“When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.”
(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 1651)
“When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them.”
A precise and truthful comment about our limp wristed party.