Goethe’s Elf King

Goethe’s Elf King

I wrote a blog last week about “Spleen,” an – I think to myself – ugly word for a particularly unique feeling. I want to expand on that with the start of October: the days are visibly getting shorter and grayer, and the poison-green plants are going barren. Leaves crumble from the trees and crunch like chips under your walking shoes.

You walk through the annually dying trees and plants, and the silence gives you space to ponder and reflect aloud.

Memories and catching a cold.

An evening walk is no longer done to get a glow of evening sun on your cheeks, but to let the damp wind squeeze your nose and ears.

I can get very nostalgic about that.

As a child, I loved going for walks in the dark on autumn or winter days. Then my father and I would walk silently side by side.

My father looked up.

Me to the back.

To prevent something from haunting us in the foggy dark.

My father was not afraid.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (°Frankfurt am Main, August 28, 1749, †Weimar, March 22, 1832) could put his finger on that in his ballad Der Erlkönig (1782): “Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind; In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.”

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