4. Lastly, the word came to signify the individual denizen of Fairy-land, and was equally applied to the full-sized fairy knights and ladies of romance, and to the pygmy elves that haunt the woods and dells. At what precise period it got this its last, and subsequently most usual sense, we are unable to say positively; but it was probably posterior to Chaucer, in whom it never occurs, and certainly anterior to Spenser, to whom, however, it seems chiefly indebted for its future general currency.[18] It was employed during the sixteenth century[19] for the Fays of romance, and also, especially by translators, for the Elves, as corresponding to the Latin Nympha.
They believed that king Arthur was not dead, but carried awaie by the Fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then returne again and reign in as great authority as ever.
Hollingshed, bk. v. c. 14. Printed 1577.
Semicaper Pan
Nunc tenet, at quodam tenuerunt tempore nymphæ.
Ovid, Met. xiv. 520.
The halfe-goate Pan that howre
Possessed it, but heretofore it was the Faries' bower. Golding, 1567.
Hæc nemora indigenæ fauni nymphæque tenebant,
Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata.
Virgil, Æneis, viii. 314.
With nymphis and faunis apoun every side,
Qwhilk Farefolkis or than Elfis clepen we.
Gawin Dowglas.
The woods (quoth he) sometime both fauns and nymphs, and gods of ground,
And Fairy-queens did keep, and under them a nation rough.
Phaer, 1562.
Inter Hamadryadas celeberrima Nonacrinas
Naïas una fuit.—Ovid, Met. l. i. 690.
Of all the nymphes of Nonacris and Fairie ferre and neere,
In beautie and in personage this ladie had no peere.
Golding.