Der Erlkönig

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This article is about the poem by Goethe. For the German legend this poem is based on, see Erlking. For the novel by Michel Tournier, see The Erl-King (novel). For the 2002 animated short, see The ErlKing (film).
"Erlkönig" illustration, Moritz von Schwind
The Erlking by Albert Sterner, ca. 1910

"Erlkönig" (also called "Der Erlkönig") is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking or "Erlkönig" (suggesting the literal translation "alder king", but see below). It was originally composed by Goethe as part of a 1782 Singspiel entitled Die Fischerin.

The poem has been used as the text for Lieder (art songs for voice and piano) by many classical composers.


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," "courtyard," or "farm." 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.


  Literal translation Adaptation[1]

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.

"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 gehn?
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;
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.

"Father, do you not see the Elfking?
The Elfking 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 beach,
My mother has some golden robes."

"My father, my father, and don't you hear
What the Elfking 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
The Elfking'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!
The Elfking has done me 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.


For many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear

My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,

"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread, –
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

The legend[edit]

The story of the Erlkönig derives from the traditional Danish ballad Elveskud: Goethe's poem was inspired by Johann Gottfried Herder's translation of a variant of the ballad (Danmarks gamle Folkeviser 47B, from Peter Syv's 1695 edition) into German as "Erlkönigs Tochter" ("The Erl-king's Daughter") in his collection of folk songs, Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (published 1778). Goethe's poem then took on a life of its own, inspiring the Romantic concept of the Erlking. Niels Gade's cantata Elverskud opus 30 (1854, text by Chr. K. F. Molbech) was published in translation as Erlkönigs Tochter.


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

Settings to music[edit]

The poem has often been set to music with Franz Schubert's rendition, his Opus 1 (D. 328), being the best known.[2][3] Other notable settings are by members of Goethe's circle, including the actress Corona Schröter (1782), Andreas Romberg (1793), Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1794) and Carl Friedrich Zelter (1797). Beethoven 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 (1815), Carl Loewe (1818) and Ludwig Spohr (1856, with obbligato violin) and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (Polyphonic Studies for Solo Violin). A 21st century example is pianist Marc-André Hamelin's "Etude No. 8 (after Goethe)" for solo piano, based on "Erlkönig".[4]

The Franz Schubert composition[edit]

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Schubert's autograph of a simplified accompaniment to his "Erlkönig", one of several revisions


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.
  2. The Father lies in the low range and sings both in minor mode and major mode.
  3. The Son lies in a high range, also in minor mode, representing the fright of the child.
  4. The Erlking's vocal line, in a major key, undulates up and down to arpeggiated accompaniment; a striking contrast as the only break from the triplet figure in the accompaniment until the boy's death. The Erlking lines are typically sung in a softer dynamic.[citation needed]


"Erlkönig" starts with the piano rapidly playing triplets to create a sense of urgency and simulate the horse's galloping. Meanwhile the bass adds a horror theme to the piece. These motifs continue throughout. Each of the son's pleas become louder and higher-pitched 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, and then slows down, as he arrives. The piano stops before the final line, "In seinen Armen das Kind war tot" before ending 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.[citation needed]

The song was transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt, and the piano accompaniment was orchestrated by Hector Berlioz. Hans Werner Henze 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, considered one of the most technically difficult pieces to play for the instrument.[citation needed]

The Carl Loewe composition[edit]

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. Inspired by a German translation of Scottish border ballads, Loewe set several poems with an elvish 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 and marked Geschwind (fast). 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 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.[citation needed] The Elf king, who is always heard pianissimo, does not sing melodies, but instead delivers insubstantial rising arpeggios that outline a single major chord (that of the home key) which sounds simultaneously on the piano in una corda tremolo. Only with his final threatening word, "Gewalt," does he depart from this chord. Loewe’s implication is that the Erlking has no substance, but merely exists in the child’s fevered imagination. As the piece progresses, 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[by whom?] to rival the Schubert version. Loewe performed his own songs, and the original in G minor was for his baritone voice.[citation needed]


  1. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2008). "The Erl-King". The Poems of Goethe. translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Wildside Press. p. 99. ISBN 9781434462480. 
  2. ^ Snyder, Lawrence (1995). German Poetry in Song. Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press. ISBN 0-914913-32-8.  contains a selective list of 14 settings of the poem
  3. ^ "Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?". The Lied and Art Song Texts Page. Retrieved 8 October 2008.  lists 23 settings of the poem
  4. ^ Hamelin's "Erlkönig" on YouTube
  5. ^ Machlis, Joseph and Forney, Kristine. "Schubert and the Lied" The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening. 9th Ed. W. W. Norton & Company: 2003

External links[edit]