The reason I'm having to consider using "elf" is that I need "fae" to refer to the entire faerie race in general, including brownies, pucks, hobgoblins, dracae, and so on. But there's a class of faeries who in analytical terms are referred to as heroic or romantic; in Ireland they'd be the sidhe, but I'm trying very hard to avoid conflating all of British Isles folklore into one mass. The only English term I can find for them is "the trooping faeries," but a) that covers more than just the type I'm thinking of and b) it wouldn't really work as a referent in this context. I've been gimping along without having a word to use for them, but I'm increasingly feeling like I need to change that.

. . . okay, I lied. I do have one other option. There's an Elizabethan variant of the word "elf," which is "ouph." But that sounds like somebody getting the wind knocked out of them.