts acquaintance with the elf. But now I'll tell you what I should have told before, A grievous illness brought him nigh Death's door. Who, bony wight, Enjoyed the sight— And grinn'd as he thought of the fun there'd be When the jester had joined ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... thou fond presumptuous Elf," Exclaimed an angry Voice, [1] "Nor dare to thrust thy foolish self Between me and my choice!" A small Cascade fresh swoln with snows 5 Thus threatened a poor Briar-rose, [2] That, all bespattered with his foam, And dancing ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... pretended not to heed— You, as though you would inquire "Can I trust them?" . . . then a jerk, And you'd skipped three branches higher, Jaws again at work; Like a little clock-work elf, With all the forest ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... her eyebrows, presented the tips of her fingers, and told Dorothy in a high, squeaky voice that she was very glad to know her. Elf did the same in an exact copy ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... four foot and seven inches long by measure. This lock was of a different color from all the rest, which was short and gray. It grew on the hinder part of her head, and was matted together like an elf-lock. The Court ordered it to be cut off, to which she was very unwilling, and said she was told if it were cut off she should die or be sick; yet the Court ordered it so ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Emily Jane with Jim, And envied the well made elf; And people remarked that he muttered "Oh, dim!" (I often say ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... her, the elf-beam shall bear a daughter: that maid shall ride along her mother's paths, when the ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... better express her personality: She was little—a dainty, elf-like littleness, with tiny feet and wee hands; she was gray—a soft, silver gray—too gray for her forty years (and this fragment begins when she was forty); and she was a lady in every beat of her warm heart; in every pressure of her white hand; in ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... happy elf! (But stop,—first let me kiss away that tear)— Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouch'd by sorrow, and unsoil'd by ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... said; and even as he spoke the barbaric copper clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour. At the sixth the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one of the queerest and yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in his life; open, and yet tantalising, the face of an elf. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... "She wouldn't, Elf—Miss Bell. She was afraid of suggesting the obligation to come home to you. She said with your artistic conscience you couldn't come, and it would only be inflicting unnecessary pain upon you. But her bronchitis was no light matter last ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... the cameleon. Swiftly I come, and enter there, Where not a chink lets in the air; Like thought, I'm in a moment gone, Nor can I ever be alone: All things on earth I imitate Faster than nature can create; Sometimes imperial robes I wear, Anon in beggar's rags appear; A giant now, and straight an elf, I'm every one, but ne'er myself; Ne'er sad I mourn, ne'er glad rejoice, I move my lips, but want a voice; I ne'er was born, nor e'er can die, Then, pr'ythee, tell ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... learn to draw Mine inspiration from the common air. A peasant-woman auburn-haired, large-eyed, Within the shade of overhanging boughs Suckles her babe, and sees her eldest born Gambol upon the grass: the elf has wrought With two snapt boughs the semblance of a cross, And proudly holds the sacred symbol high Above his head to win his mother's praise. Mine art may haply reproduce that wealth Of brilliant hues—the dusk hair's glimmering gold, The auroral blush, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... dreams, I in my childish grief, Thy heart in tears, mine eyes amazed with tears, Thy sorrow rich with the repining years, My sorrow frail as childhood, and as brief." Who art thou, haunting boy, nocturnal elf? "I am the Dead; the Dead that was thyself." Then falls a darkness on that starless shore. Afar I hear the closing of ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... can always amuse himself in a town, ma'am. If it's your own business you're coming on, he knows you'll find him; and if it's his business, then begorra let him find you!" Which quite reminded me of what the Irish elf says to the English elf in Moira O'Neill's fairy story: "A waste of time? Why, you've come to a country where there's no such thing as a waste of time. We have no value for time here. There is lashings of it, more than anybody knows what to ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was very tall, had a voluminous handkerchief rolled round her head, grizzled hair flowing in elf-locks from beneath it, a long red cloak, and a staff in her band, headed with a sort of spear-point—it was, in short, Meg Merrilies. Hazlewood had never seen this remarkable figure before; he drew up his reins in astonishment at her appearance, and made a full stop. "I think," ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... When its spirit to the Yue Ling hath flown, 'tis hard to say 'tis spring. The russet clouds across the 'Lo Fu' lie, so e'en to dreams it's closed. The green petals add grace to a coiffure, when painted candles burn. The simple elf when primed with wine doth the waning rainbow bestride. Does its appearance speak of a colour of ordinary run? Both dark and light fall of their own free will into the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... had finished repeating what the elf had said she laid her staff against the king's breast, and sure enough there sprang forth from it the loveliest flowers. They yielded so strong a perfume that the king commanded that the mice who stood nearest the chimney should stick their tails in the fire, in order that the smell ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... native French, in which language she always attacked me—I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the sprite that teased me. Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its place. I had seized a mere vexing fairy, and found a submissive and supplicating little mortal ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child, Till his eyes lost half their anguish, and his worn, wan features smiled; Tales herself had heard haphazard, caught amid the Babel roar, Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... bound with bracken-fronds, And golden elf-locks fly above; Her eyes are bright as diamonds And bluer ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Hannekin, "the elf lock came out of my hair this very morn, I having, as you bade me, combed it each ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a joyous life,' and plays and operas have been written to illustrate the superiority of vagabondage over civilisation. But the pretty Gitana of the stage is altogether a different sort of being from the brown-faced, elf-locked, and tawdrily dressed female who haunts back entries with the ostensible object of selling clothes-pegs, but with the real motive of picking up whatever may be lying in her way. There is but small chance of Bohemian Girls finding themselves in drawing-rooms ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Now are frolic; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house: I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door. Through the house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire: Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier; And this ditty, after me, Sing, and dance it trippingly. First, rehearse your song by rote, To each word a warbling note: Hand in hand, with fairy grace, Will we sing, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... when churning was easy it was because of the secret help of the "brownie." He was a tiny, elf-like creature who lived in the barn and was never seen of men; but his presence was made known by his many deeds of helpfulness in kitchen and dairy, for which he was rewarded by a daily bowl of milk. Those who have read George MacDonald's story of Sir Gibbie remember how the little ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... and have her upon his knee for the space of about five minutes. She nestled closely to him with a little sigh of happiness for a very little while, then she slipped away, and stood looking at him like an elf. "I am not going to do that much," ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... over their heads; it is always black or white, and hangs in agreeable folds over the neck and shoulders. There is but little beauty among them; and alas! how should there be? They are in general filthy; the hair of both old and young is allowed to fall in uncombed elf-locks about their heads; and the old women are often hideous and disgustful in the extreme. The heart bleeds for the women: they have more than their share of the labors of the field; they have all the toils of the men, added to the pains and cares of womanhood. They dig, they reap, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... and yet not one of that sort of fairies who fly about on gossamer wings, and dance in the moonlight, and so on. He never dances; and as to wings, what use would they be to him in a coal cellar? He is a sober, stay-at-home household elf—nothing much to look at, even if you did see him, which you are not likely to do—only a little old man, about a foot high, all dressed in brown, with a brown face and hands, and a brown peaked cap, just the color of a brown mouse. And like a mouse he hides in corners—especially kitchen ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... quickly Teddy set to work, but when he had once passed the line round the farmer's body and the tree, he had no difficulty in finishing the work he had begun. Dancing like an elf with the line in his hand, he spun round and round the tree till the line was wound round to its very last extremity, and the farmer looked like some big bluebottle fly entangled in the fine meshes of a spider's web. Still he slept on, and with ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... young vixen?" went on the speaker, addressing her husband, the Tio Pedro, who sat with her behind the counter of a small tobacconist's shop—an ugly beldame, shrank and shrivelled, with grey elf-locks, sunk cheeks, and parchment complexion, looking ninety, yet little more than half that age. Women ripen early, are soon at their prime, and fade prematurely, under ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... to his taste," remarked an odd-looking elf, who appeared suddenly from nowhere in particular. "For my part, I prefer to be just exactly what I am. Once a witch changed me into a boy for ten minutes, and I give you my word I never was so uncomfortable ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... in spite of a certain elf-like disobedience which possessed them like a disease. It was quite enough to tell them not to do a thing for them to be eaten up with a desire to do it forthwith. Christine had discovered this, and had learned to manage them in other ways than by ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... my dearest children, when with joy You hailed your father's safe return to home From his long mountain toils; for when he came He ever brought some little present with him. A lovely Alpine flower—a curious bird— Or elf-boat found by wanderers on the hills. But now he goes in quest of other game: In the wild pass he sits, and broods on murder; And watches for the life-blood of his foe, But still his thoughts are fixed on you alone, Dear children. 