The King of Elfland's Daughter

You know, I bet you could do a "Degrees of Christopher Lee" and get to ANYBODY pretty easily.  For example, he's the narrator of this 1977 album and "plays" The Elf King.  He even semi-SINGS a number.  Mary Hopkin is also on this.

So you could go from Christopher Lee to Mary Hopkin to the Beatles to almost anybody!

This is based on the wondrous 1924 book of the same name by Lord Dunsany.  My paperback cover is from Ballantine, and looks like this:

The writers of the album are  Bob Johnson and Pete Knight of Steeleye Span, and the musical style is a lot like Span's stuff of the time.

I encourage you to read this fun book.  It's not only charming and interesting to read, it's also one of those very accurate observations about some of our human foibles.  You see, the men of Eorl have decided that life is too ordinary and boring, so they ask their Lord to send their Lord's son to marry "The King of Elfland's Daughter," so liltingly portrayed by Mary Hopkin, and thus bring a bit of Elfland's magic to their humdrum lives.

Of course, by the end of the book, they realize that there is such a thing as "Too Much Magic," and wish they could just undo everything.

The album tells just bits of the story, so to get the full appreciation -- "the goodness of it 'ot" (to quote somebody -- TELL ME WHO!!!) you should really read the book as well as listen to this fun album.  Here are the tracks:

1. The Request (3.23)

2. Lirazel (4.11)

3. Witch (3.35)

4. Alveric's Journey Through Elfland (4.57)

5. The Rune of the Elf King (3.59)

6. The Coming of the Troll (1.53)

7. Just Another Day of Searching (5.09)

8. Too Much Magic (3.58)

9. Beyond the Fields We Know (4.29)



and here is the link:    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CWQCAELM


   see you next week!