According to the folklore of Scandinavia and Britain, the guardian spirit of the elder tree, mercilessly avenging the damage of his tree without asking.

Of an elder standing in a small court in the Nyboder^*, it is related, that at dusk it often moves up and down the court, and sometimes peeps through the window at the children, when they are alone. It is not advisable to have moveables of elder. A child having been laid in a cradle made of elder wood, the Hyldemoer came and pulled it by the legs, nor would she let it have any rest until it was taken out of the cradle. A peasant once heard his children crying in the night, and on inquiring the cause, was told that someone had been there and sucked them; and their breasts were found to be swollen. The cause of the annoyance was, it is said, that the room was boarded with elder (1247: Vol.2, p.167-168).

Of all the sacred and fairy trees of England, the surviving traditions of the elder tree seem to be the most lively. Sometimes they are closely associated with witches, sometimes with Fairies, and sometimes they have an independent life as a dryad or goddess. These traditions are not now generally believed, but they are still known to some of the country people. Formerly the beliefwas more lively (1290: p.316). Mrs Gutch in "County Folk-Lore" quotes from a paper given by R.M.Heanley to the Viking Club in 1901:

Hearing one day that a baby in a cottage close to my own house was ill, I went across to see what was the matter. Baby appeared right enough, and I said so; but its mother promptly explained. It were all along of my maister's thick 'ed; it were in this how: T' rocker cummed off t' cradle, an' he hedn't no more gumption than to mak' a new 'un out on illerwood without axing the Old Lady's leave, an' in coorse she didn't like that, an' she came and pinched t' wean that outrageous he were a' most black i' t' face; but I bashed 'un off, an' putten an' esh 'un on, an' t' wean is as gallus as owt agin.'

This was something quite new to me, and the clue seemed worth following up. So going home I went straight down to my backyard, where old Johnny Holmes was cutting up firewood — "chopping kindling," as he would have said. Watching the opportunity, I put a knot of elder- wood in the way and said, "You are not feared of chopping that, are you?" "Nay," he replied at once, "I bain't feared of choppin' him, he bain't wick (alive); but if he were wick I dussn't, not without axin' the Old Gal's leave, not if it were ever so." ... [The words to be used are]: 'Oh, them's slape enuff. You just says, "Owd Gal, give me of thy wood, an Oi will give some of moine, when I graws inter a tree!"'

County Folklore. Vol.V: Lincolnshire, collected by Mrs Gutch and Mabel Peacock, 1908 (891: p.20-21)

In Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, a rather dangerous folklore character has become a good-natured little fairy:

oh, how fragrant the blossoms smelt. In the midst of the tree, sat a pleasant-looking old woman, in a very strange dress. The dress was green, like the leaves of the elder-tree, and was decorated with large white elder-blossoms. It was not easy to tell whether the border was made of some kind of stuff, or of real flowers.

“What is that woman’s name?” asked the boy.

“The Romans and Greeks called her a dryad,” said the old man, “but we do not understand that name; we have a better one for her in the quarter of the town where the sailors live. They call her Elder-flower mother.

Hans Andersen's "Elder-Tree Mother", translated by Mrs. H.B.Paull (**)