- Fairy-locks
When young children, specially girls, wake from an evening's slumber with tangles and snarls in their hair, mothers with a tradition of
fairy folklore might whisper to their daughters that they had caught fairy locks or elf-locks. Faeries, they say, tangled and knotted the hairs of the sleeping children as they played in and out of their hair at night. [A child's book of Faeries, Tanya Robyn Batt, ISBN 1-84148-954-9]Shakespeare references such elflocks inRomeo and Juliet inMercutio 's speech of the many exploits ofQueen Mab , where he seems to imply the locks are only unlucky if combed out. [Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]"She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone.......
That plaits the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much "misfortune" bodes."Therefore, the appellation of elf lock or fairy lock could be attributed to any various tangles and knots of unknown origins appearing in the manes of beasts or hair of sleeping children.
As to the tangles of elflocks or fairy-locks in human hair, Edar impersonates a madman, "he elfs all his hair in knots." [Shakespear's "Lear"] (Lear, ii. 3.) What
King Lear has done, simply put, is to make a mess of his hair.References
External links
* [http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Fairy Elf-Locks]
* [http://www.crisalis.co.uk/page.asp?id=fairy Practical beliefs]
* [http://www.iofm.net/community/kidscorner/creatures/fairies.htm Faieries]
* [http://www.fantasydragonden.com/Dragon_Gargoyle_Fairy_Angel.php "elf-locks"]
* [http://www.fairys.com/media/fact_sheet.html Fairy fact sheet]
* [http://vineyardwampum.com/eldtoelm.htm Elf-Lock]
* A child's book of Faeries, Tanya Robyn Batt, ISBN 1-84148-954-9
* [http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/brewers/elf-locks.html Elf-Locks at infoplease]
* [http://www.4literature.net/Lewis_Carroll/Faces_in_the_Fire/ Faces in the Fire by Lewis Carroll]
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