elfwife

plural elfwives

1. A married female elf.

   Elidyr, the elf-wife, Keeps a small tavern In a moss-carpeted, Fern-curtained cavern.

   1924 June 7, Illustrated News Budget, Brisbane, page 25, column 4

   2 more examples

   The Spanish Hidalgo loses his Elf-wife by pronouncing a sacred name, and the Metal Boat of the Prince Amrad sinks under the same bann.

   1824, John Macculloch, The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, volume IV, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, page 326

   An elf wife hung her washing out Upon a cobweb line (Including socks and handkerchiefs), The articles were nine.

   1931 November 11, The Northern Star, Lismore, page 12, column 3

2. The human wife of a male elf.

   Here the woman learned that the Elf-wife could not be delivered without the aid of a Christian woman, she being herself a Christian, but had been carried off by the Elf-man.

   1851, Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology, volume II, London: Edward Lumley, page 128

   1 more example

   During his absence the elfwife took the opportunity of instructing her helper as to her conduct when he returned; and the first and chief point of her advice was to eat nothing that was offered her.

   1891, Edwin Sidney Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales, London: Walter SCott, page 40