Plural of elflock; multiple tangled or matted sections of hair supposedly caused by elves.
Plural form of 'elflock,' combining the elf-supernatural prefix with 'locks' (plural of lock). The superstition was widespread enough to require a plural form in everyday speech.
The existence of 'elflocks' as a standard term shows how powerful folklore was in pre-scientific societies—people had specialized vocabulary for phenomena they attributed to supernatural causes, even though the cause was just normal tangles.
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