Definition of "fairmaid"

I go down to the punt-trench and I beg the water people. Help me, I say. I throw eggs — fresh eggs — in the black water. It was to feed the fairmaids.

1978, Angus Richmond, A Kind of Living, page 13

The only trouble was that he had to pass a koker, and people said that at night when everyone was asleep and the moon had gone in, the fairmaids came out to sit on the koker to comb their long hair.

1980, Andrew Salkey, Caribbean Folk Tales and Legends, page 34

Traditionally, fairmaids transform mediocrity into genius. Goodison's female persona presents a facade of hesitancy; she appears to negate her powers: "It is difficult at first, learning to breathe below water / to convert the lungs meant only for inhalation on earth"

2001, Sargasso, page 35

Fairmaid is a soft pink flower, very pleasing.

1903, William Robinson, The Garden

...fairmaids of February, white ladies and Candlemas bells, which surely deserved a hearing.

2009, Country Life - Volume 203, page 54

These February fairmaids, closely linked with ancient church traditions, still grow naturally in profusion at many monastic sites.

2012, Ruth Binney, The Gardener's Wise Words and Country Ways, page 170

Many, many welcomes, February fairmaid!

2016, Felicity Trotman, Winter: A Book for the Season

The low prices which fish have been bringing of late years is a serious matter for those who prosecute the fisheries to look in the face. Has the taste for fairmaids died out with the Italians, or are they being supplied from other countries ?

1887, The Journal of the National Fish Culture Association

At present the only method applicable to large quantities of fish taken at one time, is that which translates the silvery, savoury little fishes into intensely salt ' fairmaids.' So saturated do these ' fairmaids ' become by the salt or brine in which they have been placed, that English eaters incontinently 'take to drink,' generously suggest their shipment to a Mediterranean port, and endeavor to restore the freshness to their mouths by a meal of red herrings.

1902, Charles James Longman, Longman's Magazine - Volume 40, page 345

Now the salted pilchards, known as fairmaids, were washed in a kieve, or huge wooden tray having a grating in the bottom through which the fish scales could drop.

1988, John Corin, Fishermen's Conflict: The Story of a Cornish Fishing Port, page 49

Life is good for Mowzer. Tom feeds her morgy-broth, kedgeree, grilled fairmaids, and star-gazy pie.

2001, Nancy Allen Jurenka, Hobbies Through Children's Books and Activities, page 13