Elf-fair Lady

Lyrics

So many songs and tales they say
How the Elf Queen steals some men away
To her shining land beyond the sea
But all ‘til now have chosen to flee
Oh they have faint hearts that fear thee
Now I would never grow weary

Oh elf-fair lady, I long to see
Your milk-white steed on the village green
To carry me away beyond the West
To that golden land forever blest
Oh they have faint hearts that fear thee
Now I would never grow weary

I heard the tales and knew them true
All my life I have longed for you
Never have I loved a mortal maid
These fifty long years for you I stayed
Oh they have faint hearts that fear thee
Now I would never grow weary

The world wears on, the stories die
The young men think you but a lie
I cut the corn, and pile the sheaves
Once more I watch the falling leaves
Beyond the hill the sun goes down
But still I hear your distant horn

Now I am old they point and peer
As every day I await you here
I know you will come and heal my pain
Soon with you I shall dance again
Oh they have faint hearts that fear thee
Now I shall never grow weary

The world wears on, the stories die
The young men think you but a lie
I cut the corn, and pile the sheaves
Once more I watch the falling leaves
Beyond the hill the sun goes down
But still I hear your distant horn

Still I hear your hounds cry
See your hawk cross the sky
Your dance among the swaying trees
Your hair shining through the golden leaves
Your eyes among the winter stars
Your lips burning in my hearth

And now I hear you ride to me
Like thunder over the darkening sea

So many songs and tales they say
How the Elf Queen steals some men away
To her shining land beyond the sea
But all ‘til now have chosen to flee

Notes

In the 1930s, J.R.R.Tolkien and colleagues published the “Songs for the Philologists”, a booklet of songs they had written in ancient languages, which could be sung to tunes they and their students were familiar with. Presumably, it helped those students to become more comfortable with the languages (and everyone to have fun). One Anglo-Saxon song, “Ides Ælfscýne”, begins:

Þa ǽr ic wæs cniht, þa cóm ic on pliht:
Sum mægden mé métte ond mǽlde:
‘Lá, léofa, wes hál! Sceal uncer gedál
nú nǽfre má weorðan on eorðan!’
Nó má weorðan on eorðan.
Wá! ides ælfscýne, ond wá, wine míne!
Sceal nǽfre má weorðan on eorðan.

In his book “The Road to Middle-earth” the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey reprinted this with his own translation into modern English, which began:

Before I was so much as a boy, I came into danger; a maiden met me and said: ‘Greetings, my darling, from now on the two of us must never be separated on earth’ — never be separated on earth. Alas! elf-fair lady, and my friend, alas! must never more be separated on earth.

Tolkien was playing into the tradition of songs and tales about mortals taken away by elves, often the Queen of Elfland herself, who eventually return to their own mortal lands, yet not “unscathed” (or at least not “unchanged”).

My song borrowed the name of Tolkien’s poem, (in Shippey’s translation) and imagined someone who is also fascinated by this tradition.