Here is a link to what happens to be one of my most favourite poems ever. The poem is in German, but there is an English translation.
A basic synopsis is: A father and son are riding in the night. The son sees an Erlkoenig, which the site explains as;
This Erlkoenig tries to lure the son to go away with him. The son tries to point him out to his father, who doesn’t see anything, saying that it’s just the wind or leaves, etc. Finally, the Erlkoenig gets angry and hurts the son. When the father and son get to their destination, the kid is dead.
My interpretation of the whole poem, though, is that the Erlkoenig was some kind of delusion of the son. The son had already been injured, and the Erlkoenig was a hallucination. This is why the father and son were riding so late at night. At first, the poem is also talking about how the father is holding the son safe and warm, as if he was worried about his son.
I think what’s happening in the last stanza, is that the son is slipping into death, so the father speeds up, but doesn’t get to the farmhouse quick enough, where I assume his son would have been treated.
I’m not entirely happy with this interpretation, so I would love to hear your ideas about it. I would also like to hear what you think the poem is about.
We were taught in 7th grade music class that this was a story about a boy with a bad fever, so I guess the Erl King would be a hallucination. The father is racing to save his son, who can see Death coming for him (the boy.) We listened to the work in German and hearing the boy crying, 'Mein vater, mein vater" is heart-wrenching, even if you don’t know the language.
Check out Schubert’s take on the poem. I don’t have my lieder books & LPs at hand (9 states away from me right now), so I can’t give you exacts on keys, modulations, and such, but the piano accompaniment can be a real bitch (repeated notes [horse hooves, thunder/lightning motif, etc.]. (If I remember right, these are something like four versions of the accompaniment, from easy to “inst-carpal tunnel”.)
The vocal part of the “child” rises in fear and intensity, while the “father” tries to remain calm and soothing, but with the serious concern underscored in the accompaniment. The Erl-King’s part is very jaunty, enticing/seductive, and melodic until his final stanza…
Damn brilliant piece. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, mmmmmmmmm what a voice.
I’m familiar with the poem in English – “Erlkoenig” is always translated as “Erl-King”. (Not “earl-king” – as the Geats said at Beowulf’s funeral, “For our earl-king was not greedy for gold.”) But what is an “erl”? Something from German mythology?
Oh, and regarding the thread question – in European folklore about elves and fairies, sometimes they like to kidnap humans to make pets of them, or servants, or adoptive children, or . . . maybe cupbearers, as Ganymede was “cupbearer” to Zeus. Remember the Egyptian boy Oberon and Titania are quarrelling over in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? And the tales of changelings? Maybe Schiller was telling that kind of story and it was much clearer to his 18th-Century audience than it is today. “I love you, I’m charmed by your beautiful form / And if you’re not willing, then I’ll use force.”
BrainGlutton: I checked this article on Wikipedia, and apparently nobody else knows what an erl is, either. Some people have tried to render it as ‘Elven king’ here and there, but by and large ‘Erl-king’ is the preferred translation.
According to the site, in German mythology, seeing the Erl-king is like hearing the Irish banshee–an omen of death. The expression he wears will tell what kind of death it will be: a pained expression means a painful death, and a peaceful expression means a peaceful one.
to Zeus. Remember the Egyptian boy Oberon and Titania are quarrelling over in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? And the tales of changelings? Maybe Schiller was telling that kind of story and it was much clearer to his 18th-Century audience than it is today. “I love you, I’m charmed by your beautiful form / And if you’re not willing, then I’ll use force.”