"Elf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... was out," James's spirits foamed over as naturally as a tumbler of soda water, and he could jump over benches and burst out of doors with as much rapture as the veriest little elf in his company. Then you might have seen him stepping homeward with a most felicitous expression of countenance, occasionally reaching his hand through the fence for a bunch of currants, or over it after ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... young coquette, a lawless little brigand, a child of sunny caprices, an elf of dauntless mischief; but she was more than these. The divine fire of genius had touched her, and Cigarette would have perished for her country not less surely than Jeanne d'Arc. The holiness of an impersonal love, the glow of an imperishable patriotism, the melancholy of a passionate pity for ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... very 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 fam'd 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 ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Phelps' patience had come to an end. 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 ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and unbaby-like to be in the least interesting. You should have seen my little Violet to understand what a constant disappointment Florence is. She was myself in miniature, and moreover the most witching, prankish, peppery elf that was ever made. The best trait in Florence's character was her love for her baby-sister. She gave up everything to her while she was alive, and they told me that she would not eat, and scarcely slept, for days after her death. Her ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... great Mother Who bore us both, O well-beloved brother. Thou in thy sorry 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 Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... least what they had expected! This was neither the blonde beauty of Maxwell's foretelling, nor the black-haired elf described by Mellicent. The first ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... fairy things all about us," she said. "Countless pink campions and buttercups, with an elf in each. They will feel your giant feet, but they will know you are a mortal and cannot help your ways, because, you poor, ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... assaults my senses, the same which her note exhaled. But now that fragrance streams from her delicate, graceful form in its princess gown of pale yellow with red bows. She dances and flutters about the room with so mysterious and elf-like a grace as though she were playing Puck in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the part in which she first ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... to herself, "that is a fairy tent, and in it I may find a baby elf sick with whooping-cough or scarlet-fever. How splendid it would be! only I could never nurse ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... low, languid trilling of nightingales just learning to sing,—any or all these might be said to resemble the dulcet melody they played; while every delicate arpeggio, every rippling chord was muffled with a soft pressure of their hands ere the sound had time to become vehement. This elf-like harping continued for a short interval, during which the priests, gathering in a ring round a huge bronze font-shaped vessel hard by, dipped their flambeaux ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... low, among the rocks and the 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 woven ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... called forth a world of spirits without a counterpart in the work of any other painter. Lacking the wings usually given in art to angels, they also lack the proper air of sanctity for heavenly habitants. Yet they are far too ethereal for mortals. Neither angel nor human, they are rather sprites of elf-land. With their tossing hair and agile motions they remind us of woodland creatures, and they look shyly out of their eyes like the furtive ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... woman, just the wife for him, and he knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy. But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis—Fly he calls her. She is a little skittish elf—Rotherwood himself all over; and doesn't he worship her! and doesn't he think it a holiday to carry her off to play pranks with! and isn't he happy to get amongst a good lot of us, and be ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... pale-blue nails on the stiff, unbending fingers of his 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 ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... family into 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 was his grandson, and the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... by and see him!" said Eddie Elf. So Timothy Toad hopped along the path until he met ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... think Felicity was quite well pleased that Cyrus should have passed over her rose-red prettiness to set his affections on that demure elf of a Cecily. She did not want the allegiance of Cyrus in the least, but it was something of a slight that he had not wanted ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... laid business on the shelf To give his taste expansion, And, since no man, retired with pelf, The building mania can shun, 10 Knott, being middle-aged himself, Resolved to build (unhappy elf!) A mediaeval mansion. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Ha! scarcely do I know myself! By Odin, I look more like a rugged elf than Hother. And who art thou, that knowest me? who ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... dead is called Adiri or Woibu. The first man to go thither and to open up a road for others to follow him, was Sido, a popular hero about whom the people tell many tales. But whereas in his lifetime Sido was an admired and beneficent being, in his ghostly character he became a mischievous elf who played pranks on such as he fell in with. His adventures after death furnish the theme of many stories. However, it is much to his credit that, finding the land of the dead a barren region without vegetation of any ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... "Giuseppe Nicoli," answered the elf, looking terribly frightened and shrinking further into his corner. "Me losa monk'. He come here but gona way. W'en Petri fin', he keel me." The thin face worked pathetically as the little fellow bravely tried to stifle the sobs which shook ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders, which would not curl or creper, or do anything that hair ought to do. She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... she did have a wish, a burning wish, but she didn't dare confess it. The elf seemed to guess; he smiled so you couldn't keep ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... upon my neck she'll loll, And screaming out, "Pretty Poll," I learn from the sweet chattering elf, To not have too ...
