ERLKONIG or ERL-KING, a mythical character in mod ern German literature, does not exist in ancient German myth ology. The name is linguistically merely the perpetuation of a blunder in Herder's Stimmen der Volker (1778), where it is used in the translation of the Danish song of the Elf-King's Daughter as equivalent to the Danish ellerkonge, ellekonge, or elverkonge, king of the elves; the true German word would have been El bkonig or Elbenkonig, afterwards modified to El f enkonig by Wieland in his Oberon (178o). Herder was probably misled by the Danish word elle signifying both elf and alder tree (Ger. Erle). His mistake has been perpetuated by both English and French translators, who explain the myth in the tree-worship of early times, or in the vapoury emanations round alder trees at night. The legend was adopted by Goethe as the subject of one of his finest ballads, and has been treated as a musical theme by Reichardt and Schubert.