Elf-locks

Tangled hair. It is said that one of the favourite amusements of Queen Mab is to tie people’s hair in knots. When Edgar impersonates a madman, “he elfs all his hair in knots.” (Lear, ii. 3.)

“This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night,

And bakes [? cakes] the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.