— Spring Blossoms • Anonymous
... go? She sank into the moor ground, and went down to the moor woman, who is always brewing there. The moor woman is cousin to the elf maidens, who are well enough known, of whom songs are sung, and whose pictures are painted; but concerning the moor woman it is only known that when the meadows steam in summer-time it is because she is brewing. Into the moor woman's ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... hopped far before they met Eddie Elf, who was singing happily to himself as he walked along. "Willie Woodchuck is whittling on a rattle!" he said, when ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... was enjoying the stupid little plot; for it could wear no other guise to him, and Count Julius was mortified by the knowledge that he had blundered egregiously at the first step in the negotiation. What would Beliani say? This wizened elf of a man had seen clear through their precious scheme in an instant, and, worst of all, it had not advanced an inch. Julius made a virtue of necessity, and placed all his ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... and thinner than we can See from the sea-betroth'd Venetian, Were all of ice, not made to overlast One supper, and betwixt two cowslips cast. A prettier hath not yet been told, So neat the glass was, and so feat the mould. A little spruce elf then (just of the set Of the French dancer or such marionette), Clad in a suit of rush, woven like a mat, A monkshood flow'r then serving for a hat; Under a cloak made of the Spider's loom: This fairy (with them, held a lusty groom) Brought in ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... the little mouse 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 of the singed ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... the situation of his country as he and his countrymen saw it. The Russian Bear, coming down from the north, his feet planted in Manchuria and northern Korea, sees the British Bulldog seated in southern China, while "The Sun Elf'' ( Japan), sitting upon its Island Kingdom, proclaims that "John Bull and I will watch the Bear.'' The German Sausage around Kiau-chou makes no sign of life, but the French Frog, jumping about in Tonquin and Annam and branded "Fashoda and Colonial Expansion,'' ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the bed while Mak sings a lullaby at the cradle. They proceed to search the house, Gill the while praying she may eat the child in the cradle if ever she deceived them. They find nothing, and are about to depart when Daw insists on kissing the new baby. Gill vows she saw the child changed by an elf as the clock struck midnight, but Mak pleads guilty and gets ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the elves came trooping along. They lived in the further meadow, else they had come sooner. They were somewhat larger than the fairies, yet they were very tiny and very delicate creatures. The elf prince had long flaxen curls, and he was arrayed in a wonderful suit of damask web, at the manufacture of which seventy-seven silkworms had labored for seventy-seven days, receiving in payment therefor as many mulberry leaves as seven blue beetles could carry and stow in seven ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... breathing creature that you beheld three years back? I think not. Whither, then, has the sprite vanished? In some hidden fairy nook, in some mysterious cloud-land he must exist still. Again, in your slim-formed girl of eight years, you look in vain for the sturdy elf of five. Gone? No; that cannot be—'a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.' Close your eyes: you have her there! A breeze-like, sportive, buoyant thing; a thing of breathing, laughing, unmistakable life; she is mirrored on your retina as plainly as ever was dancing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes; And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes: This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them, and learns them first to bear, Making them women of ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... 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
... into short curls, or else set up on end, as is represented in old paintings, in a manner resembling that used by fine gentlemen of our own day, escaped in sable negligence from under a furred bonnet, and hung in elf-locks, which seemed strangers to the comb, over his rugged brows, and around his very singular and unprepossessing countenance. His keen, dark eyes were deep set beneath broad and shaggy eyebrows, and as they were usually bent on the ground, seemed as if they were themselves ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... some 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 old book of ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... with regard to poetry one's preferences change according to the mood one happens to be in and to the conditions generally. At home in murky London on most days I should probably seek pleasure and forgetfulness in Browning; but in such surroundings as I have been describing the lighter-hearted, elf-like Melendez accords best with my spirit, one whose finest songs are without human interest; who is irresponsible as the wind, and as unstained with earthly care as the limpid running water he delights in: who is brother to bird and bee and butterfly, and worships only liberty and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... 