The Erlking

Presented for Power of Poetry 2009 by Alan Cohen

(German poem: Goethe, English translation and new music: Dolce)

Who rides so late through the windy night?
It's a father with a child;
He holds his son in his arms,
To keep the boy so close and warm.

"My son, why hide your face in fear?" ­
Father, don't you see the Erlking?
The Erlking's Crown and flowing Robe? ­
"My son, it's just a wisp of fog."

"O, you dear child, come along with me!
Such a lovely game we'll play!
Fragrant flowers the shores abound,
My mother's made you a Golden Gown ."

Father, father, do you not hear
What the Erlking has promised me ? ­
"Be quiet, my child, be still;
'Tis but the dry leaves rustling." ­

"Won't you come along with me, fine boy?
My girls will tend your keeping.
The Daughters dance such lullabies,
'Twill sing you off to sleeping."

O father, father, why can't you see
The Erlking's daughters dark and gay? ­
"My son, my son, there's no one there
But Willow trees twisted and grey."

"I love you, boy; your charming face;
But if you're not willing, then I'll use force."
Father, father, he's grabbing me!
The Erlking is hurting me! ­

The father shudders and rides so fast,
He holds his moaning child.
To the courtyard swiftly his horse has sped,
But in his arms . . . the child was dead.

        The Erlking is the ruler of the Other World, the place of dreams, poems, and artistic vision. Where everything is like this world, but much more so. The language of this place is metaphor.

We cannot enter this world at will. Sometimes, against all seeming reason, we suddenly find that we have somehow been carried there. If we consciously want to visit the Other World, we can only make ourselves ready to go, and then look for places where the veil between the worlds is thin, places where we can be amazed, and held in a state of awe. The natural world provides many doorways. If we find a quiet place, quiet our self, and simply open to how the myriad forms of Nature avail their selves to us we may find ourselves there.

  Traditionally in wisdom stories and dreams, all characters are aspects of our self. In the song you have just heard, a father rides through life with his son. The son, that younger and more open part of us, notices the Other World, and is drawn to it strongly. It calls to him like it called to all of us when we were children. The father, the grown part of us that has gotten down to business, thrown frivolity aside, who embraces rationality and practicality, creates and imposes proficiency testing on our youth, continues to explain away what his son’s senses tell him. He succeeds in killing in his son, the part of him that travels between worlds.

The Erlking is the most striking character in the story. He is the ruler of the other world – the polar opposite of the father. He is the king of song and dream, poetic language and beauty. Scholars think the word Erlking is a mistaken version of Elvenking –king of the elves. In German, erl means alder, a many branched tree that lives in wet places. Tree lore tells us that alder was used for magic wands. It is a wood that is known for protection against drowning and acts as a shield against death curses, ill-omens and destructive emotions. It cultivates visions of inner and outer worlds, helping to bridge above and below.

When holding a piece of alder, we are literally connecting to a part of the natural word that reminds us of the Other World. We are then prepared to go to that place of awe and mystery; wonder and magic. If we pierce the veil and have an experience there, we can upon our return, enter into a state of poesis or creation, and produce a piece of art, thus shaping our lives into a fuller and richer existence. Because alder protects us from drowning, we can pull back to our everyday world and chop wood, carry water, pay the bills and sustain ourselves until the next visit to the Other World. We should not choose one world or the other, but travel between them in as conscious a way as we are able to do.

In the Arthurian romances, all of the knights enter the forest at their own place to search for the Grail, that which feeds them. We too can make this choice, to enter into the natural world to find where the boundary is thin, and like Sir Percival, whose name literally means to pierce the veil, find that which we need to nourish our deeper lives.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you

                                                     Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask what you really want.

                                                     Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

                                                     Where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

                                                     Don’t go back to sleep.

                                                                                      Rumi

                                                                   Coleman Barks translation