elf-cup

elf-cup (plural elf-cups)

1. Any of various species of fungus with a cup-shaped sporocarp, such as scarlet cup, Sarcoscypha coccinea.
   • 1887, William Delisle Hay, The Fungus-hunter's Guide, and Field Memorandum-book, London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowry and Co., page 156:

     Elf-cups; All terrestrial species; all seasons; (poor eating of themselves).

   • 1936 March 21, The Weekly Times, Melbourne, page 43, column 5:

     Many toadstools are dainty enough to deserve their popular names: "Pixies' parasols," "Fairies' bath," "Elf cups," and so on.

2. (UK, dialect) A stone with a hole pierced by dripping water.
   • 1828, William Carr, The Dialect of Craven, volume I, London: William Crofts, page 232:

     HOLY-STAAN, A stone with a natural hole in it, which was frequently suspended by a string from the tester of a bed, or from the roof of a cow house, as an infallible prevention of injury from witches!! In Scotland these stones are called elf-cups.

3. A cup-shaped depression in the stonework of a Neolithic monument.
   • 1880 May, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, page 90:

     Elf cups are often found in Sweden on the covering blocks of our dolmens. The dolmens belong in Sweden exclusively to the Stone-age, but I am not quite sure if the cup-marks on them can be ascribed to so high an antiquity. The cup-bearing blocks could be visible in other prehistoric periods as they are to-day, and in that way they do not necessarily belong to the times of erection of the dolmen itself.

   • 1881 May 14, The Leader, Melbourne, page 3, column 2:

     Rude pillars of Neolithic age with the little cup-shaped hollows mentioned above, occur all over the Continent, from the Pyrenees to Scandinavia, and are known as "fairy-cups," "elf-cups," marmites du diable, and "stones of the dead".