elf-knight

English

Noun

elf-knight (plural elf-knights)

  1. (folklore, fantasy) An elf in the guise of a medieval knight, typically armoured and riding a horse.
    • 1827, George Darley, Sylvia, Or, The May Queen: A Lyrical Drama, London: John Taylor, page 137:
      Hurrah! hurrah! the elf-knights enter.
      Each with his grasshopper at a canter!
    • 1827, William Motherwell, Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern, with an Historical Introduction and Notes, Glasgow: John Wylie, page lx:
      She heard an Elf knight his horn blowing, The first morning in May.
    • 1924, Lord Dunsany, chapter III, in The King of Elfland's Daughter, New York: G.P. Puttnam's Sons, page 30:
      And the sword that had visited Earth from so far away smote like the falling of thunderbolts [...] and the runes in Alveric’s far-travelled sword exulted, and roared at the elf-knight; until in the dark of the wood, amongst branches severed from disenchanted trees, with a blow like that of a thunderbolt riving an oak-tree, Alveric slew him.