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 What We Did
in the Seventies
The King of Elfland's
Daughter
a folk/blues/rock adaptation
of the Lord Dunsany novel by Bob
Johnson & Pete Knight
featuring: Mary
Hopkin, Christopher Lee, Alexis Korner.
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Yes, children,
we had superstars in the Seventies.
And then we had quirky projects like this one.
Based on the
novel of the same name by Lord Dunsany
(q.v.), which also was a major inspiration for
the fantasy of Michael Moorcock (note the
lines here about Alveric's sword: "Rune
singer, doom bringer... Death dealer, soul
stealer..."), this was a side project for
Johnson & Knight then (and again recently)
in Steeleye Span, and a whole lot of other
oddly assorted Brit folkie, blues and
theatrical types; part of the Seventies fad
for elaborate concept albums.
It's a good one, nonetheless.
Narrated by Christopher Lee, the only living
actor i know of who can speak in SMALL CAPS
(who also portrays the King of Elfland and
sort-of sings one song), this is the story of
the ill-advised decision by the people of the
land of Erl to demand that their Lord's son,
Alveric (Frankie Miller), go to Elfland and
find and steal and marry the King of Elfland's
daughter, Lirazel (Mary Hopkin), in order to
bear a magic son to rule Erl. (Why is not
specified here, but it sounds like a bad idea
to me.)
Pausing only to get himself a sword forged
from a thunderbolt by a blues-shouting witch
(P. P. Arnold), Alveric sets out and
does just that, and he and Lirazel are happily
settled in the mortal world when the King
(Christopher Lee) sends a troll (Brit blues
legend Alexis Korner) with a rune, and Lirazel
is forced to return to Elfland, which means,
of course, that Alveric has to go on another
quest to find her (aptly summed up in the song
"(Just) Another Day of Searching"), while
various denizens of Elfland, having sneaked
across the border, raise hob in Erl ("Too Much
Magic", which features a school choir on
backing vocals).
Finally, however, the King relents, and, in a
compromise of sorts, annexes Erl into Elfland,
which leads to the final song, "Beyond the
Fields We Know", beautifully sung by Hopkin.
This outline sounds sillier than Dunsany's
original story, or even the album, but the
album does suffer a bit from the fact
that they have compressed a pretty good-sized
novel into one album -- but is pretty good for
all that.
Several of the songs (particularly "Witch!",
with its bluesy anthem verse and
chorus/forging spell ending in the ringing
declaration "Thunderbolt iron will win the
day!", "The Coming of the Troll", in Korner's
whiskey-voiced bark -- "I'm so free
nothing can catch me!" -- and the final song,
summing up the lure and grandeur and wonder of
all good fantasy. promising that "Someday we
shall go where there is neither Right nor
Wrong...") are likely to stay with you a
while, and the portrayal of Dunsany's twilit,
sepia-toned fantasy world is accurate enough
that one can almost see the strange woods and
twisted castles of Elfland.
I don't know if i'd recommend this for everyone
-- but fans of Dunsany or of Michael Moorcock
or of that sort of fantasy in general
certainly ought consider it, as should fans of
Steeleye Span, Mary Hopkin or Christopher Lee.
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