right|thumb|Statue depicting the Erlking in the ancient graveyard of Dietenhausen, in [[Keltern, Germany.]]

right|thumb|Monument to Goethe's "Erlkönig" in [[Jena at the place where the rider in the poem supposedly met the Erlkönig]]

In European folklore and myth, the Erlking is a sinister elf who lingers in the woods. He stalks children who stay in the woods for too long, and kills them with a single touch.

The name "Erlking" (; ) is a name used in German Romanticism for the figure of a spirit or "king of the fairies". It is usually assumed that the name is a derivation from the ellekonge (older elverkonge, i.e. "Elf-king") in Danish folklore. The name is first used by Johann Gottfried Herder in his ballad "Erlkönigs Tochter" (1778), an adaptation of the Danish Hr. Oluf han rider (1739), and was taken up by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his poem "Erlkönig" (1782), which was set to music by Schubert, among others. Goethe added a new meaning, as "Erl" does not mean "elf", but "black alder" – the poem about the Erlenkönig is set in the area of an alder quarry in the Saale valley in Thuringia. In English translations of Goethe's poem, the name is sometimes rendered as Erl-king.

Origin

According to early linguist Jacob Grimm, the term originates with a Scandinavian (Danish) word, ellekonge "king of the elves", or for a female spirit elverkongens datter "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge. The New Oxford American Dictionary follows this explanation, describing the Erlking as "a bearded giant or goblin who lures little children to the land of death", mistranslated by Herder as Erlkönig in the late 18th century from ellerkonge. The correct German word would have been or , afterwards used under the modified form of by Christoph Martin Wieland in his 1780 poem Oberon.

Alternative suggestions have also been made; in 1836, Halling suggested a connection with a Turkic and Mongolian god of death or psychopomp, known as Erlik Khan.

In German romantic literature

The Erlking's Daughter

Johann Gottfried von Herder introduced this character into German literature in "Erlkönigs Tochter", a ballad published in his 1778 volume Stimmen der Völker in Liedern. It was based on the Danish folk ballad "Hr. Oluf han rider" "Sir Oluf he rides" published in the 1739 Danske Kæmpeviser.

The story portrays Sir Oluf riding to his marriage but being entranced by the music of the elves. An elf maiden, in Herder's translation the Elverkonge's daughter, appears and invites him to dance with her. He refuses and spurns her offers of gifts and gold. Angered, she strikes him and sends him on his way, deathly pale. The following morning, on the day of his wedding, his bride finds him lying dead under his scarlet cloak. The claim that “fevers do not cause sudden death” confuses symptom with disease, ignoring the fact that serious infection in children can worsen with alarming speed. Additionally, the claim selectively invokes folklore about children while ignoring that animals are also commonly depicted as attuned to the supernatural; yet the horse never reacts to the Erlking’s presence. The supernatural reading remains a valid genre-based or symbolic interpretation, but it is not made compulsory by misstating the text or denying basic medicine.

References

  • Music by Schubert - free recording (complete) and free score
  • Danish text of Hr. Oluf han rider