huldre

plural huldres

1. Norwegian folkloreA type of supernatural being in the shape of a beautiful woman with a cow's tail.

   One time a huldre was present at a gathering, where everyone wanted to dance with the pretty stranger, but in the midst of the merriment, the young fellow who was dancing with her, caught sight of her long tail.

   1896, William A. Craigie, Scandinavian Folk-lore, page 167

   1 more example

   All these things, it was said, must have a cause, and from ignorance of nature, joined to superstition and a lively imagination, the idea suggested itself of conjuring up beings, to whom all these phenomena might be ascribed, and who, according to the places of sojourn assigned them, were called Forest-trolls, Huldres, Mountain-trolls, Vættir, Elves, Dwarfs, Nisser, Mares, etc.

   1851, Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology, volume II, page xiii

2. Such beings collectively.

   In Norway, the Huldre drive cattle before them, which are as blue as they are themselves.

   1828, T. Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, volume 3, page 138

   2 more examples

   "Well, the first time I came across the huldre, I was about eight or nine years old, and it was somewhere up on the main road between Bjerke and Mo."

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 27

   The mention of the tail relates the wood-fairy to the Huldre who were very beautiful except for a long tail which they always tried to hide, as the Wood Elves hid their hollow back.

   1978, Katherine M. Briggs, The Vanishing People, page 76