“The Elves” (original: “Die Elfen”) was written by Ludwig Tieck and first appeared in Phantasus (1811). Tieck (1773-1853) was one of the foremost early German Romantic writers. Tieck is best-known today for his literary fairy tales, the kunstmärchen.

Somewhere in the mountains is a village surrounded by beautiful, lush fields and forests and protected by the castle of a Count. Only one spot is dreary: a patch of fir in which sits a small cluster of squalid huts populated by ragged, dirty people. The patch of fir is separated from the village by a stream which is crossed by a bridge, and all of the people of the village avoid the patch of fir and the people who live there, who keep themselves separate and might by Romany. But one day young Mary, racing against her neighbor and friend Andres, decides to take a short cut through the fir patch rather than run the long way around. Mary races across the bridge and discovers that the patch of fir is a much brighter and wonderful world than it appeared from the other side of the bridge and that the people are more beautiful and nobler than they appeared to be. Mary meets a girl her age named Zerina, and the two play and walk around the area. Mary sees all the wonderful things of the area–the glorious landscape, the great hall of the people (who are, Zerina tells Mary, “the Elves”), and even the arrival of the King. When Mary is about to return to the village she is told that the arrival of the King means that the land will flower and be blessed. Zerina gives Mary a ring but tells her never to tell anyone of the existence of the Elves, or they will have to leave, and with them will go the blessing and happiness of the land. When Mary crosses back over the bridge and leaves the land of the Elves, she discovers that her parents have aged, that her home is different, that Andres has aged, and she has aged as well–seven years have passed during the one night she spent in the land of the Elves.

Mary’s parents are glad to have her home, and everyone marvels at how beautiful Mary has become, and when the Count and his Lady summon her to tell them her story they are struck at her behavior:

the old Count and his Lady were surprised at her good breeding; she was modest, but not embarrassed; she made answer courteously in good phrases to all their questions; all fear of noble persons and their equipage had passed away from her; for when she measured these halls and forms by the wonders and the high beauty she had seen with the Elves in their hidden abode, this earthly splendour seemed but dim to her, the presence of men was almost mean. The young lords were charmed with her beauty.¹

The land blossoms early and long, and that autumn Mary agrees to become Andres’ bride. They are happy together and soon have a daughter Elfrida, but Mary always thinks with longing and regret about the land of the Elves. Elfrida matures frighteningly quickly; she is able to speak articulately when she is only a year old, and within a few years she is wise and clever and beautiful. She is also serious and prefers to be alone rather than to play with the other little children; she is always happiest sitting in a corner of the garden, left alone to read. Mary and Andres grow accustomed to Elfrida’s behavior, and when Mary discovers a strangely formed piece of gold around Elfrida’s neck, Mary leaves it there. But one day Mary, looking through a chink in the wall of one of their buildings, sees Elfrida, in the grove of the garden, talking and playing with Zerina. Mary begins spying on them, and when Zerina begins flying with Elfrida an alarmed Mary pokes her head through the wall of the building. Zerina merely looks at Mary, holds up a finger, and smiles a warning to her. Andres, meanwhile, is growing increasingly resentful of the “Gypsies,” and Mary’s defense of them mystifies him. Eventually Mary shows Andres the chink in the wall, and he, astonished, makes a noise. Zerina hears, glances indignantly at Mary, hugs Elfrida “with stormy haste,” and then turns into a raven and flies away. That night a tower of ravens flies from the land, and the following morning Mary sees that the stone on her ring has become pale. The land quickly becomes bleaker and joyless. A local ferryman tells Mary about the passage across his river of a great white streaming light with many thousands of glittering forms. The Count and his Lady leave their castle, which falls into ruins, and as the land withers and dies so does Elfrida. Mary outlives Elfrida by only few years.

“The Elves” is one of the best nineteenth century kunstmärchen. As part of the German Romantic movement, there was a revival in the popularity of the fairy tale in Germany beginning in the late eighteenth century. Writers as different and respected as Wilhelm Hauff (see: The Caravan), E.T.A. Hoffmann (see: “The Sandman”), and Goethe himself wrote kunstmärchen. The kunstmärchen are essentially fairy tales, but with a more mature sensibility and a more conscious manipulation of cultural and literary motifs behind their writing. “The Elves” is a good example of this. It is a relatively simple fairy tale, but it deals compellingly and memorably with several motifs which have become mainstays and even clichés in modern fantasy fiction, including elves as higher and better beings (rather than evil baby-stealers), time loss from trips to Faerie, and Faerie as a perilous place for the unwary. “The Elves” is not exactly horror, not like some of Tieck’s other work, but it is an effective story of the supernatural and Faerie. Tieck nicely delivers the sense not just that the Elves are a better, higher people and that Faerie is different from the world, but also that humans who interact with the Elves and visit Faerie are irrevocably changed by it.

Print: Douglas A. Anderson, ed. Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2005.

¹ Ludwig Tieck, “The Elves,” in Douglas A. Anderson, ed., Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2005), 22.