ETYMOLOGY
from elf-lock (a tangled mass of hair, superstitiously attributed to the agency of elves, especially Queen Mab: ‘which it was not fortunate to disentangle’),
from elf & lock
EXAMPLE
#1
“…Had VIRGIL had nor house-room, nor a Boy
Whom he about his bus’ness might imploy:
The elfe-lockt Fury all her Snakes had shed,
His Pipe play’d nothing rare, but flat and dead.
We tragick Poets now would think it fair,
If that, which kept th’ old Buskins in repair,
Might not from RUBREN LAPPA be with-drawn,
Whose Cloak and Papers ATREUS hath in pawn…”
From: Mores hominum – The Manners of Men described in Sixteen Satyrs by Juvenal,
Translation by Robert Stapleton, 1647
#2
“…At my question, the young wonder coolly winked, nodded his elf-locked head, wounded up his top-cord, pouched his toy, and urged me laconically to accompany him with a beck and a shout thus – “Here it’s! – yont here, sir!” and immediately trotted off before me to point out where,,,”
From: Rural Rhymes and Sketches in East Lothian
By James Lumsden, 1885
‘Country Chronicles’
Lexicophilia 