Talk:Erlking

Comment

The Erlking is a seductive demon or sprite that tries to kill people. In one song, a dad is holding his son while they're riding a buggy in Germany and the boy spots an Erlking. The boy can only see him but not his father. The Erlking keeps persuading the boy to come over to him by saying that his daughters will take good care of him and that he should go to the beach with him. The boy keeps refusing and keeps telling his Dad that the Erlking is persuading him to come over. The Dad does not believe this and at the end, the Erlking kills the boy while he's in his Father's arms.

The Earlking has many powers. He/She uses diffrent things to persuade. Like money,beauty, desire, and many other things that can get people to come close enough to kill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.218.118 (talk) 19:40, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The Erlking written by Johann Herder, was believed to be originated from his own experiences. While his Sister was away on Holiday, she left her son in his care. While the sons stay with Herder, he molested him. So in writing this poem, The Erlking, is infact, himself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.27.125.95 (talk) 21:48, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Erkling

Apart from the Harry Potter Wiki, is there any indication that "Erkling" is a variant of "Erlking"? If not, why does Erkling redirect here? --xensyria^T 14:45, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems that the Erlking redirect was made (by a member of the Harry Potter Wikiproject, presumably to help readers searching here to find the original of the term) before the HP Wiki mentioned Erlkings as an alternate for Erklings, and so it may have come about from someone seeing the redirect here and assuming it had historical precedent. --xensyria^T 22:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

"Erlking"

This is a pointlessly macaronic "translation". The German figure is called Erlkönig. A "translation" to English would presumably yield King Herla, but this then becomes about English folklore, or if you want to go with the folk etymology, "Alder-King", but hardly "Erlking". Perhaps the two articles should be merged for treatment in context. --dab (𒁳) 06:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The most important point for our use of the term is its most common use in English, which, granted, seems pretty hard to gauge, but is more important than trying to use the most accurate term. If it's more often left untranslated we should rename the article to Erlkönig, if the bizarre "Erlking" is used, then again that's what we should use. Google (which can sometimes come in handy) doesn't give a good sense of it, as there's no easy way to distinguish uses of "Erlkönig" as describing the character rather than as a title, and this article has been named Erlking long enough that many or perhaps most people writing about the subject on the internet will have read and been influenced by the current "Erlking" title (no website is an island!). And in defence of "Erlking", I suppose with the etymology controversy you've raised it's not possible to accurately translate the word, hence leaving "Erl" and translating "könig" makes some sense, and leaves the question open, rather than choosing one of "Elf-king"/"Earl-king"/"Alder-king". ‑‑xensyria^T 13:11, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Etymology

It turns out that there seem to be two competing explanations of the name. What is clear that it has nothing to do with alders, and that this is (at best) an 18th-century German folk etymology. The two possibilities are:

• a loan from Scandinavian, from the form eller- "of the elves", i.e. the name literally means "king of the elves", but was loaned from Scandinavian into German and what transformed due to folk etymology. This seems(?) to have been Grimm's opinion. It's not implausible, I suppose, but it should be noted that most early modern loans went from Low German to Scandinavia and not the other way.
• it is a native term, erl-könig from erl "nobleman, warrior", i.e. "earl" (erilaz). The importance of a figure called "earl-king" ("herle king") in the medieval period can be deduced indirectly from the existence of Herla and the French maisnie Hellequin. No direct German evidence as far as I know.

The problem is, it's either from Scandinavian eller- or from (h)erl-, but not both (conflated here). . The article needs a scholarly source that weighs the two possibilities against each other explicitly. --dab (𒁳) 09:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

There are not two exclusive and competing published hypotheses about the origin of this word.

Grimm proposes the Scandinavian loan. What scholarly source proposes Erlking is descended from (h)erl?

Robert Lima writes that there were a number of deities in "Norse and Teutonic" mythology---apparently he means Germanic mythology, because he goes on to include Old English---which had various reflexes attested across the Germanic languages. So Lima is not saying Erlking is a reflex of a Scandinavian and an Old English word, but he is saying the Scandinavian and the Old English share an etymon.

This article can reflect Lima's analysis without contradicting Grimm. Seraphimek (talk) 01:38, 26 August 2015 (UTC)Seraphimek

"Erlkönig" as the German word for development mules/cars)

Didn't find this in any of the English wiki pages about the Erlking - like the one about Goethe's ballad, or about the general reception of that lore in other cultures - but as classical education recedes, more Germans would probably think of developmental/experimental cars when you talk to them about Erlkönigs. It's definitely part of the everday language, especially if you find yourself in a discussion with German car enthusiasts, of which there are quite a few, or if you see one of them on the Autobahns. "Hey, schau mal, da ist ein Erlkönig!" See: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlk%C3%B6nig_(Auto)

I have no idea how to include that info in any of the relevant articles, though. Just wanna point it out for someone to work on. Thanks for reading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.225.231.27 (talk) 07:23, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

First two sentences seem extraneous

The following, without "Erlking" in bold, is at the beginning of this article:

The Erlking is a sinister, mythical elf who is said to linger in the woods. He goes around and kills children who stay in the woods too long, and kills them by a single touch.

