wood-wife

plural wood-wives

1. GermanicartsA type of female wood spirit.

   Like the Wild Huntsman, the devil on Ash Wesdnesday hunts the wood-wives.

   1851, Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology, volume I, London: Edward Lumley, page 235

   2 more examples

   The Vicentina Germans worship a wood-wife, chiefly between Christmas and Twelfthday: the women spin flax from the distaff, and throw it in the fire to propitiate her.

   1882, Jacob Grimm, translated by James Steven Stallybrass, Teutonic Mythology, volume III, London: George Bell and Sons, page 432

   In Germany the Wood Wives or Moss People take the place of the Scandinavian Wood Elves.

   1978, Katharine M. Briggs, The Vanishing People, London: B.T. Batsford, page 76