This is considered an allusion to the Telchines who lived before the Heliadai in Rhodes, and were magicians as well as craftsmen.

affirms as much, that these trolli or telchines are very common in Norway, "and [1200] seen to do drudgery work;" to draw water, saith Wierus, lib.

For if those stories be true that are written of incubus and succubus, of nymphs, lascivious fauns, satyrs, and those heathen gods which were devils, those lascivious Telchines, of whom the Platonists tell so many fables; or those familiar meetings in our days, and company of witches and devils, there is some probability for it.

What Telchine is my genius?

But the same tone runs through Goethe's classical "Walpurgis Night," where the old human "twelve gods," the antitypes and the friends of men, in whom our forefathers delighted, have vanished utterly, and given place to semi-physical Nereides, Tritons, Telchines, Psylli, and Seismos himself.