Fairy tales are part of the world’s vocabulary, with tales of various types spreading from continent to continent. There’s a Chinese version of “Cinderella,” for example, and an Italian version of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Something about the home-away-home structure of fairy tales is written into our brains as children and continues to stick with us as we grow up. Each semester when I teach a unit on fairy tales, college students are shocked to realize (or re-learn, maybe) that the tales that seemed so innocent when they were children are filled with death, ruin, and depravity. Those parts--the truly dark parts of fairy tales--always get glossed over in the Disney versions. 

While fairy tales aren’t always for children (their original audiences could be quite wide ranging, and really anyone who wanted to hear a good story and pass the time was game to listen to a tale), they often feature children who learn some sort of moral lesson about the world. The world, in these stories, is dangerous, and death is scary. Many of these texts are for children, including cartoons and picture books. 

I became interested in the story of “The Erlkönig” when I was a young (and painfully nerdy) college freshman, taking a music appreciation class and soaking in every bit of classical music I could. I learned the story through a musical adaptation of it, but it’s originally sourced back to a poem, and before that folklore.

In Johann von Goethe’s poem “The Erl-King,” or the Elf-King, a father races against time and the elements to save his son from a cold death. As the father rides towards safety, the young boy in his arms calls out to the Erlking, insisting that the elf is beckoning to him. Despite his father’s pleas, the young boy joins the Erlking, and when the father arrives to safety, his child is dead in his arms. Here’s the poem:

The Erl-King, by Johann von Goethe

Who’s riding so late where winds blow wild
It is the father grasping his child;
He holds the boy embraced in his arm,
He clasps him snugly, he keeps him warm.
“My son, why cover your face in such fear?”
“You see the elf-king, father?
He’s near! The king of the elves with crown and train!”
“My son, the mist is on the plain.”
‘Sweet lad, o come and join me, do!
Such pretty games I will play with you;
On the shore gay flowers their color unfold,
My mother has many garments of gold.’”
My father, my father, and can you not hear
The promise the elf-king breathes in my ear?”
“Be calm, stay calm, my child, lie low:
In withered leaves the night-winds blow.”
‘Will you, sweet lad, come along with me?
My daughters shall care for you tenderly;
In the night my daughters their revelry keep,
They’ll rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep.’
“My father, my father, o can you not trace
The elf-king’s daughters in that gloomy place?”
“My son, my son, I see it clear
How gray the ancient willows appear.”
‘I love you, your comeliness charms me, my boy!
And if you’re not willing, my force I’ll employ.’
“Now father, now father, he’s seizing my arm.
Elf-king has done me a cruel harm.”
The father shudders, his ride is wild,
In his arms he’s holding the groaning child,
Reaches the court with toil and dread.
The child he held in his arms was dead.

In this poem, the child feels a mixture of confusion, attraction, and fear towards the Erlking, but the father seems to know something the boy doesn’t: the Erlking means certain death.

As a literature scholar, it’s not that much of a leap for me to say that the Erlking is death, or that at the very least he represents the attractiveness of death when all seems lost. It’s also not a stretch to say that many fairy tales include morals that attempt to warn their audience away from death. Don’t walk in the woods alone, or maybe you’ll die. Don’t venture outside your home or maybe you’ll die. Don’t open that door you’re not supposed to open. Don’t talk to that creature that’s unfamiliar. Death is everywhere in fairy tales, but it’s often represented by supernatural creatures or phenomena. There’s a little art to the message, after all. Death is something that remains unknown to us; no matter how many people die, we can’t wrap our heads around what happens after, not really, and we have a hard time coping with the sudden loss of someone dear to us. That’s just the human way, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Knowing that his son is with the alluring and entrancing Erlking is not a comfort to the father who now must bury his son that he failed to save.

There’s something attractive about this kind of cautionary tale. Franz Shubert put Goethe’s poem to music in 1815, and kept working on it for several years after that. Shubert’s composition features only a piano and single vocalist, who uses different vocal ranges to convey the tone of each character. The effect is haunting.

In the story, the father pretends not to see or hear the Erlking, effectively ignoring death and continuing under the delusion that if he just keeps riding everything will be okay. When everything is not okay, and death prevails, he’s devastated. 

