Guten Nacht
I'll be dead before dawn
Kind, mein Sohn
I'll be dead before dawn
And though your eyes appear
Wry and withdrawn
I'll be dead before dawn
I'll be dead before dawn
Father! Father! I fear for the night
When the Erl King comes to collect us
Father! Father! I fear for my soul
As you should
Father! Father! Make sense of the night
Let's turn back our horse
And flee from this unsightly terror
That is trembling through these woods..
My Son, you must be pacified
These scenes of dreams are only imagination
My son, you must be satisfied
I'll keep you safe from fancy apparitions
My dear young Son, with eyes so wild
Be still my son, you waggish child
I'll hold your head and keep you warm
There's nothing here to harm you.
Child you're beautiful
Come lie with the Erl King
Child you're beautiful
Come quiet, come willing
The gifts I could give to you
The wind and the wild river spring
Child you're beautiful
Come quiet, come willing
Father! Father! Can you hear his cries?
The Erl King comes to collect us!
Father! Father! I fear for my soul
As you should
Father! Father! Make sense of the right
Let's turn back our horse
And flee from this unsightly terror
That is trembling through these woods..
My dear young one I hear it clear
The hooing owl burrows near
No Tophet trolls or urchin fear
There's nothing here to harm you.
Child you're beautiful
Come lie with the Erl King
Child, you're beautiful
Come quiet, come willing
The gifts I could give to you
The wind and the wild river spring
Child you're beautiful
Come quiet, come willing
Father gallops frantically,
Trembling with dread
For when he reached the weeping hearth
The child was dead.
Written by Ghost Bees/Tasseomancy, inspired by the poem/legend of Der Erlkönig
(Danish Folktale about an anxious young boy being carried home at night by his father on horseback. He begins 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 The Erl King is about to take him away. The father makes faster for home. There he recognizes that the boy is dead.
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.)