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 ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... man, it's no use to indulge in abuse Of our customs, so be not enraged, sir— No woman a maid is—we're all married ladies. Our charms very early are caged, sir— I'm eleven myself," remarked the small elf, "And a year ago I was ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... remembered one who was not evil—one who would surely befriend the Shadow Witch. It was the Elf—the good Elf, who dwells in the Borderland that stretches beyond the Plain of Ash and away toward the Kingdom of Earth. Very old and wise is the Elf. He knows the ways of the Evil Fairies who dwell in the countries that lie away ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... owed much to an old maid of my mother's, remarkable for her ignorance, 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, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... one or the other view being correct. For it would then have appeared that no difference of fact could possibly ensue; and the quarrel was as unreal as if, theorizing in primitive times about the raising of dough by yeast, one party should have invoked a 'brownie,' while another insisted on an 'elf' as the true cause of the phenomenon." [Footnote: 'Theorie und Praxis,' Zeitsch. des Oesterreichischen Ingenieur u. Architecten-Vereines, 1905, Nr. 4 u. 6. I find a still more radical pragmatism than Ostwald's in an address by Professor W. S. Franklin: ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... remind the reader that the idea of this combination is indeed central in orthodox theology. For orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf, nor yet a being half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God. Now let me trace this ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... yesterday, and the finder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he has lighted. He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines that the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a 'thunderbolt,' or that the bits of flint are 'elf-shots,' the heads of fairy arrows. Such things are still treasured in remote nooks of England, and the 'thunderbolt' is applied to cure ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... al this night, pardie, An elf-queen shall my leman be ... An elf-queen wil I have, I-wis, For in this world no woman is Worthy to be my mate ... Al other women I forsake And to an elf-queen I me take By dale ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... French Auberon in the romance of Huon of Bordeaux, and Auberon is probably merely the French counterpart of Alberich or Albrich, a dwarf occurring in the German Nibelungenlied and other works. Etymologically Alberich is composed of alb elf and rich king. The name Oberon appears first in English literature in Lord Berners' translation of Huon of Bordeaux (c. 1534), and afterwards in Spenser[27] and in Robert Greene's play James IV, which was acted in 1589.[28] But the king of the fairies in Chaucer[29] ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... straying, Find Kenyon, that double tongued elf, In his love of ass-cendency, braying A ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... pot calling the kettle black. Etta Robbin-Steele did flirt. She had dancing black eyes that flung a challenge to men. But Nelly herself was no shrinking violet, for all her baby face. She was like an elf. Her violet eyes were capable of infinite shades of expression. She, herself, had a way of appropriating men who pleased her, to the resentful dismay of other young women. It pleased her to do that with Jack MacRae whenever he was available. And until Betty had preempted a place in his heart without ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... pushed open the door to ask if all went well, and in a whisper Theophil had assured her. A night-light gave an uncanny shadow-breeding light in the room. Jenny was sleeping peacefully, her tired ivory face, with her dark elf-locks falling about it, framed on the pillow. Theophil raised himself softly in his chair and looked at her. She would sleep some while yet. Then from sheer weariness—grief's best friend—he too fell into a light sleep. From this he was awakened with a ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... on two small wings doth fly, And, flying, carry on those wings yourself; Methinks I see you, looking from your eye, As tho' you thought the world a wicked elf. Offspring of summer! brimstone is thy foe; And when it kills ye, soon you lose your breath: They rob your honey; but don't let you go, Thou harmless victim of ambitious death! How sweet is honey! coming from the Bee; ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... 'truth' and '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}; ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... stood in the doorway, ducking respectfully at the senorita, but looking out of the corners of his black eyes at Manuela. Rita smiled in spite of herself. Was this ragamuffin, barefoot, tattered, his hair in elf-locks,—was this the once elegant Pepe, the admired of himself and all the waiting-maids of Havana? He had once been Carlos's servant, when the young Cuban had time and taste for such idle luxuries; now he was his fellow soldier and ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... about like a light breeze, may after all be a devil. They take good care not to believe it. His size begets a belief in his innocence. Whilst he is there, they thrive. The husband holds to him as much as the wife, and perhaps more. He sees that the tricksy little elf makes ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... 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 ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... the lord of those new-coming men was a king and the son of a king, King Elf the son of the Helper, and he sailed from war-faring And drew anigh to the Isle-realm and sailed along the strand; For the shipmen needed water and fain would go a-land; And King Elf stood hard by the tiller while the world was yet a-cold: ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... in the waning day, When the vessel is crack'd and old, To cherish the battered potter's clay As though it were virgin gold? Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf, Though prudent and sage you seem; Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf, And mine by ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn. "There," said he, "the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you—verily this largest will fit, and the goldsmith can beat it out when needed. So on with you in St. Hubert's ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Elf-child other summers came; But Lilith walked, heart-hungered, filled with shame, Naught comforted. And in that shadow-land She sorrowing bore, in after-time, a band Of elfin babes, that waked dim echoes long Forgotten there, and ghastly bursts of song. ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... lip—tears to the eye, In looking on the gifts that lie Like broken playthings scattered o'er Imagination's nursery floor! Did these old hands once click the key That let "Jack's" box-lid upward fly, And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf Leap, as though frightened at himself, And quiveringly lean and stare At me, his jailer, ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... princess, and asked me if we were going to Burgundy to storm Mary's heart. 'Who is to win her?' she asked. 'You, Sir Karl, or Sir Max? It must be you. Sir Max is too slow and dignified even to think of scaling the walls of a maiden fortress. It must be you, Sir Karl.' The saucy little elf rose from her chair, bowed low before me and said, 'I do liege homage to the future Duke of Burgundy.' Then she danced across the room, laughing at my discomfiture. She is charming, Max, but remember Gertrude the Conqueror! Such trifling affairs are well enough to teach a man ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... as white as the snow. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face, and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk, And laying ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... presumptuous 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, Was ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... varen to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalun, To vairest alre maidene, To fairest of all maidens, To Argante there quene, To Argante the queen, Alven swithe sceone. An elf very beautiful. And heo seal mine wunden And she shall my wounds Makien alle isunde, Make all sound; Al hal me makien All whole me make Mid haleweiye drenchen. With healing drinks. And seothe ich cumen wulle And again will I come To mine kiueriche To my kingdom And wunien mid Brutten And ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... little elf, but I know how to tell if thou art mortal. Wilt thou have thy supper?" and he held out a spoonful of the bread and milk to the dancing figure. The child immediately stopped his whirling, and running to Crescimir, eagerly ate the food, and ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... that out," he said. "Trust you to get telepathic messages from the elf-folk! Why, this gorge teems with fairy tales and legends of magic, black and white. The Rhine Valley and the Black Forest together haven't as many or as wonderful ones. I should like you to hear the stories from some of the village people or ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... 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
... in the air and might vanish, like a glimmering light, that comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child,—to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began,—to snatch her to her bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses,—not so much from overflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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
... delicacy of her 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 woman in my arms. Then ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... 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 ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... so much so. Note the epithets in "the lank wolf," "the wan raven," "bird greedy for slaughter," "the dewy-winged eagle," "dusky-coated," "crooked-beaked," "horny-beaked," "the maid, fair-cheeked," "curly-locked," "elf-bright." To the Anglo-Saxon poet, much that we call metaphorical was scarcely more than literal statement. As the object pictured itself to his responsive imagination, he expressed it with what was to him a direct realism. His lines are filled with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks, That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight As fills a father's eyes with light; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last Must needs express his love's excess With words ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... at night, must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there. Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. Here is a group of extremely diminutive ones, dancing an elf-like measure to the music of an itinerant organist. Darting about, here, there, and everywhere, are packs of ragged little urchins. They paddle along in the dirty gutter, the black ooze from which they spatter over the passers on the sidewalk, and run with confiding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... 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
... fail, the lucky elf, To bring to lasting shame, E'en write the best you can yourself, And print it in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... graces, Some human memories and tearful lore, Render him terrorless: his name's "No More." He is the corporate Silence: dread him not! 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 ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... announced that the elf-like girl—the living Peter Pan to millions of theater-goers—was to assume the feathers and strut of the barnyard Romeo, there was a widespread feeling that he was making a great mistake, and that he was putting Miss Adams into a role, admirable artist that she was, to which she was ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... 