The King of Elfland's Daughter Lord Dunsany BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK First Ballantine Books edition: June, 1969 Printed in Canada BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC. 101 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 TO LADY DUNSANY Preface I hope that no suggestion of any strange land that may be conveyed by the title will scare readers away from this book; for, though some chapters do indeed tell of Elfland, in the greater part of them there is no more to be shown than the face of the fields we know, and ordinary English woods and a common village and valley, a good twenty or twenty-five miles from the border of Elfland. LORD DUNSANY _Contents_ Preface I The Plan of the Parliament of Erl II Alveric Comes in Sight of the Elfin Mountains III The Magical Sword Meets Some of the Swords of Elfland IV Alveric Comes Back to Earth After Many Years V The Wisdom of the Parliament of Erl VI The Rune of the Elf King VII The Coming of the Troll VIII The Arrival of the Rune IX Lirazel Blows Away X The Ebbing of Elfland XI The Deep of the Woods XII The Unenchanted Plain XIII The Reticence of the Leather-Worker XIV The Quest for the Elfin Mountains XV The Retreat of the Elf King XVI Orion Hunts the Stag XVII The Unicorn Comes in the Starlight XVIII The Grey Tent in the Evening XIX Twelve Old Men Without Magic XX A Historical Fact XXI On the Verge of Earth XXII Orion Appoints a Whip XXIII Lurulu Watches the Restlessness XXIV Lurulu Speaks of Earth and the Ways of Men XXV Lirazel Remembers the Fields We Know XXVI The Horn of Alveric XXVII The Return of Lurulu XXVIII A Chapter on Unicorn-Hunting XXIX The Luring of the People of the Marshes XXX The Coming of Too Much Magic XXXI The Cursing of Elfin Things XXXII Lirazel Yearns for Earth XXXIII The Shining Line XXXIV The Last Great Rune CHAPTER I _The Plan of the Parliament of Erl_ In their ruddy jackets of leather that reached to their knees the men of Erl appeared before their lord, the stately white-haired man in his long red room. He leaned in his carven chair and heard their spokesman. And thus their spokesman said. "For seven hundred years the chiefs of your race have ruled us well; and their deeds are remembered by the minor minstrels, living on yet in their little tinkling songs. And yet the generations stream away, and there is no new thing." "What would you?" said the lord.