The Elves (Ludwig Tieck)

The Elves is a story by the romantic Ludwig Tieck . It was created in 1811 and appeared in his Phantasus collection in 1812 .

content

Away from a prosperous village with fertile fields and bright houses, there is a dark gypsy hut in a fir tree, where no one dares. The neighbors' children Marie and Andres race for the bottom, and Marie takes the shortcut. She meets the elf child Zerina, who shows her many beautiful things: flowers, the palace, dwarfs with gold, fire beings. In the morning the phoenix comes, which announces the arrival of the king and with it even more fertility, but which Marie is not allowed to see. She is given a gold ring with a red stone to say goodbye and a warning to keep silent. It's been seven years. Marie has to tell everyone that she got lost and was brought up in a distant city. The beautiful fifteen-year-old is modest to the Count, but not embarrassed, for she knows much higher things and is serious. She finds an elven gold piece with her fine and clever child Elfriede and watches it in a lonely arbor with Zerina. When her husband Andres scolds the gypsies again, she escapes a contradiction, and since he sneers, she shows him the elf. At his astonished sound, she angrily flies away. At night it thunders, the ferryman tells how a tall man put many bright figures across the river. The landscape withers, daughter and mother die in sadness, the others move away.

literature

• Thalmann, Marianne: Ludwig Tieck. The fairy tale from Phantasus. Dramas. Darmstadt 1978, pp. 163-183 and Pp. 898-899 (Scientific Book Society).