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, Frithjof and the Edda, Ossian and the Hebrides. All that world of cold and mist, of genius ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "A willful elf—an uncle's child, That half a pet and half a pest, Was still reproved, endured, caressed, Yet never tamed, though ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... what he saw To those who waited,—a picture for the brush Of Rembrandt, lighted only by the rift Above them, where the giant muzzle thrust Out through the dim arched roof, and slowly throbbed, Against the slowly moving wheel of the earth, Holding their chosen star. There, like an elf, Perched on the side of that dark slanting tower The Italian mechanician watched the moons, That Italy discovered. One by one, American, English, French, and Dutch, they climbed To see the wonder that their own blind hands Had helped to achieve. At midnight while they ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy's appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf- locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... old man had looked down upon the young one, so now the young man stood looking down upon the boy, regarding him with tolerant severity. "You most mischief-full elf!" he said. "It would be treating you deservedly were I to leave ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... 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 ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... Tottenham-Road? 710 Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the Square? [l] If things of Ton their harmless lays indite, Most wisely doomed to shun the public sight, What harm? in spite of every critic elf, Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself; MILES ANDREWS [107] still his strength in couplets try, And live in prologues, though his dramas die. Lords too are Bards: such things at times befall, And 'tis some praise in Peers to write at all. 720 Yet, did or ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... as sherds Are the yellow birds, And all that mattered has passed away; Yet God, the Elf, Now shows him that self As he was, and should have been shown, ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... because it was not to his mind on the dairy-farm, he lost half his herd and let wolves prey on the rest, and when the headman would have flogged him for it, he slew him. He has the temper of a black elf." ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... elves who lived in the garden. One, who lived in a lily which made a lovely home; and a poppy elf, who was always sleepy; but the rose elf liked her own sweet smelling room, with its crimson curtains, ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... I have written When I knew that my heart was my own, But since I confess I am smitten, Read these little verses alone. And sincerely I trust I'll be able To convince you, you sly little elf, To grant me your heart, little Mabel, And learn ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... Browning enjoyed the restaurant dining, a la carte, "and mixing up one's dinner with heaps of newspapers, and the 'solution' by Emile de Girardin," who suggested, it seems, "that the next President of France should be a tailor." Meantime she writes to a friend that "the 'elf' is flourishing in all good fairyhood, with a scarlet rose leaf on each cheek." They found themselves near neighbors of Beranger, and frequently saw him promenading the avenue in a white hat, and they learned that he lived very quietly ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... attention to small girls and boys, Dress'd up like dolls, a silly mother's toys; Or follow'd by their Bonne, in Norman cap, Affect to take their first-born to their lap— To gaze enraptured, think you, on a face, In which a husband's lineaments they trace? Smiling, to win the notice of their elf? No! but to draw the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the minstrel Bard, of the bright green snake coiled around the wings and neck of a fluttering dove; and, finally, we read it in its most startling form, in the conclusion of the poem, "A little child, a limber elf, singing, dancing to itself," etc., wherein is exhibited the strange tendency to express love's excess "with words of unmeant bitterness". This dark principle of evil, we may suppose, after dwelling in the poet's mind, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... th' olde dayes of the King Arthour, Of which that Britons speken greet honour, Al was this land fulfild of fayerye; The elf-queen, with hir joly companye, Daunced ful ofte in many a ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... Power to whom we bow Has given its pledge that, if not now, They of pure and steadfast mind, By faith exalted, truth refined, Shall hear all music loud and clear, Whose first notes they ventured here. Then fear not thou to wind the horn, Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn; Ask for the castle's King and Queen; Though rabble rout may rush between, Beat thee senseless to the ground, In the dark beset thee round; Persist to ask, and it will come; Seek not for rest in ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... "Why, that's always been there. We found that when we were digging about, trying to find the treasure. Quite at the beginning, didn't we, Elf?" ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... and bold spirit gained him from the very cradle every prerogative of eldership (and he did struggle first into life, too, so he was the first-born), had grown to be a swarthy, strong, big-boned man, of the Roman-nosed, or, more physiognomically, the Jewish cast of countenance; with melo-dramatic elf-locks, large whiskers, and ungovernable passions; loud, fierce, impetuous; cunning, too, for all his overbearing clamour; and an embodied personification of those choice essentials to criminal happiness—a hard ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... here, Violet; you see him there." Cyril pointed to a tree, against whose trunk Kennedy was leaning, with his eyes bent upon the ground, looking at the red splashes on the withered leaves, and the golden buds embroidered on "elf-needled mat of moss." Hearing the sound of footsteps he raised his head, and a moment after he ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... 