elf-dance

Noun

elf-dance (plural elf-dances)

1. A dance performed by elves, especially one in which humans are enticed only to find that when released years or centuries have passed.
   • Just then, in the far distance, swept along a whirlwind which had caught up the dust of the plains into columns — two, three, four, all at once dancing some wild elf-dance, like weird spirits doomed to do penance for ever upon, those arid tracks.1872 December 7, The Sydney Mail, page 729, column 4
   • Many village musicians have been known, who have learned from him to play this elf-dance, and have sometimes played the first parts of it at Christmas parties and elsewhere.1896, William A. Craigie, Scandinavian Folk-Lore, London: Alexander Gardner, page 242
2. Synonym of fairy ring (“a ring of fungi; a place where fairies dance”).
   • The Elves are extremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form those circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elf-dance (Elfdans).1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 81
   • This notion as to the cause of the rings being the dancing of the fairies was held by Drayton [...] In Wales, too, the same notion is prevalent, and it is to be found also in Sweden and Belgium, where they call these rings "elf-dances."1880 April 23, The Burrowa News, NSW, page 3, column 2

   Synonyms:

   fairy ring