#erlking

The collection itself was discovered during the attempted reconstruction of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne after its collapse in 2009. It contained eight reported sightings of an otherwise largely unknown creature, collected and curated by a Prussian bureaucrat by the name of Karl Ulrich von Ingersleben.

In the introduction, von Ingersleben writes: 

“The following stories have been relayed to me by citizens from all walks of life, desperate to find someone to make sense of what they experienced for them. Most of them had been to the police and the Central Bureau of Investigation before they came to me. I could not help them, but I could record their experience and file them away together with others of its kind. I was convinced to put these together in a single volume by my dear friend and colleague Helmut, who also encouraged me to first start compiling my theories as to their origin.”

Before we take a look at his theories and examine them in the context of biological knowledge at the time, it seems appropriate to relay one of the reports. The following report was given to von Ingersleben in 1836 by a young carpenter who had lost his young daughter.

“I was working on the construction of a bridge over near Bochum. The job was… fine. It was pretty standard work. The bridge had been commissioned by some Junker who had bought a nearby estate after the war and didn’t want to take the long way into town. At least he’d paid for decent quality materials.

Unfortunately, the building site was fairly in the middle of nowhere. The estate was the closest sign of civilization, and the town was a solid one-and-a-half hour walk away. Our crew, some fifteen men, usually spent the weeknights in the covered wagons we used to transport the materials.

The day when… when it happened… was a Thursday. My father, who used to run the business before I did, had come by earlier that day and brought my daughter with him. She was four, and the whole thing was so exciting to her. 

All day she was running around on the construction site, while the old man sat by the riverbank and made small talk with the masons. Come evening, we packed everything up. It was the holy week, and we were all going home from Good Friday till Easter Sunday. 

My father, my daughter and I ended up being the last to leave. It wasn't all that late, but it was cloudy and got dark quickly. I was driving our wagon, my daughter in my lap, and my father rode along on his horse next to us. 

We stuck close to the river for the first part of the way. This usually made for an easy journey, but that night it meant we were dealing with heavy fog on top of the pitch-black darkness of the cloudy sky.

The first sign that something was off was the horses getting nervous. We didn't think much of it. Horses get nervous about so many things, and if some hungry wolf was desperate enough to approach the cart I would have greeted it with the musket I kept below my seat. 

Looking back now, it seems so obvious. It was utterly silent. Not just the fog swallowing most of the noise, there was nothing. No birds, nothing. A few times, we almost lost the dirt road because we just couldn't make anything out, couldn't even hear the river next to us. 

What made us realize that there was something strange out there was the stench. It crept up on us in this grey nothingness, but once we noticed it it was overwhelming. I can barely describe it… It wasn't the sweetness of rot or decay, it was something much more pungent and heinous.

We urged our horses to go faster, but they could only go so fast under these circumstances. 

Then, there was that noise. A scream, maybe? A shriek. Bone-shaking. Visceral. It wasn't someone screaming in pain, it was something unearthly announcing its presence. It came from some distance away, in the darkness to our left. Then, a while later, somewhere ahead of us. 

We were terrified. My daughter was crying. The horses were no less frightened than we were, straining against their harnesses. We tried to get away as quickly as we could, but somehow my father must have lost control of his horse, and it reared up and threw him off. 

I was terrified, but I couldn't just leave him behind. Against better judgment, I stopped the wagon, and got off to look for him. 

He was shaken and his horse had disappeared into the darkness, but he hadn't injured himself beyond a few bruises. 

My daughter screamed. I jumped back to the wagon, but she was gone. I… You can't imagine how afraid I was. I scrambled to grab the lantern to look for her, and dropped it. 

Burning oil flooded the dirt road, and my horses went fully insane. They tore loose from their harnesses and ran away into the night, but I didn't care. I was just looking for my daughter, who was screaming some distance away. 

The fire painted flickering shapes in the darkness. There was someone - something - out there, a figure in the fog. It stood oddly hunched over, as though it was struggling to stand upright. There was a smaller shape before it. I was certain that it was my daughter, being dragged away from me by this shambling thing. 

I lunged for it, and tried to wrest my daughter away from it. It hit me in the chest with the force of an angry bull. I fell backwards, and scrambled to stand back up. 

My father must have grabbed the musket from beneath my seat. Before I had even gotten up, he fired a shot into the mist, but to no avail. The figure disappeared, and there was a terrible, terrible noise. A crunch, a violent rending and breaking, a high-pitched scream suddenly ending. I heard my daughter die.

Then, there was silence again. 

We hid in the wagon, after that. The thing that had killed my daughter was gone, and we could do nothing but hide like cowards.”

The report goes on to describe the journey home in the morning, but delivers no further details on the creature that attacked the family. This would by no means be sufficient to speculate on the creature in question, but von Ingersleben connects the incident to other reports of very similar encounters, one of which gives us a clearer description:

“The beast stood almost as tall as a man. Its pitch-black fur was oil-slick and as thick as a suit of armor. Its head was almost round, and bore a lighter stripe in the middle of the face. Its short snout opened to reveal a set of curved teeth as sharp as knives. 

It seemed to be unused to standing on two legs, and swayed like a boxer waiting to find a gap in his enemy's guard. The stench that surrounded it was unbearable, and hung heavy in the air.”

