Angela Carter - The Erl King

[changeling67]

Have been busy, busy, busy - been organising my life around my major dissertation and induction timetable at Plymouth Uni.  Booked in my library time (compulsary, so it is logged in the bibliography) for 1pm on the 10th as I have no desire to catch a train near 6am to get there.  I have warned fellow new students, who will probably not know about this - quell suprise when I found out about it last year!  Plus, I need to locate my student card and renew my railcard, possibly will have to do this before induction week i.e. the calm before the storm.

I have been reading the rest of The Bloody Chamber - best so far is 'The Erl King', a kind of Pan-like creature who beguiles women and turns them into birds.  I can see parallels with many other stories and I think I will predominently use it out of all the other stories in TBC.  Stories completed 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon', 'The Tigers Bride', 'Puss-In-Boots' and the aforementioned 'The Erl King - my next stories are 'The Snow Child', Lady in the House of Love' (think that one is a female vampire story), 'The Werewolf', 'The Comapny of Wolves' and 'Wolf Alice'.

Seriously, read Angela Carters 'The Erl King' - sends all kinds of shiver down your spine.

Comments

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

Have you read the song/poem (there's a word for it and I can't remember what it is), the Erlking? I remember studying it in Music when I was about 16. When my oldest first had night terrors, it reminded me so much of the poem. Creepy. (I ended up actually writing a poem about it, too, recently.)

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

It's from a folk tale of Germanic/Danist roots. Also Goethe did one called Der Erlkönig

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 in fear?"
"Father, do you not see the Elf-king?
The Elf-king with crown and cape?"
"My son, it's a streak of fog."

"You dear child, come, go with me!
(Very) beautiful games I play with you;
many a colorful flower is on the beach,
My mother has many a golden robe."

"My father, my father, and hearest you not,
What the Elf-king quietly promises me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
Through scrawny leaves the wind is sighing."

"Do you, fine boy, want to go with me?
My daughters shall wait on you finely;
My daughters lead the nightly dance,
And rock and dance and sing to bring you in."

"My father, my father, and don't you see there
The 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 touching me now!
The Elf-king has done me harm!"

It horrifies the father; he swiftly rides on,
He holds the moaning child in his arms,
Reaches the farm with great difficulty;
In his arms, the child was dead.

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

Yep, the Goethe one is the one we studied. I think it's better in German... but even in English it's creepy.