Folk

Fairies, also called “people,” “neighbours,” “wights.” The Germans have their kleine volk (little folk), the Swiss their hill people and earth people.

So happy and so gay, amuse themselves

Sometimes with singing …

Sometimes with dancing, when they jump and spring

Like the young skipping kids in the Alp-grass.”

Wyss: Idyll of Gertrude and Rosy.

“In the hinder end of harvest, at All-hallow e en,

When our good neighbours ride, if I read right,

Some buckled on beenwand, and some on a been.”

Montgomery: Flyting against Polwart.

“I crouchë thee from the elvës, and from wights.”

Chaucer: The Millere’s Tale.

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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.