It feels extraneous. Could anyone please tell me if it should be removed? I feel like it should.--Thylacine24 (talk) 21:24, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Harlequin Etymology

This line of inquiry is alas not properly sourced, and our exposition is not self-contained, referring to Harper's etymonline.com instead. Its exposition in turn is very convincing, IMHO, with Italian "arlecchino, which is possibly from the same source as Old French Herlequin, Hellequin, etc. [...] seems to correspond to Old English Herla cyning "King Herla," ... and possibly also to German Erlkönig, ...".

That shows a wide distribution. Albeit, it does not date any of the terms with according references, and I feel ill equiped to follow up on any of them to establish probable chronology, and discount for the fact that E. is widely claimed to be taken from Danish.

I wanted to add for discussion that Harlequin, which is often taken for a jester, reminds me thus of German Herz-Kasper (heart attack) with wikt:Kasper ("clown") known better as Kasperle, with "-le" a frequent diminutive or instrumental ending, distantly akin to "-lein", Engl. -ling, apparently.

Compare by the way wikt:cusp verb. "(slang) To behave in a reckless or dangerous manner." German kaspern (i.e. "to clown", chiefly derogatory) otherwise very specific cusp nom. "7. (anatomy) A flap of a valve of a heart or blood vessel."

My comparison to "heart-attack" I find notable because of the theme of the related poems, wherein the Erl-King or a related figure apparently kills a child. A heart-attack is also believed to be a consequence of a thorough scare. A similar theme is connected to Albtraum, Alptraum, equivalently nightmare, said to be Elves (Ger. "Alben" next to "Elfen") causing a tightness in the chest and potentially death. Not your friendly Tolkien elves.

For it to be notabile in the wiki sense I would require a thorough reference, though. You know?

I'm under no illusion that such a source could be found any time soon. So, for now, I remain confused, because one way we are looking at folk-etymology, no doubt, if folk-myths are concerned. Even the explanation for German Erle from metathesis after rhotazism of \*alizo > "elira" > "erila" might require folk-etymology in the last step, e.g. from contamination with er- (cf. early, erstwhile), easily confused with eald- ("age", cf. world, werald). This means, to me, Harpers notes remain instering despite disagreement with Grimm and the mainline concensus.

The overarching question, to bring this posting to a close, is Harper's a reliable source and can we streamline the respective paragraph? dab, Seraphimek--46.114.37.222 (talk) 12:08, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• In Herla the claim is sourced to [Weekley, More words ancient and modern] (which is free on archive.org) where he names Erlking en passant under the Harleqin if only to reject the comparison. The comparison is not sourced. Granted, it would be anachronistic if the much later evidence of Erlkönig cannot be the source for any Harlequin in principle, but our lemma is not directly concerned with it.
• Harper's quality as a source is not determined per two old wiki:RS discussions. The community concensus, it seems, holds it to be permissable as a first address. Concerned voices doubt Harper's expertiese and the authority in these etymologies and therefore recommend replacing it. For unsourced claims, reference might be found in any of the long list of general references in Harper's website.

I'm only concerned with the calling out of a "mistake" in Herder's old edition of the stuff. It strikes commentators as obviously wrong. This is completely against wp:NPOV. If the blame can not be qualified--it does not matter if Grimm finds Herder's wording obviously "wrong" and sees no other explanation than mistake, because it's not a second hand source!--it follows that there might be more to the mismatch in translation. After all, editors found the possibly wrong comparison to harlequin is notable, though vexing as it is. Just now I found that, if wikt:mannequin is from the Dutch ken-diminutive of man (cp. Ger. wikt:Männchen, more at Engl. wikt:-kin, viz. OE "cynna") then harlequin might show the same element as well prior to a cyng. I'm hopeful this means by Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (cp. soft, Du. zaacht, Ger. sanft) that elve and Erl could be connected. The elk (deer), German Elch do indeed go back to the above mentioned *h1el-. I don't need to explain to you how that may be, I'm sure, and I shouldn't have to engage in own research to explain it myself. So, if you can't figure it out, please keep it neutral and proclaim your biases For the time being, first of all a qualifying source is needed. 46.114.39.251 (talk) 11:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Complaint about sources

The complaint that the section on 'Reception in English literature' is unsourced is unfounded. The books in which the references to the Erlking are found are clearly named and the authors identified. Whether a particular reference is genuinely (as with Rowling) connected to the Erlking is a legitimate question, but not a matter of the source. 160.36.67.33 (talk) 17:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)