moss-folk
nounEtymology Calque of German Moosleute.
1
Arts, Folklore, History, Human sciences, Literature, Media, Publishing, Sciences Germanic A type of wood spirit that wears a covering of moss, lichen, and leaves.
- The wild hunter pursues the moss-folk, the little wood-wives; he remains unseen, but you hear him bluster in the air, that it crickles and crackles.1882, Jacob Grimm, translated by James Steven Stallybrass, Teutonic Mythology, volume III, London: George Bell and Sons, page 929:
- The Teutonic wood-spirit, Schrat, always male, and the wood- or moss-folk or wood-wives whose life is wrapped up with that of a tree, and to whom offerings of food were made[.]1912, J.A. MacCulloch, “Fairy”, in James Hastings, editor, Encyclopædia or Religion and Ethics, volume V, New York: T. & T. Clarke, page 685, column 1:
1 more example
- "In the vile," says Dr. Krauss, " also known as Samovile, Samodivi, and Vilivrjaci, we have near relations to the forest and field spirits or the wood and moss-folk of Middle Germany, France and Bavaria the wild people of Hesse, Eifel, Salzburg and the Tyrol, the wood-women and woodmen of Bohemia[.]"1920, Lewis Spence, An Encyclopædia of Occultism, London: George Routledge and Sons, page 370, column 2: