The Erlking

[conuly]

The Erlking.

The English translation. Apparently, the Erl-king is a creature in German (?) stories who lures away children to eat them.

I remember this from music history. Four times. Trust me, that class doesn't get any harder. Anyway, I remember it took me until the fourth class to realize that maybe the Erlking doesn't exist within the song. It always seemed to me that the father was being unreasonable, taking his child into danger when he could *see* it was there, and then lying and calling it something else, fog and trees. Four terms of music history and it never occured to me that maybe the son was seeing things that weren't there. It just seemed obvious that the father was deliberately leading his son to death, and refusing to accept what he was seeing because he didn't want to believe it, even as the boy screamed to stop. But most people I know seem to think it's obvious the kid was sick. When it doesn't say that at all. *le sigh*

Comments

[grammaravenger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always figured the kid was sick, and the Erlkönig was either a hallucination, or there but visible only to the child. The father, it seems to me, is just terrified that his son is so ill and tries to comfort him by assuring him that he's only seeing the fog and hearing the wind, and is only riding through the dark woods in order to get his child to safety.

I only ever read it in German, though; maybe the original is clearer. BTW, I think this (http://www.moonfairye.com/library/Erlkoenig/erlking.htm) is a better translation.

[conuly]

I can't read german, but thankies for the link!