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''elf-cup'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260202202216-00-⌔
elf-cup - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
elf-cup (plural elf-cups)
- Any of various species of fungus with a cup-shaped sporocarp, such as scarlet cup, Sarcoscypha coccinea.
- (UK, dialect) A stone with a hole pierced by dripping water.
- ✤ HOLY-STAAN, A stone with a natural hole in it, which was frequently suspended by a string from the tester of a bed, or from the roof of a cow house, as an infallible prevention of injury from witches!! In Scotland these stones are called elf-cups.3
- A cup-shaped depression in the stonework of a Neolithic monument.
- ✤ Elf cups are often found in Sweden on the covering blocks of our dolmens. The dolmens belong in Sweden exclusively to the Stone-age, but I am not quite sure if the cup-marks on them can be ascribed to so high an antiquity. The cup-bearing blocks could be visible in other prehistoric periods as they are to-day, and in that way they do not necessarily belong to the times of erection of the dolmen itself.4
- ✤ Rude pillars of Neolithic age with the little cup-shaped hollows mentioned above, occur all over the Continent, from the Pyrenees to Scandinavia, and are known as “fairy-cups,” “elf-cups,” marmites du diable, and “stones of the dead”.5
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
1887, William Delisle Hay, The Fungus-hunter’s Guide, and Field Memorandum-book, London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowry and Co., page 156: ↩
1936 March 21, The Weekly Times, Melbourne, page 43, column 5: ↩
1828, William Carr, The Dialect of Craven, volume I, London: William Crofts, page 232: ↩
1880 May, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, page 90: ↩
1881 May 14, The Leader, Melbourne, page 3, column 2: ↩
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