'Tis to guard your innocence, To shield you ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... eel : angilo. effect : efiko, efekto. effective : efektiva. efficacious : efika. effort : peno, klopodo. eiderduck : molanaso. elastic : elast'a, -ajxo. elbow : kubuto. elder : (tree), sambuko. elect : elekti, baloti. electricity : elektro. elegant : eleganta. elf : koboldo, elfo. elm : ulmo. eloquent : elokventa. embalm : balzami. embrace : cxirkauxpreni, enbrakigi; ampleksi. embroider : brodi. emerald : smeraldo. emigrate : elmigri. eminent : eminenta. emotion : kortusxeco. emphasis : emfazo, akcentego empire : imperio. enable : ebligi. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... stands on the left-hand side of the road, and was speeding onward fast, with the Taf at some distance on my right, when I saw a strange-looking woman advancing towards me. She seemed between forty and fifty, was bare-footed and bare-headed, with grizzled hair hanging in elf locks, and was dressed in rags and tatters. When about ten yards from me, she pitched forward, gave three or four grotesque tumbles, heels over head, then standing bolt upright, about a yard before me, raised her right arm, and shouted in a most discordant voice—"Give ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... own proper likeness, unconcealed by bonnet or shawl, or maternal protection. The pinafore scarcely covered her gaunt neck and long arms; that tremendous head of rough, dusky hair was evidently for the first time gathered into a comb. Thence elf locks escaped in all directions, and were forever being pushed behind her ears, or rubbed (not smoothed; there was nothing smooth about her) back from her forehead, which, Hilary noticed, was low, broad, and full. The rest of her face, except ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... frequently felt quite well; the thunder-clouds seemed to have cleared away. I often felt beautifully elevated, gently supported; generally I was silent, but it was from inner joy; even hope wound itself softly round my heart; the children of fable came to the weeping elf, saying, "Weep not; thou too mayst still be happy." But the word resounded from farther and farther distance, till at last I could hear it no longer. Silence! now the old night holds me again; let ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... perverse in Killamet. I'm afraid she'll disgrace us all!" Upon which Sara would comfort her by saying that, as most parrots were trained by rough people, nothing better could be expected, and she was sure nobody would blame them; while Molly, the naughty little elf, would shake her curls with a ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... fairies carpeted with powdered pearls and kept in place by a thousand dewy strands hanging from above like the chains of a lamp and supporting them from below like the anchors of a vessel. These little airy edifices had all the fantastic lightness of the elf-world and all the vaporous freshness of dawn. They recalled to me the poetry of the north, wafting to me a breath from Caledonia or Iceland or Sweden, Frithiof and the Edda, Ossian and the Hebrides. All that world of cold and mist, of genius and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... woman (Jenny Wilson) who resided in the family, remarkable for her credulity and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs, concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poesie; but had so strong an effect upon my imagination that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... night—a night in March—people who had stayed up late by their firesides, talking of their sons at the front or dozing over the Temps, heard a queer music in the streets below, like the horns of elf-land blowing. It came closer and louder, with a strange sing-song note in which there was ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... thing," and was predestined to marry some large, good-natured man who would imagine that she would make a nice little pet, a household fairy, but who might learn to his dismay that the fairy could be a tormenting elf. She would not marry the young gentleman with whom her name was at present associated by the gossips, and who had driven over that morning to help her entertain the expected guests. Mr. Harcourt and Miss Marchmont understood each other. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... in ragged petticoats, through whose yawning rents peeped forth, from time to time, her bare red knees, with uncombed elf-locks, and a face and hands that looked as if they had been unwashed for a month—who did not know A from B, and despised those who did. While these reflections, combined with a thousand ludicrous images, were flitting through my mind, my strange ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Sometimes it seemed to her as if this solemn-eyed child purposely misunderstood, and mocked at her attempts to lead unwilling feet along the path of learning, and she was at a loss to know how to deal with the sprightly elf who danced and flitted about like an elusive will-o'-wisp. The fact that she was the University President's granddaughter was the only thing that had saved her thus far from utter disfavor in the eyes of her teacher; but now even that fact was lost sight of ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... prayer; and in a short bend of the road I came face to face with the children leaving school. I had been accustomed to seeing these wild, bare-legged mountaineers breaking loose from school in a state of subdued frenzy, leaping up and down the side ditches, screaming, yelling, panting, with their elf-locks blinding their eyes, and their bare feet flashing amid the green of grasses or the brown of the ditch-mould. They might condescend to drop me a courtesy, and then—anarchy, as before. Today they moved slowly, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the cantons, flaunting with plumes and emblazoned surcoats, the chivalry of France, splendid with silk mantles and gilded corselets, the Scotch guard in their wild costume of kilt and philibeg, the scythe-like halberds of the German lanz-knechts, the tangled elf-locks of stern-featured Bretons, stamped an ineffaceable impression on the people of the South. On this memorable occasion, as in a show upon some holiday, marched past before them specimens and vanguards of all those legioned races which were soon to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... which may be worth quoting as an example of the medicines to which our forefathers submitted. It is given in a Leech Book of the tenth century or earlier, and is thus translated by Cockayne: "If a man is in the water elf disease, then are the nails of his hand livid, and the eyes tearful, and he will look downwards. Give him this for a leechdom: Everthroat, cassuck, the netherward part of fane, a yew berry, lupin, helenium, a head of marsh mallow, fen, mint, dill, lily, attorlothe, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... himself he shut, The friar of Rubygill; Where the ghostly elf absolved himself, To follow his own good will: And he had no lack of canary sack, To keep his conscience still. And a damsel well knew, when at lonely midnight It gleamed on the waters, his signal-lamp-light: "Over! over!" she warbled ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... old humbug of sex superiority because she had seen it fall on its face to howl over a trodden worm, with the result that it discovered itself hollow behind, like the elf-maiden. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... There seems not to have been any difference made, according to the dignity of the person. By the laws of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with his neighbour's wife, was obliged to pay him a fine, and buy him another wife [k]. [FN [i] LL. Elf. Sec. 40. See also, LL. Ethelb. Sec. 34, &c. [k] ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... behind him. Lying at full length on the carpet, absorbed in a book, was Robert, a boy on whom the same capacious brow as Janet's sat better than on the feminine creature. He was reading on, undisturbed by the pranks of three younger children, John Lucas, a lithe, wiry, restless elf of nine, with a brown face and black curly head, and Armine and Barbara, young persons of seven and six, on whom nature had been more beneficent in the matter of looks, for though brown was their prevailing complexion, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little fellow's usually pale face looked ghastly white in the late dusk, and the strange brightness of his eyes, and his spindle legs and diminutive body, crowned by the hat at least two sizes too large, made him seem a very elf of the woods. At camp or elsewhere, Skinny was always alone, but he seemed more lonely than ever in that still wood, with the night coming on. Nature was so big and Skinny was ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... for what seemed a long time, trying to catch the undersong that thrilled through the forest, "the horns of elf-land faintly blowing," the hum such as bees at home make when late May sees the chestnut trees in flower. Here the song was a veritable psalm of life, in which every tree, bird, bush, and insect had its own ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... suspicious evermore, Here mew'd his lovely consort, young and fair, And watch'd her with a dotard's bootless care. Sure, Love these dotards dooms to jealous pain, And the world's laugh, when all their toil proves vain. This lord, howe'er, did all that mortal elf Could do, to keep his treasure to himself: Stay'd much at home, and when in luckless hour His state affairs would drag him from his tower, Left with his spouse a niece himself had bred, To be the partner of her board and bed; And one old priest, a barren lump of clay, To chant ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... Unforewarned, music sounded in his ears again; but he did not shrink from it now; this was not the circus band he had heard as he left the Square, but a melody like a far-away serenade at night, as of "the horns of elf-land faintly blowing"; and he closed his eyes with the ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... to the actual identity of her father—he, whose portrait was in the very house to which she had come through no more romantic means than a chance advertisement in the "Morning Post!" And Miss Lavinia—her "fairy godmother"—could she have found a better friend, even in any elf stepping out ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... year old daughter, had been helping. Little Wolfgang, now three years old, in his childish eagerness to be as busy as the others, had only hindered, and had to be reprimanded once in a while. One could never be vexed with the little elf, even if he turned somersaults in new clean clothes, or made chalk figures all over the living-room chairs. He never meant to do any harm, and was always so tenderhearted and lovable, it was hard ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... kind; Denote the rage with which he writes, His frothy slaver, venom'd bites; An equal semblance still to keep, Alike too both conduce to sleep. 