An atomy is a diminutive fairy creature or sprite of surprising smallness, that was mentioned in some historic literature.
Literature[edit]
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare describes Atomies pulling Queen Mab's carriage.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Fairy Land by Edgar Allan Poe references atomies in the last lines:
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before-
Videlicet, a tent-
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.