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 ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... silver, I stepped out of the wood on to the shore of the unruffled pond. Here a man might well pause and take no further step lest he fall into the blue depths of space. The moon hangs like a great shield in a sky of soft sapphire, piled with luminous figures. Within the wood are fairy and elf, goblin and gnome, half seen in the filmy light. Here giant genie stand revealed, passing in the dim perspective of mighty distances or leaning portentously from the radiant sky. In the mirror-like pond I see all these things repeated ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... sculptures are found on rocks and menhirs, on the walls of sepulchral chambers, on stones forming the sides of KISTVAENS, accompanied in many instances with radiated circles, which do not, however, help us to understand them better. In Scandinavia they are known as ELFEN STENAVS, or elf stones, and the inhabitants come and place offerings on them for the LITTLE PEOPLE. According to a touching tradition, these little people are souls awaiting the time of their being clothed once more in human flesh. In Belgium these strangely decorated stones ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... cribside, and later on blew themselves up to the ceilings at Sunnybook Farm and dangled there, making fun for everybody. They never withered, even at the brick house in Riverboro, where the air was particularly inimical to fairies, for Miss Miranda Sawyer would have scared any ordinary elf out of her seventeen senses. They followed Rebecca to Wareham, and during Abijah Flagg's Latin correspondence with Emma Jane they fluttered about that young person's head in such a manner that Rebecca was almost afraid that she would discover them herself, although this is ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 'You wicked elf,' said Miss Mary, 'to inveigle people into predicaments, and then go shouting ho! ho! ho! ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to charm an elf! Had Crusoe, sick of self, Chanced to view One printed near the tide, Oh, how hard he would have tried ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the kitchie. Ye wad hae seen her come yersel' but she's ower wee. Ye cudna get a glimp o' her ower the edge o' the snaw i' the cuttin' doon to the yett. Hoo her fowk cud lat her oot! She's a puir wee white-faced elf o' a crater, but she's byous auld-farrand and wise-like, and naething will do but she maun ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the 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
... teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf— And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spake not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... are bound with bracken-fronds, And golden elf-locks fly above; Her eyes are bright as diamonds And bluer ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... along, A cheerless and comfortless elf, He sought for relief in a song, Or complainingly ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold, Whose coat was like a brooklet that the sun Hath all embroider'd with its crooked gold, It was so quaintly wrought and overrun With spangled traceries,—most meet for one That was a warden of the pearly streams;— And as he stept out of the shadows dun, His jewels ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the pertest little ape That ever affronted human shape; 100 Full of his travel, struck at himself. You'd say he despised our bluff old ways? —Not he! For in Paris they told the elf Our rough North land was the Land of Lays, The one good thing left in evil days; 105 Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime, And see true castles, with proper towers, Young-hearted women, old-minded men, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... and, obviously, a most powerful ruffian. On his face he carried more than one large glazed cicatrix, that assisted the savage expression of malignity impressed by nature upon his features. And his matted black hair, with its elf locks, completed the picturesque effect of a face that proclaimed, in every lineament, a reckless abandonment to cruelty and ferocious passions. Maximilian himself, familiar as he was with the faces of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... mine as he entered, and I—oh, it seemed as if there had never been such a night; never the snow, the delight of the cold and dark and the far, wise stars! I couldn't tell what joy elf possessed me as we walked homeward. I wanted to run like a child. Yet I couldn't bear to ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... of King Arthur all the land was filled with fairies, and the elf queen and her merry company held many a dance in the green meadows where now you will see never one of them. But that was many ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... 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 now can ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... The elf was singing her dolly to sleep, swinging back and forth in her little rocking-chair, the waxen face pressed against the warm pink cushion of her own cheek, the yellow silk of curls palpitating with ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... 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 ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... attributes their formation to a giant living on a hill who stretched out his hand to pick up shell-fish. This myth remained current until the eighteenth century, and stone axes exhumed from the heaps were called thunder-axes (rai-fu) just as similar relics in Europe were called elf-bolts or thunder-stones. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... points to show A little bench of heedless bishops here, And there a chancellor in embryo, Or bard sublime, if bard may e'er be so, As Milton, Shakespeare, names that ne'er shall die! Though now he crawl along the ground so low, Nor weeting how the muse should soar on high, Wisheth, poor starveling elf! his paper kite ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... the hardest work he had ever undertaken. Striped Chipmunk is so spry, and whisks about so, that you need eyes all around your head to keep track of him. Happy Jack found that his two eyes, bright and quick as they are, couldn't keep that little elf of a cousin of his always in sight. Every few minutes he would disappear and then bob up again in the most unexpected place ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... 