50 This diff'rence only, as the god Drove souls to Tart'rus with his rod, With his goosequill the scribbling elf, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make, Which she with precious vialed liquors heals: For which the shepherds, at their festivals, Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays, And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... grave eyes held mine expectantly. The stars in them seemed upon the edge of dancing. Her heightened colour, the poise of her shapely head, the parted lips lent to that exquisite face the air of an elf. All the sweet grace of a child was welling out of her maidenhood. Her apple-green frock fitted the form of a shepherdess. Her pretty grey legs and tiny feet were those of a fairy. Its very artlessness trebled the attraction of her pose. Making his ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... stood in the shade at the time. But with these simple explanations Superstition had nothing to do, although we are bound in justice to the reverend old lady to affirm that she was kept exceedingly busy in Carnmore. If a man had a sick cow, she was elf-shot; if his child became consumptive, it had been overlooked, or received a blast from the fairies; if the whooping-cough was rife, all the afflicted children were put three times under an ass; ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... bizarre Cyprian costume which many of the ancient Greek patricians still retained, she seemed of a different mold from the young Venetian gentlewomen of the court of Caterina—like some fantastic fury, half-elf, half-woman. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... "What nonsense!" rejoined the Elf; "as if any lady could like to hear grandpapa maunder, and Mary scold and scream at the farm people, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... note that none of these, and only one of the remaining seventeen nuns, namely, Godgyfu, had a scriptural or Christian name. The old names common among their heathen ancestors still survived, no less than ten being compounded of the word AElf, the modern Elf, or mountain spirit. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... fairyland runs through a crowded city. Twenty feet from him (for he was very short-sighted) the red and white and yellow suns of the gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an orchard of fiery trees, the beginning of the woods of elf-land. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Simple'!" said the doctor, settling himself to go on with his list;—"well, let us see.—' World without Souls.' Why you Elf! read in two days." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... your father out, There was a merriment at his return; For still, on coming home, he brought you somewhat, Might be an Alpine flower, rare bird, or elf-bolt, Such as the wand'rer finds upon the mountains: Now he is gone in quest of other spoil On the wild way he sits with thoughts of murder: 'Tis for his enemy's life he lies in wait And yet on you, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... ben'dicite, What aileth thilke* love at me *this To binde me so sore? Me dreamed all this night, pardie, An elf-queen shall my leman* be, *mistress And sleep under ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the doctor, settling himself to go on with his list; "well, let us see. 'World without Souls.' Why, you Elf! read in two days." ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... by and see him!" said Eddie Elf. So Timothy Toad hopped along the path until he met ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... places where no grass grows between the shrubs, and the sand silvers whitely to the moon, one sees them whisking to and fro on innumerable errands of seed gathering, but the chief witnesses of their presence near the spring are the elf owls. Those burrow-haunting, speckled fluffs of greediness begin a twilight flitting toward the spring, feeding as they go on grasshoppers, lizards, and small, swift creatures, diving into burrows ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... of the Kyng Arthour, Of which that Britons speken greet honour, All was this land fulfild of fairye. The elf queene with hir joly compaignye Daunced ful ofte in many a greene mede. This was the olde opinion as I rede,— I speke of manye hundred yeres ago,— But now kan no man se none elves mo, For now the grete charitee and prayeres ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... entring in, they found the Good-Man's self, Full busily unto his Work ybent, Who was so weel a wretched wearish Elf, With hollow Eyes and raw-bone Cheeks forspent, As if he had in Prison long been pent. Full black and griesly did his Face appear, Besmear'd with Smoke that nigh his Eye-sight blent, With rugged Beard and Hoary shaggy Heare, The ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and forlorn, A melancholy elf Resolved, upon a Monday morn, To go and hang himself. He reach'd the tree, when lo! he views A pot of gold conceal'd; He snatch'd it up, threw down the noose, And scamper'd from the field. The owner came—found out the theft, And, having scratch'd his head, Took ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various |
