Erlkönig (1782), one of Goethe's most beautiful ballads, evokes the elemental realm of spirits, which extends over the world of forests in the most uncanny way. Goethe resurrects a lunar and telluric poetry that reaches back to prehistoric times. Pre-Romanticism loved to revive the old legends anchored in prehistoric times in the form of folk ballads, according to which the souls of the dead wander and hover among the living and pose a constant threat to them. A father walks through a forest at ...