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, with eyes ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... 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 which he never ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Following darkness like a dream, 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, and bless ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... in her 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 the before-mentioned ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... brightly that the children in the garden did not break off their hide-and-seek, and now and then Raoul suspended the murmur of his song, absorbed in the fate of some little elf gliding from one black shadow to crouch in another. He was himself in the deep shade of a magnolia, over whose outer boughs the moonlight was trickling, as if the whole tree had been dipped ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... She "loves her liberty," and she curves her fan and taps her foot. "The seigneur Alvan appears pressed for time:" She has "letters to write to friends to-day." Stop that! I can't join in play: to-morrow, if she likes; not to-day. Or not till I have her by the hand. She shall be elf and fairy, French coquette, whatever she pleases to-morrow, and I'll be satisfied. All I beg is for plain dealing on a business matter. This is a business matter, a business meeting. I thoroughly know the girl's heart, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hail ye Wood-Wolfs' children! nought may I drink the wine, For the mouth and the maw that I carry this eve are nought of mine; And my feet are the feet of the people, since the word went forth that tide, 'O Elf here of the Hartings, no longer shalt thou bide In any house of the Markmen than to speak the word and wend, Till all men know the tidings and thine errand hath an end.' Behold, O Wolves, the token and say if it be true! I bear the shaft of ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... with passion,—the plainness of her features was transformed into momentary beauty. Maryllia was silent. She knew that the aspirations of genius pent up in this elf-like girl were almost too strong for her, and that the very excitability and sensitiveness of her nature were such as to need the greatest care and tenderness in training and controlling. Tactfully she changed the conversation ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... bug; and when he doesn't look like an elf, he looks like a king with a high crown on his head or a naughty boy with a ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... startled—the girls most was the figure that sat facing them, as they entered the van. It was that of an old, old crone, sitting on a stool, bent forward with her sharp chin resting on her clenched fists, and her elbows on her knees, while iron-gray elf-locks hung about her wrinkled, nut-brown face, half ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... was wont to walk and Elf, There now walks the Limiter himself, In every bush and under every tree, There needs no other Incubus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... There was a chair by the table, on which was an empty bowl and some broken bread; but the wise woman sat in the chimney corner, bending over the hearth, though the fire had burnt out, and not an ember glowed. And a strange little elf she looked, being very wizen and small, with one shoulder higher than the other, and a ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... of fine Gallants, choice enow, Sister,—for what should we do with all our Knights, I pray, but to marry rich widows, wealthy Citizens' widows, lusty fair-browed Ladies? go to, be of good comfort, I say: leave snobbing and weeping—Yet my Brother was a kind hearted man—I would not have the Elf see me now!—Come, pluck up a woman's heart—here stands your Daughters, who be well estated, and at maturity will also be enquir'd after with good husbands, so all these tears shall be soon dried up and a better world than ever—What, ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... 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 sin— (Good ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... It would have been ridiculous to be afraid of such a diminutive thing, but there was an expression in her countenance so peculiarly repulsive, unwomanly, and hideous, that on approaching their hut, they felt a very unusual and disagreeable sensation steal over them. The descriptions of an elf or a black dwarf in the Arabian Nights Entertainments, or modern romances, would serve well to portray the form and lineaments of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... household elf who torments the cook and gardener, but is a constant joy and delight to the children ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... rills, in meadows green, We nightly dance our heyday guise; And to our fairy king and queen We chant our moonlight minstrelsies. When larks 'gin sing, Away we fling, And babes new-born we steal as we go, And elf in bed We leave instead, And wend us laughing, ho, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... —, look out, take notice. akt|a (-ade, -at), to consider worthy, respect, notice; — sig, beware. akt|giva (-gav, -givit), to notice, pay attention. aktning (-en), respect. al (-en, -ar) alder. aldrig, never. alf (-en, -er), elf. all, (allt, alla), all. allena, (allen), alone. allenast, only. Allfader (-n), Father of All, Oden. alltfr, altogether too. alltid, always, forever. alltren, already. alltjmt, all the time, always. allts, thus. alltnog, enough. alltsedan, ever since. allvar (-et), seriousness. allvarsam, ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... To persuade her good man The soles for to cobble once more Quoth Jobson you elf He may do them himself For many ...
