{"id":14398,"date":"2024-10-17T10:51:52","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T08:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dirkvanbabylon.com\/ongecategoriseerd\/goethes-elf-king\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T23:47:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T22:47:33","slug":"goethes-elf-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dirkvanbabylon.com\/en\/hannas-mind-wanderings\/goethes-elf-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Goethe’s Elf King"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote a blog last week about “Spleen,”<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

You walk through the annually dying trees and plants, and the silence gives you space to ponder and reflect aloud.<\/p>\n

Memories and catching a cold.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I can get very nostalgic about that.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

My father looked up.<\/p>\n

Me to the back.<\/p>\n

To prevent something from haunting us in the foggy dark.<\/p>\n

My father was not afraid.<\/p>\n

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (\u00b0Frankfurt am Main, August 28, 1749, \u2020Weimar, March 22, 1832) could put his finger on that in his ballad Der Erlk\u00f6nig (1782)<\/a>: “Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind; In d\u00fcrren Bl\u00e4ttern s\u00e4uselt der Wind.”<\/p>\n

\"The
The poem Der Erlk\u00f6nig<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n