Der Erlkönig is a poem

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking

Erlking

The Erlking is depicted in a number of German poems and ballads as a malevolent creature who haunts forests and carries off travellers to their deaths. The name is an 18th-century mistranslation of the original Danish word elverkonge, "elf-king"...

 or "Erlkönig" (suggesting the literal translation "alder

Alder

Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

 king", but see below). It was originally composed by Goethe as part of a 1782 ballad opera

Ballad opera

The term ballad opera is used to refer to a genre of English stage entertainment originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera...

 entitled Die Fischerin.

The poem has been used as the text for Lied

Lied

is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...

er (art songs for voice and piano) by many classical composers, with Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

's rendition, his Opus 1 (D. 328), arguably being the most well-known one. Many other settings survive. Other notable settings are by members of Goethe's circle, including the actress Corona Schröter

Corona Schröter

Corona Elisabeth Wilhelmine Schröter was a German musician best known as a singer. She also composed songs, setting works by Friedrich Schiller to music.-Early life:...

 (1782), Andreas Romberg

Andreas Romberg

Andreas Jakob Romberg was a German violinist and composer. Romberg learned the violin from his musician father Gerhard Heinrich Romberg and first performed in public at the age of six. In addition to touring Europe, Romberg also joined the Münster Court Orchestra...

 (1793), Johann Friedrich Reichardt

Johann Friedrich Reichardt

Johann Friedrich Reichardt was a German composer, writer and music critic.-Early life:Reichardt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to lutenist and Stadtmusiker Johann Reichardt . Johann Friedrich began his musical training, in violin, keyboard, and lute, as a child...

 (1794) and Carl Friedrich Zelter

Carl Friedrich Zelter

Carl Friedrich Zelter was a German composer, conductor and teacher of music.Zelter became friendly with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and his works include settings of Goethe's poems...

 (1797). Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 attempted to set it to music but abandoned the effort; his sketch however was complete enough to be published in a completion by Reinhold Becker (1897). A few other nineteenth-century versions are those by Václav Tomášek

Václav Tomášek

Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek, was a Czech composer and music teacher.-Life:As a pianist, he was an autodidact, becoming one of the most important piano teachers of Prague for a century. Until 1824 he worked as a piano teacher in aristocratic families...

 (1815), Carl Loewe (1818) and Ludwig Spohr

Louis Spohr

Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...

 (1856, with obbligato

Obbligato

In classical music obbligato usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified...

 violin). A 21st century example is pianist Marc-André Hamelin

Marc-André Hamelin

Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky, and Sorabji when he was...

's "Etude No. 8 (after Goethe)" for solo piano, based on the Erlkönig.

Summary

An anxious young boy is being carried home at night by his father on horseback. To what sort of home is not spelled out; German Hof has a rather broad meaning of "yard" or "courtyard". The Hof has been presumed to be a farmyard, although the long form Bauernhof would typically be used (in prose) to clarify this sense. The lack of specificity of the father's social position allows the reader to imagine the details.

As the poem unfolds, the son seems to see and hear beings his father does not; the father asserts reassuringly naturalistic explanations for what the child sees – a wisp of fog, rustling leaves, shimmering willows. Finally the child shrieks that he has been attacked. The father makes faster for the Hof. There he recognizes that the boy is dead.

One story has it that Goethe was visiting a friend when, late one night, a dark figure carrying a bundle in its arms was seen riding past the gate at great speed. The next day Goethe and his friend were told that they had seen a farmer taking his sick son to the doctor. This incident, along with the legend, is said to have been the main inspiration for the poem.

One may suppose the boy is simply feverish, delirious, and in need of medical attention. The poem itself leaves the question open.

Text

Original German	Literal Translation	Adaptation
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind; Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm, Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm. "Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?" — "Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht? Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?" — "Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif." "Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir! Gar schöne Spiele spiel' ich mit dir; Manch' bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand, Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand." — "Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht, Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?" — "Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind; In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind." — "Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehen? Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön; Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn, Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein." — "Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?" — "Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau: Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. —" "Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt; Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt." — "Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an! Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!" — Dem Vater grauset's, er reitet geschwind, Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind, Erreicht den Hof mit Müh' und Not; In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.	Who rides, so late, through night and wind? It is the father with his child. He has the boy well in his arm He holds him safely, he keeps him warm. "My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?" "Father, do you not see the Elf king? The Elf king with crown and tail?" "My son, it's a wisp of fog." "You dear child, come, go with me! Very lovely games I'll play with you; Some colourful flowers are on the shore, My mother has some golden robes." "My father, my father, and don't you hear What Elf king quietly promises me?" "Be calm, stay calm, my child; The wind is rustling through withered leaves." "Do you want to come with me, pretty boy? My daughters shall wait on you finely; My daughters will lead the nightly dance, And rock and dance and sing you to sleep." "My father, my father, and don't you see there Elf king's daughters in the gloomy place?" "My son, my son, I see it clearly: There shimmer the old willows so grey." "I love you, your beautiful form entices me; And if you're not willing, then I will use force." "My father, my father, he's grabbing me now! Elf king has done me some harm!" It horrifies the father; he swiftly rides on, He holds the moaning child in his arms, Reaches the farm with trouble and hardship; In his arms, the child was dead.	Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear? The father it is, with his infant so dear; He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm, He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm. "My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?" "Look, father, the Elf King is close by our side! Dost see not the Elf King, with crown and with train?" "My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain." "Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me! For many a game I will play there with thee; On my beach, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold, My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold." "My father, my father, and dost thou not hear The words that the Elf King now breathes in mine ear?" "Be calm, dearest child, thy fancy deceives; the wind is sighing through withering leaves." "Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there? My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care My daughters by night on the dance floor you lead, They'll cradle and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep." "My father, my father, and dost thou not see, How the Elf King is showing his daughters to me?" "My darling, my darling, I see it alright, 'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight." "I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy! And if thou aren't willing, then force I'll employ." "My father, my father, he seizes me fast, For sorely the Elf King has hurt me at last." The father now gallops, with terror half wild, He holds in his arms the shuddering child; He reaches his farmstead with toil and dread,— The child in his arms lies motionless, dead.

The legend

The story of the Erlkönig derives from Danish folk tales, and Goethe based his poem on "Erlkönigs Tochter" ("Erlkönig's Daughter"), a Danish work translated into German by Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...

. It appeared as "The Elf King's Daughter" in his collection of folk songs, Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (published 1778). Niels Gade's cantata Elverskud opus 30 (1854, text by Chr. K. F. Molbech) was published in translation as Erlkönigs Tochter.

The Erlkönig's nature has been the subject of some debate. The name translates literally from the German as "Alder

Alder

Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

 King" rather than its common English translation, "Elf

Elf

An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...

 King" (which would be rendered as Elfenkönig or Elbenkönig in German). It has often been suggested that Erlkönig is a mistranslation from the original Danish

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

 elverkonge, which does mean "king of the elves."

In the original Scandinavian version of the tale, the antagonist was the Erlkönig's daughter rather than the Erlkönig himself; the female elves, or elvermø, sought to ensnare human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy and lust for revenge.

The Franz Schubert composition

Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 composed his Lied

Lied

is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...

, "Der Erlkönig", for solo voice and piano in 1815, setting text from the Goethe poem. Schubert revised the song three times before publishing his fourth version in 1821 as his Opus

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 1; it was cataloged by Otto Erich Deutsch

Otto Erich Deutsch

Otto Erich Deutsch was an Austrian musicologist. He is known for compiling the first comprehensive catalogue of the works of Franz Schubert, first published in 1951 in English, new edition in 1978 in German...

 as D. 328 in his 1951 catalog of Schubert's works. The song was first performed in concert on December 1, 1820, at a private gathering in Vienna, and received its public premiere on March 7, 1821, at Vienna's Theater am Kärntnertor

Theater am Kärntnertor

Theater am Kärntnertor or Kärntnertortheater was a prestigious theatre in Vienna during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...

.

The four characters in the song — narrator, father, son, and the Erlking — are usually all sung by a single vocalist; occasionally, however, the work is performed by four individual vocalists (or three, with one taking the parts of both the narrator and the Erlking). Schubert placed each character largely in a different vocal range, and each has his own rhythmic nuances; in addition, most singers endeavor to use a different vocal coloration for each part.

1. The Narrator lies in the middle range and is in minor mode
   Minor scale
   A minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...
   
   .
2. The Father lies in the low range and sings both in minor mode and major mode
   Major scale
   In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
   
   .
3. The Son lies in a high range, also in minor mode, representing the fright of the child.
4. The Erlking's vocal line undulates up and down to arpeggiated
   Arpeggio
   An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
   
    accompaniment resulting in striking contrast and is in the major mode. The Erlking lines are typically sung pianissimo
   Dynamics (music)
   In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
   
   .

A fifth character, the horse, is implied in rapid triplet

Tuplet

In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...

 figures played by the pianist throughout the work, mimicking hoof beats.

"Erlkönig" starts with the piano rapidly playing triplets of a repeated note in octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s to create a sense of urgency and simulate the horse's galloping. Meanwhile rising triplets in the base add a horror theme to the piece. These motifs

Motif (music)

In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

 continue throughout. Each of the son's pleas grows louder and higher-pitched

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

 than the previous ones. Near the very end of the piece the music quickens, as the father desperately tries to spur his horse to go faster, then slows down, as he arrives. The piano stops before the final line, "In seinen Armen das Kind war tot" ("In his arms the child was dead"). The piece then ends with a dramatic perfect authentic cadence.

The piece is regarded as extremely challenging to perform due to the vocal characterization required of the vocalist as well as its difficult accompaniment, involving the playing of rapidly repeated chords and octaves to create the drama and urgency in the poetry.

The song was transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, and the piano accompaniment was orchestrated by Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

. Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...

 created an Orchesterfantasie über Goethes Gedicht und Schuberts Opus 1 aus dem Ballett "Le fils de l'air". There is also a transcription for solo violin by the violin virtuoso Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was a Moravian-Jewish violinist, violist and composer. Ernst was widely seen as the outstanding violinist of his time and one of Paganini's greatest successors....

, considered one of the most technically difficult pieces to play for the instrument.

The Carl Loewe composition

Carl Loewe's setting was published as Op. 1, No. 3 and composed in 1817–18, in the lifetime of the poem's author and also of Schubert, whose version Loewe did not then know. Collected with it were Op. 1, No. 1, Edward (1818; (a translation of the Scottish ballad), and No. 2, Der Wirthin Töchterlein (1823; The Innkeeper's Daughter), a poem of Ludwig Uhland

Ludwig Uhland

Johann Ludwig Uhland , was a German poet, philologist and literary historian.-Biography:He was born in Tübingen, then Duchy of Württemberg, and studied jurisprudence at the university there, but also took an interest in medieval literature, especially old German and French poetry...

. Inspired by a German translation of Scottish border ballads, Loewe set several poems with an elvish

Elf

An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...

 theme; but although all three of Op. 1 are concerned with untimely death, in this set only the Erlkönig has the supernatural element.

Loewe's accompaniment is in semiquaver groups of six in nine-eight time (as against Schubert's quaver triplets in common time) and marked Geschwind. The vocal line evokes the galloping effect by repeated figures of crotchet and quaver, or sometimes three quavers, overlying the binary tremolo of the semiquavers in the piano. In addition to an unusual sense of motion this creates a very flexible template for the stresses in the words to fall correctly within the rhythmic structure.

Loewe's version is less lyrically melodic than Schubert's, with an insistent, repetitive harmonic structure between the opening minor key, and answering phrases in the major key of the dominant, which have a stark quality owing to their unusual relationship to the home key. The narrator's phrases are echoed by the voices of father and son, the father taking up the deeper, rising phrase, and the son a lightly undulating, answering theme around the dominant fifth. These two themes also evoke the rising and moaning of the wind.

Into this structure issues the very ghostly voice of the Elf king, who sings always pianissimo

Pianissimo

Pianissimo is an Italian word, meaning "very soft". It can mean:*Pianissimo, refers to the volume of a soft sound or soft note.*Pianissimo Peche, a brand of Japanese cigarettes made by Japan Tobacco....

 and diminuendo, in rising figures in the home key, but in the major, over an una corda tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

. This very simple figure, rising through the major triad, repeated four times with very minor variation in each of the three calls of the Elf king to the child, has an eerie and elfin quality like the very distant blowing of a horn. As he and the child become more urgent the first in the groups of three quavers are dotted to create a breathless pace, which then forms a bass figure in the piano driving through to the final crisis. The last words, war tot, leap from the lower dominant to the sharpened third of the home key, this time not to the major but to a diminished chord, which settles chromatically through the home key in the major and then to the minor.

This is a dynamic, dramatic and original setting of the full text, considered by some to rival the Schubert version. Loewe performed his own songs, and the original in G minor was for his baritone voice.

In popular culture

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   offers a Zemblese translation of the opening lines: Ret woren ok spoz on natt ut vett?/ Eto est votchez ut mid ik dett. (note on line 662)
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  is a modernized version of the poem, taking place on an airplane.
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  Heavy metal music
  Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
  
   rendition of Schubert's piece with English lyrics inspired by Goethe's poem. The track would be the namesake for the demo "Visions of the Erlking," and would later appear on the studio album Winter Shadows.
• The Heavy metal
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  Work Time Fun, known in Japan as is a video game developed by D3 and Sony for the PlayStation Portable. The English title is a play on the slang "WTF", short for 'What The Fuck?', indicating confusion....
  
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   in New York City, which used a video of this song.
• In the 1988 film Burning Secret
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  Burning Secret is a 1988 drama film, based on the short story Brennendes Geheimnis by Stefan Zweig, about an American diplomat's son who befriends a mysterious baron while staying at an Austrian spa during the 1920s. The film was written and directed by Andrew Birkin, and stars Klaus Maria...
  
  , Baron Alexander recites the final lines of Goethe's poem while holding the boy Edmund in a swimming pool (water itself being a symbol of birth and death). This moment represents the high point of their affection, whereafter the baron turns his attentions elsewhere. Here the quote also suggests the death of a child as such, on the way to maturity.
• In his celebrated novel Le Roi des Aulnes (1970), Michel Tournier
  Michel Tournier
  Michel Tournier is a French writer.His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970...
  
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  is an adaptation of Tournier's story.
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• Singer/songwriter Josh Ritter
  Josh Ritter
  Josh Ritter is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and author who performs and records with The Royal City Band. Ritter is known for his distinctive Americana style and narrative lyrics. In 2006 he was named one of the "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" by Paste magazine.- Early life :Josh...
  
   translated and set the poem to music under the name "The Oak Tree King" for his concert series with violinist Hilary Hahn
  Hilary Hahn
  Hilary Hahn is an American violinist.Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia. Beginning her studies when she was three years old at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age ten, and in 1991, made her major orchestral debut with the...
  
  
• The E Nomine
  E Nomine
  E Nomine is a German musical project, formed in 1999, by producers Christian Weller and Friedrich "Fritz" Graner. Their music, which they call monumental dance, is an unusual combination of trance, techno, and vocals which closely resemble Gregorian singing and chanting...
  
   song "Die Schwarzen Reiter" begins with the line "Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? (Who rides so late through the night and wind?)", a reference to the poem.
• A short story entitled "The Erl-King" written by Elizabeth Hand is inspired by the Goethe poem but is set in modern day. It first appeared in the anthology Full Spectrum 4 in 1993.
• Theatre de Complicite use the poem in The Street of Crocodiles, a piece of theatre based on the stories
  The Street of Crocodiles
  The Street of Crocodiles is a 1934 collection of short stories written by Bruno Schulz. First published in Polish, the collection was translated into English by Celina Wieniewska in 1963.-Origins and publication:...
  
   of Bruno Schulz
  Bruno Schulz
  Bruno Schulz was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher born to Jewish parents, and regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. Schulz was born in Drohobycz, in the province of Galicia then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and spent...
  
  
• In Philip K. Dick
  Philip K. Dick
  Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
  
  's novel The Man in the High Castle
  The Man in the High Castle
  The Man in the High Castle is a science fiction alternate history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It won a Hugo Award in 1963 and has since been translated into many languages....
  
  the character of Mr. Baynes sings the first two lines in German while showering.
• Jim Butcher
  Jim Butcher
  Jim Butcher is a New York Times Best Selling author most known for his contemporary fantasy book series The Dresden Files. He also wrote the Codex Alera series. Butcher grew up as the only son of his parents, and has two older sisters. He currently lives in Independence with his wife, Shannon K...
  
  's novel Dead Beat refers to a fictitious "Die Lied Der Erlking", a fictitious recollection of poems about the Erlkönig carrying an incorrect German title, as a part of its central plot. In the book, the Erlking was portrayed as a powerful fey being, separate from the Summer and Winter Queens of the Fey.
• Canadian indie rock musicians Ghost Bees
  Ghost Bees
  Tasseomancy is a band from Toronto, Ontario, originally spawned in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Formed by and centered around twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman, the project started life underthe monicker Ghost Bees...
  
   released the song "Erl King" on their 2008 album Tasseomancy.
• The 1941 Norwegian
  Norway
  Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
  
   mystery novel Historien om Gottlob (The story of Gottlob) by Torolf Elster weaves an intricate pattern of stories told by different people, involving a mysterious rebel leader who goes by the code name Erlkönig. In the NRK radio adaptation Schubert's piano accompaniment was used as incidental music
  Incidental music
  Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
  
  .
• Raymond E. Feist
  Raymond E. Feist
  Raymond Elias Feist is an American author who primarily writes fantasy fiction. He is best known for The Riftwar Cycle series of novels and short stories. His books have been translated into multiple languages and have sold over 15 million copies.- Biography :Raymond E...
  
  's book Faerie Tale
  Faerie Tale
  Faerie Tale is a supernatural thriller by Raymond E. Feist, first published in 1988.-Plot introduction:Phil Hastings and his family have just moved back to his hometown for some much needed peace and quiet from the Hollywood scene. As Phil's twins, Sean and Patrick, soon discover, there is more to...
  
  also makes reference to "Der Erlkönig", as part of one of the character's research into faerie folklore.
• The narrator of Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance references the poem in a conversation with his fellow travelers as they tell "ghost" stories while camping. The reference is self-reflexive, as the narrator is fleeing/chasing his own ghost (Phaedrus, whom he fears is coming for or "calling Chris", the narrator's son).
• British author Angela Carter
  Angela Carter
  Angela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
  
   retells the legend in a short story called "The Erl-King", first published in her short-story collection The Bloody Chamber
  The Bloody Chamber
  The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short fiction by Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1979 by Gollancz and won the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize. All of the stories share a common theme of being closely based upon fairytales or folk tales...
  
  (1979).
• The poem is used by the German Gothic band Dracul in their song "Erlkönig".
• Norwegian experimental black metal
  Black metal
  Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....
  
  -industrial
  Industrial music
  Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
  
   band Sturmgeist
  Sturmgeist
  Sturmgeist is an experimental black/thrash metal formed by Cornelius Jakhelln in 2002.-Beginnings:In 2002, Cornelius Jakhelln began working on a new band. The name chosen was Sturmgeist . The music was an experimental mix of black/thrash metal with lyrics sung in English, Norwegian, and German...
  
   uses shortened and slightly modified version of the poem as lyrics in a song with the same title.
• German industrial
  Industrial music
  Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
  
  -EBM
  Electronic body music
  Electronic body music or industrial dance is a music genre that combines elements of industrial music and electronic dance music...
  
   band Kash uses the poem in the song "Erlkönig".
• Norwegian band "Jackman" also uses the poem "Der Erlkönig" in a modern alternative treatment.
• In the Japanese
  Japanese language
  is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
  
   visual novel
  Visual novel
  A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
  
   G Senjō no Maō
  G Senjo no Mao
  is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Akabeisoft2 and first released for the PC as a DVD on May 29, 2008 in limited and regular editions after many delays. The gameplay in G Senjō no Maō follows a plotline which offers pre-determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the...
  
  , "Der Erlkönig", and the Schubert piece it inspired, play a prominent role as a recurring theme.
• In the song "Tier in Dir", by the German punk band Jennifer Rostock
  Jennifer Rostock
  Jennifer Rostock is a German punk rock band that formed in 2007 in Berlin. They first gained national recognition when they competed at the German television event Bundesvision Song Contest in February 2008.- History :...
  
  , parts of the lyrics are the same as the words in the poem.
• The song "Incarnated" from the album Cosmogenesis
  Cosmogenesis (album)
  - Band lineup :* Steffen Kummerer - guitars, vocals* Christian Muenzner − guitars* Jeroen Paul Thesseling − bass* Hannes Grossmann - drums* Ron Jarzombek - guest guitar on track 9* Tymon Kruidenier - guest guitar on track 2...
  
  by Progressive
  Progressive metal
  Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
  
   Melodic death metal
  Melodic death metal
  Melodic death metal is a heavy metal music style that combines elements from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with elements of death metal. The style was developed during the early and mid-1990s, primarily in England and Scandinavia...
  
   band Obscura
  Obscura (band)
  -History:Obscura was founded in 2002 by Steffen Kummerer. The band was named after the Gorguts album Obscura. In 2006 Obscura self-released their debut album Retribution and toured alongside Suffocation within Europe. A European headlining tour through East and South Europe followed in 2007...
  
   is based on this poem.
• The 2002 animated short film The ErlKing
  The ErlKing (animated short)
  The ErlKing is a 2002 animated short by Ben Zelkowicz, which uses sand animation to illustrate Franz Schubert's musical adaptation of the poem Der Erlkönig by Goethe...
  
  by Ben Zelkowicz illustrates the poem.
• American novelist Kevin Flinn's 2009 novel, Through the Night and Wind, takes its name from the first line of the poem and features the first two lines as part of an elaborate dream sequence.
• In Isaac Asimov
  Isaac Asimov
  Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
  
  's novel Second Foundation
  Second Foundation
  Second Foundation is the third novel published of the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and the fifth in the in-universe chronology. It was first published in 1953 by Gnome Press....
  
  , an adolescent girl-protagonist has a teacher named Miss Erlking.
• In Frank Tallis's 2008 crime novel Fatal Lies, the psychoanalyst Max Liebermann and police inspector Oskar Rheinhardt perform first Loewe's treatment of the text, then Schubert's. A discussion between the characters about the relative quality of Schubert's and Loewe's respective settings becomes an early pivot-point in the novel's plot.
• Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
  Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
  Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is an American writer.She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter and teaches writing and literature at UC San Diego. Bynum is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop...
  
  's short story "The Erlking" appeared in the July 5, 2010, issue of The New Yorker
  The New Yorker
  The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
  
  as part of the magazine’s showcasing of twenty significant American fiction writers under the age of forty. In the story, a mother and her small daughter visit a fairy-themed fundraiser at a Waldorf School. There, the girl (whose name Ondine
  Ondine (mythology)
  Undines , also called ondines, are elementals, enumerated as the water elementals in works of alchemy by Paracelsus. They also appear in European folklore as fairy-like creatures; the name may be used interchangeably with those of other water spirits. Undines are said to be able to gain a soul by...
  
   also stems from European folklore) becomes fixated on a mysterious man whom she perceives to be hiding a surprise for her under his cape. Bynum, in an interview on The New Yorker´s website, stated that the inspiration for her story came in part from Goethe´s "The Erlking".
• The music (by Mort Shuman
  Mort Shuman
  Mort Shuman was an American singer, pianist and songwriter, best known as co-writer of many 1960s rock and roll hits, including "Viva Las Vegas"...
  
  ) and the lyrics (by Doc Pomus
  Doc Pomus
  Jerome Solon Felder, better known as Doc Pomus , was a twentieth-century American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lyricist of many rock and roll hits. Pomus was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category of non-performer in 1992. He was also inducted into...
  
  ) of "Night Rider", sung by Elvis Presley
  Elvis Presley
  Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
  
   shows influences from Schubert's "Erlkönig".
• In 1999 Hypnotic Grooves feat. Jo van Nelsen released the song "Der Erlkönig", a complete recitation with dance beats (similiar in style to Jo van Nelsen's 1989 hit "Der Erdbeermund" with Culture Beat
  Culture Beat
  Culture Beat is a German Eurodance project formed in 1989 by Torsten Fenslau. The act has gone through a number of line-up changes over the years; they achieved the most success whilst fronted by singer Tania Evans and rapper Jay Supreme. Their 1993 single "Mr. Vain" was a No...
  
  ), on the German compilation "Rosebud Red – Songs of Goethe and Nietzsche".

External links

• Translation by Matthew Lewis
• another translation at Poems Found in Translation
• "Erlkönig" at Emily Ezust's Lied and Art Song Texts Page; another translation and list of settings
• Musical Adaptation by Franz Schubert free recording (mp3) and free score
• Full score and MIDI file of Schubert's setting of "Erlkönig" from the Mutopia Project
  Mutopia project
  The Mutopia Project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books.The music is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright...
  
  
• Goethe and the Erlkönig Myth
• Audio for Earlkings legacy (3:41 minutes, 1.7 MB
  Megabyte
  The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
  
  ), performed by Christian Brückner
  Christian Brückner
  Christian Brückner is one of the most prolific and well-known German voice actors today, as well as a frequent actor.Christian Brückner provides the German voice-dubbing for such actors as Gary Oldman, Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Martin Sheen, Harvey Keitel, Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper,...
  
  and Bad-Eggz, 2002.
• A hard rock interpretation of Goethe's "Erlkönig" in Schubert's adaption.