— The Entertaining History of Jobson & Nell • Anonymous
... 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)
... 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 a Flower, And snuff'd ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... and druggists say what they 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 ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the herd are gone. Through channels new the brooklet rushes, Its 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
... or tales are the same as those of the Chippewas, or other tribes, we still feel that there is an incredible difference in the spirit. Its ways are not as their ways. This Wabanaki mythology, which was that which gave a fairy, an elf, a naiad, or a hero to every rock and river and ancient hill in New England, is just the one of all others which is least known to the New Englanders. When the last Indian shall be in his grave, those who come after us will ask in wonder why we had no curiosity ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... a deplorable look. Horrible indeed were his anticipations. The elf on the pillar, a little wrinkled being with a long nose, bottle-green eyes, and shrivelled yellowish-green face, in a shrill squeaking tone, addressed him courteously, though with an ill-suppressed sneer, inquiring his business in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... little fellow who knew of five Nor troubled his head about any more, Woke very early, felt quite alive, And wanted a sixth to add to his store: He pushed his mother, the greedy elf, Then thought he had better try ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... ridged in down, and at last to his favorite winter nook, a thicket of black alders freighted with a wealth of berries. How crimson they were amid the white quiet of the garden! And the brightly colored fruit of the barberry flamed forth from a snowy bush like the cheerful elf-lamps ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... 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
... living things are alike. A work of fiction should carry the hall mark of its author as surely as a Goya, a Daumier, a Velasquez, and a Mathew Maris, should be the unmistakable creations of those masters. This is not to speak of tricks and manners which lend themselves to that facile elf, the caricaturist, but of a certain individual way of seeing and feeling. A young poet once said of another and more popular poet: "Oh! yes, but be cuts no ice." And, when one came to think of it, he did not; a certain flabbiness of spirit, a lack of temperament, an absence, perhaps, of the ironic, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and all crimson barr'd; 50 And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries— So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries, She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf, Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self. Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar: Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet! She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete: 60 And ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... Of keen sarcastic intellect Herein my portrait should detect, And impiously should declare, To sketch myself that I have tried Like Byron, bard of scorn and pride, As if impossible it were To write of any other elf Than ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... 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 a delighted chuckle Teddy sped back to his little ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... which 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 ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... wrinkled skin. Her dugs were like two dried and puckered ox-bladders; her lips were blackened; her long teeth locked together; her nose was hooked; her eyes starting from her head; her hair hung in elf-locks on her hollow wrinkled cheeks;—in short, she was all over diabolically hideous. I remained gazing on her for a while, and felt myself overcome with horror as I contemplated the hideous spectacle of her body, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Sigurd, as being brought up at the court of the Danish King Hialprek; his own father Sigmund having been slain in battle, as related in this chapter. He was early placed under the tuition of Regin, or Regino, an elf, who instructed his pupil in draughts, runes, languages, and various other accomplishments.—See Preface to Vollmer's Nibelunge Not, also the Song of Sigurd Fafnisbane, in the Elder Edda, and ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... 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 ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the disordered room sat the child, Eileen, a white, shadowy elf of six, reading in ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... there was conquest in his face. And that dear little elf of a boy-what a voice! So bright and so arch too. Then the Miranda- she took all by surprise. I believe half the spectators took her for the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the King's commands, Who does not like Cook's dirty hands, Makes the court-pastry all herself. Pambo the knave, that roguish elf, Watches each sugary sweet ingredient, And slily thinks of ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... miles through a country particularly rich in recollections of the "olden time"—cairns, camps, old chapels, druidical circles, sculptured stones, &c. and where ancient coins, battle-axes of all the three periods, urns and elf-arrow heads, Roman armour, &c., have been disinterred by the ordinary labours of the field. Within a short distance of its route lies the Hill of Barra, where the famous battle was fought, anno 1308, between the "Bruce" and the "Comyn;" the Bass at Inverary, the Hill of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... my kingdom, and defend thou my Britons ever in thy life, and maintain them all the laws that have stood in my days, and all the good laws that in Uther's days stood. And I will fare to Avalun, to the fairest of all maidens, to Argante the queen, an elf most fair, and she shall make my wounds all sound; make me all whole with healing draughts. And afterwards I will come again to my kingdom, and dwell with the Britons ...
— Brut • Layamon
... he thought to himself, 'My brother is surely dead, and the kingdom will fall to me if I find the water.' The king was at first very unwilling to let him go, but at last yielded to his wish. So he set out and followed the same road which his brother had done, and met with the same elf, who stopped him at the same spot in the mountains, saying, as before, 'Prince, prince, whither so fast?' 'Mind your own affairs, busybody!' said the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... even-time they creep; Where trenches were, their little feet are roaming, And where the heroes of the conflict sleep, They stop, a moment, wistful—and their singing Dies down into the semblance of a prayer; And tiny bells in far-off elf land ringing, Sound, like a silver promise, on ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster |
