A sylph (also called sylphid) is an air spirit stemming from the 16th-century works of Paracelsus, who … See more

"Sylph" is possibly a blend of from Latin sylvestris and nympha, sylvestris being a common synonym for sylph in Paracelsus. Anthon and Trollope note a similar usage in the Aeneid, where silvestris is taken as an elliptical for… See more

The Swiss German physician and alchemist Paracelsus first coined the term sylph in the 16th century to describe an air spirit in his overarching scheme of elemental spirits associated with the four Classical elements. Paracelsu… See more

Sylphs are mentioned by that name in the 1668 German novel Simplicius Simplicissimus, though its author Grimmelshausen seems to have taken them to be water spirits.
The Frenc… See more

The famous ballet La Sylphide ("The (Female) Sylph", Paris, 1832) is a prominent example of sylph lore in theater in the 19th century. It appeared in a second version in Denmark in 1836. A similarly themed opera … See more

• Willow, a character in Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom of Landover series of novels (1986), is a sylph and the wife of protagonist Ben Holiday. She is the daughter of the River Master and a wood elemental, … See more