The pattern of attack is consistent throughout the reports: the creature approaches a small group of people in the night, intimidates them through vocalizations, isolates the weakest member, and drags it off. It avoids direct confrontation. In one of these encounters, it is even driven away by an armed boy with a pitchfork. 

Enclosed with one of these reports is a small bushel of black hair. Even after more than 150 years, it still faintly smells of musk and ammonia. 

The conclusions von Ingersleben draws from these descriptions are interesting. He proposes that the creature, which he named ‘Erlking’ after the child-snatching fairy from Goethe’s eponymous ballad, is a species of semiaquatic bear that dwells in rivers and emerges only at night to hunt. 

With respect to the dates of his reports, he remarks that the Erlking, unlike other bears, doesn't hibernate.

Modern genetic analysis of the hair sample he enclosed with his reports has proven him to be wrong, if just slightly. The Erlking is not, in fact, a bear. Instead, it is a mustelid, closely related to the European badger. We propose the scientific name meles alnurex for this previously unknown species. 

This, of course, fits in rather nicely with the reports. Mustelids are known for the strong, unpleasant scents emitted from their anal gland. Similarly, mustelids like the wolverine are famous for their enormous bite strength and physical prowess. It is easy to see how a particularly large member of that family could perform attacks like the ones described by von Ingersleben. 

Daisy comes to the door of Erlking’s cabin and knocks on the door, leaving a present on the doorstep before teleporting away.

Erlking opens the door and picks up the present.

“Dante.” He said going over to the couch where Dante was laying down, staring up at the ceiling.

“Daisy seems to have delivered your present.”

“..My present..?” He said wincing as he sat up.

Erlking sat next to him and gently rested it in his lap. “I kind of knew it was coming. Since I got you something.”

“…” Guilt seemed to wash over his face for an unknown reason. But he opens the g-

Dante throws the gift across the room though it’s a bit too late for the explosion to not affect him. Letting out a pained scream.

“HOLY SHIT-“ Erlking flew backwards, his back hitting a wall.. Once the explosion was over he immediately rushed to Dante’s aid, healing him with his magic

Dante’s breathing was labored, his injury exasperated by the explosion. It- almost seemed like he was panicking too..

“It’s okay- I’ve got you.. It’s okay..” He said softly.

Dante.. slowly broke down and began to cry..

Despite this not being her home, what a welcome back to these hallowed halls! 

And He got all dressed up, brought everyone back for a party, and then oh! The supposed-spousal-abuse thing. Nice touch. 

Shaking her head free of the twinkling stars she sworn were circling it, the Woman carefully – oh-so-carefully-that-f*cking-hurt – picked herself up, hands moving, brushing dead leaves away from her legs and backside.  

Blinking and re-focusing on his most magnanimous figure – yeeeah right – she twittered off the most annoying sound possible, designed solely to abuse his most royal hearing. 

“And that is why you can’t keep a girl, Andar. Oh, wait, let me use your full, true name,” she drawled out slowly, more slowly because she was in the process of gathering her wits. “Od--!” 

Pale hands shot out, one circling around the base of her skull and the other slapping harshly over her mouth, muffling her words, making her quiet.  

His words, venomous, poured into her ear, “You little mortal bitch, try that again and I …” 

He trailed off with a scoff and released her with a push, as though her very presence near Him was Anathema. At least this time she kept her feet, though beneath her red, red skirts the Woman’s legs shook. A hidden tremor, swiftly soothed by her burning spite.  

They didn’t like their True Names bandied about, even the highest kept those secret and thus, themselves safe. 

“You’ll do ….” a brow arch, “…what, exactly? Kill me, imprison me? Grant you, the killing thing would be new for you but …” Oh yes, there was no mistaking the familiarity between them, the weight of years, and of long held grudges.  

Bright amber eyes rolled away from and searched among the crowd, most appearing to be human though she knew better, knew that here she was the proverbial lamb among the wolves. And in the air was anticipation for a slaughter.  

“I think our daughter would have a thing or two to say about you killing her mother.” 

The court fluttered and murmured, a sudden chorus of voices, sounding like cracking fire, rustling leaves, and whispering wind.   

A pause and then with a crooked smile, the Woman made a flourishing bow, her arm making a sweeping ark above her head, gliding down so her fingertips brushed the ground, before curling around her left hip. Observing proper etiquette even now, even here, and to Him no less, the Woman granted curtsey with her hostility.  

The court buzzed and twittered, making note that while she did bow, she did not bend her knee. Never again will she willingly consent to being at His feet.  

“And all Hail to you, mighty Erlking.” 

He had not anticipated this.  

There she stood beautiful and beautiful in that haunting way of mortals. Gone was the young girl he had entranced and enticed to be by his side and to bear his seed.

The flush of youth had vanished and, in its place, the first signs of aging, crow’s feet at her eyes and laugh-lines at the corners of her mouth, made more from laughing than screaming. Whatever innocence once housed within that mortal body had long since fled, filled with the forbidden knowledge of a world outside his control.  

He did not anticipate this when confronted with the Truth of her mortality. A sharp pang of sorrow he felt, and swift on its heels an urge to snatch, to take, and to keep. The thought to have her drink a poison that would make the mortal coil wither away, leaving her soulless yes, but whole and with him – forever. 

Dead to the Outside but kept whole Underground.  

It's only forever, not long at all. 

After all, such things in the past have been done before among his People.  

Yes, yes, yes.  

He would shelter, protect, and keep - 

My mother is dead.