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Over the Garden Wall, an animated limited series, came out in 2014 on Cartoon Network. Created by Patrick McHale (who worked as a creative director for Adventure Time, and also did a bit of work on Gravity Falls--two other quirky kid shows), Over the Garden Wall follows the adventures of two brothers, Wirt (Elijah Wood) and Greg (Collin Dean) as they stumble through a fairy tale-esque landscape of strange creatures and musical interludes. As Wirt and Greg travel the Unknown, they discover an overarching plot involving The Beast, who promises a woodcutter he can keep his departed daughter’s soul alive through cutting down Edelwood trees and making them into oil for a lantern.

(Spoilers for Over the Garden Wall to follow)

On its surface, Over the Garden Wall doesn’t seem like a retelling of the Erlking tale, nor does it end with a child succumbing to the Erlking (or death). Instead the boys confront The Beast and establish that he’s nothing to be afraid of. Still, Over the Garden Wall, like the story of the Erlking and many other fairy tales, teaches an important lesson about death, or how to cope with death: we can’t stop death, and we can’t prevent people from dying, but we can choose positivity and joy over fear.

Throughout the series, Greg and Wirt are at odds, arguing about what path to take, where to stop, and who to talk to. They’re brothers and they behave like brothers, but the two ultimately care for each other and are prepared to make sacrifices for the other’s safety. Greg, the younger brother, often behaves foolishly and shows his age by attempting to engage with every scary creature the two encounter. However, despite the extreme dourness of their situation, Greg shrugs off all obstacles, shifting the teapot on his head and saying, “Ain’t that just the way?”

When Wirt has had enough of being the leader of their small group, Greg enthusiastically takes over. At first, he hopes to find guidance in his dreams, but he only finds that his brother is slipping into the clutches of the Beast. Greg whispers something to the angel in his dream, who asks him, “Are you sure?” 

Then Greg walks into the woods to sacrifice himself to the Beast in place of Wirt. 

The prospect of sacrificing oneself to an unknown and dangerous entity might warrant concern, but Greg continues smiling as he promises to help the Beast with some unknown task. When we meet Greg again, he’s collected several fairy tale items for the Beast as part of a ritual. Greg has already collected a golden comb and a spool of silver thread when we see him receive his third task, though he’s interpreted these items differently from what the Beast perhaps intended (the golden comb is a honeycomb and the silver thread is a cobweb). The final task is to catch the sun in a teacup, so Greg puts the cup on a stump and sits in the cold to wait for sunset. These tasks are impossible, but throughout the scene Greg remains cheerful. Even as he waits for the sun to set, growing colder and colder, Greg maintains a positive attitude and finds joy in his tasks. 

Most importantly, Greg isn’t afraid of the Beast, which means, by proxy, he’s not afraid of death, not really. 

Of course, Wirt eventually shows up and confronts the beast, but fighting the Beast isn’t really an option. Instead, Wirt does something Greg might do: he tells the Beast he’s not afraid of him, that the Beast is the one in a vulnerable position.

I don’t want to spoil this show for you, because it’s very good. The point of all this--discussing the Erlking and Over the Garden Wall in conversation-- is to say that fairy tales (and stories inspired by them) still have lessons to teach us on dealing with life, and by association, death. Greg’s positivity isn’t his way of giving up or agreeing to help the Beast, it’s a conscious choice to try and help his brother, to try and stand up to the most evil thing he’s known--it just looks a little different than we traditionally think a confrontation is supposed to look. 

Sometimes small actions can be powerful; naming your fears is powerful, and refusing to let those fears sap everything out of you is also powerful. Being nice to a person you hate is a choice, and a powerful one. Greg, who is written as a dumb kid for most of the show (albeit an endearing dumb kid) is maybe the smartest and bravest character in the series. 

Ultimately, it’s not entirely clear if Wirt and Greg really went to the Unknown, or if their adventure was just one big hallucination as they were caught between life and death, but Greg’s bravery in the face of death touches on an important trope in fairy tales: outsmarting the bad guy and proving one’s worthiness. In Greg’s case, outsmarting was done with the help of his brother (which really hammers home the theme of brotherhood the show is going for), but Greg shows his worth all on his own, through his choice to show kindness and respect to even the most vile villain of the woods. It’s easy to go with the Erlking; it’s much harder to be nice to the Erlking.

The world is kind of a crappy place right now. There are real-life vile villains, real life Beasts. We have to make the decision to be like Greg, and be kind to each other, instead of succumbing to the darkness of our own spirits, or blindly accepting the Erlking. Just because something looks appealing doesn’t mean it is, and kindness really can combat evil. I have to continue to believe that. 

So, let’s all be Gregs.