Fairy-lock
Knotted hair ascribed to fairies
In folklore, fairy-locks (or elflocks) are the result of fairies tangling and knotting the hairs of sleeping children and the manes of beasts as the fairies play in and out of their hair at night.
English tradition
The concept is first attested in English in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in Mercutio's speech of the many exploits of Queen Mab, where he seems to imply the locks are only unlucky if combed out:
"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 origin appearing in the manes of beasts or hair of sleeping children.
It can also refer to tangles of elflocks or fairy-locks in human hair. In King Lear, when Edgar impersonates a madman, "elf all my hair in knots." (Lear, ii. 3.) What Edgar has done, simply put, is made a mess of his hair.
See also Jane Eyre, Ch. XIX; Jane's description of Rochester disguised as a gypsy: "... elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band ..."
German tradition
German counterparts of the "elf-lock" are Alpzopf, Drutenzopf, Wichtelzopf, Weichelzopf, Mahrenlocke, Elfklatte, etc. (where alp, drude, mare, and wight are given as the beings responsible).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fairy-lock” is knotted hair ascribed to fairies. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fairy-lock, Knotted and hair, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fairy-lock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.