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The Erl-King
A maiden wanders into the woods and is seduced by the sinister Erl-King, a seeming personification of the forest itself. However, she eventually realizes his plans and takes action...
39 pages
First published January 1, 1979
322 people want to read
About the author
Angela Carter
213 books3,742 followersBorn Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled anorexia. She began work as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature.
She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982) that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised." She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).
She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.
As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Wolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).
At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives.
Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer. Her obituary published in The Observer said, "She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and reveled in the diverse."
She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982) that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised." She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).
She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.
As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Wolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).
At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives.
Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer. Her obituary published in The Observer said, "She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and reveled in the diverse."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
March 27, 2019
this is a masterpiece. a FUCKING masterpiece. angela carter is a goddess and i feel like there’s real, pure and raw magic in this tale. kudos to the bloody chamber.
January 2, 2023
Such a beautiful piece, I could truly drink this tale over and over, time and time again; once on audio was beautiful but the physical copy allows each word to sink in deeper and deeper, until you are brambled and entangled in a dark dark wood
(Think this is my favorite angela carter so far! Beats the bloody chamber in my opinion)
(Think this is my favorite angela carter so far! Beats the bloody chamber in my opinion)
December 31, 2025
Truly disturbing and, at the same time, linguistically fascinating! I found the ending somewhat confusing, but I did find some interesting and truly convincing interpretations, which make the story even more exciting from a feminist perspective.
Overall: 4.8🌟
Overall: 4.8🌟
November 29, 2017
This is the most beautiful story I've ever read. The heavy imagery, the description of the eyes (as reducing chambers, corrosive green, burning black holes), the picture of the forest itself - it's all so overwhelmingly beautiful. The story itself is dark and intricate for being so brief, with layers upon layers to unpack.
April 8, 2019
I love you, Annie.
April 2018
April 2019
You are forever my favorite ghost.
April 23, 2025
A short story—6 or so pages—that makes you say “wow” right after reading. Angela Carter has such a singular ability to make you feel like she’s painted you right into the dark ethereal world she created. It’s so easy to be drawn to it and disgusted by it at the same time.
November 27, 2023
I'm out of words to describe Angela Carter's prose, so I'll just say I want to crawl into the world of this story and never crawl out, even if I have to be a pretty bird in one of the Erl-King's woven cages. Absolutely spellbinding.
"He is the tender butcher who showed me how the price of flesh is love; skin the rabbit! he says, and off come all my clothes."
"He is the tender butcher who showed me how the price of flesh is love; skin the rabbit! he says, and off come all my clothes."
May 3, 2016
GRACIAS @/SEÑOR
October 13, 2025
2✨
It took me half the story what was actually happening
The end was kind of fire though - she ate.
❤️
It took me half the story what was actually happening
The end was kind of fire though - she ate.
❤️
January 22, 2025
“Your green eye is a reducing chamber. If I look into it long enough, I wil become as small as my own reflection, I will diminish to a point and vanish. I will be drawn down into that black whirlpool and be consumed by you. I shall become so small you can keep me in one of your osier cages and mock my loss of liberty.”
Ravishing, absolutely ravishing.
Ravishing, absolutely ravishing.
November 26, 2013
Prose style: 4
Plot: 3
Depth of characters: 2
Originality: 3
Entertaining: 3
Emotional Reaction: 3
Intellectual Stimulation: 3
Plot: 3
Depth of characters: 2
Originality: 3
Entertaining: 3
Emotional Reaction: 3
Intellectual Stimulation: 3
November 15, 2020
A masterpiece indeed. I just found my new favorite writer.
September 15, 2023
A beautiful prose poem.
March 11, 2024
angela carter my historical crush… raw magic in this tale <3 lucid and grotesque; many lines that had me SCREAMING. cannot even articulate an appropriate response.
May 5, 2019
Naklada Jesenski i Turk
Zagreb, 2015.
Prevela Senka Galenić
Jezik je grandiozno aktualiziran i atmosferičan. Snaga jezičnog izražavanja je na razini udara asteroida. Neka sam tekst svjedoči o sebi:
"Prozračnost, jasnoća svjetlosti tog poslijepodneva bila je dovoljna sama po sebi; savršena prozirnost mora biti neprobojna, sve okomite pruge brončano nijansiranog destilata svjetlosti prosijavaju iz sumporastožutih raspuklina na nebu koje puca po šavovima od sivkastih oblaka nabreklih kišnim kapima. Svjetlost dotiče šumu prstima požutjelim od nikotina, lišće svjetluca. Hladni je dan kasnog listopada, kad se sasušene kupine njišu poput vlastitih utvara u izblijedjelom kupinjaku. Hrskave ljuske bukovih i odbačenih hrastovih žirova ležaše u crvenkastosmeđem glibu sagnjile paprati, gdje su kiše ekvinocija toliko natopile zemlju da je studen probijala kroz potplate cipela, razdriruća hladnoća kao nagovještaj zime, mrzlina koja vas ščepa za donji dio trbuha i ne pušta, snažno gnječi i tiska."
U pogledu sadržaja; sveprisutni Carteričin topos ljubavi između čovjeka i nečovjeka. Koliko su time Carteričine proze ogled posthumanizma kao furke i nadolazećeg totalitarizma ovog doba?
Žudnja, putena i emocionalna, za nečovjekom, u ovom slučajem- vilenjakom, je sve prisutnija u kulturnim obrascima posthumanističkog podteksta te transhumanističke prakse.
Transhumanizam je već začet u transrodnoj ideologiji te taj degenerativni i fundementalistički drek svoj smrad vješto prikriva. Najbolji dokaz tome jest činjenica da u medijima gotovo da i nema riječi o transhumanizmu.
Normalno je da je rod socijalni konstukt, normalno je da dva muškarca odgajaju djecu, normalno je da ljudi mijenjaju spolove i rodove, normalan je i pobačaj.
Hm, malo je čudna ta normalnost, zar ne?
No, kako god, pročitajte ovu priču!
¡Hasta luego!
Zagreb, 2015.
Prevela Senka Galenić
Jezik je grandiozno aktualiziran i atmosferičan. Snaga jezičnog izražavanja je na razini udara asteroida. Neka sam tekst svjedoči o sebi:
"Prozračnost, jasnoća svjetlosti tog poslijepodneva bila je dovoljna sama po sebi; savršena prozirnost mora biti neprobojna, sve okomite pruge brončano nijansiranog destilata svjetlosti prosijavaju iz sumporastožutih raspuklina na nebu koje puca po šavovima od sivkastih oblaka nabreklih kišnim kapima. Svjetlost dotiče šumu prstima požutjelim od nikotina, lišće svjetluca. Hladni je dan kasnog listopada, kad se sasušene kupine njišu poput vlastitih utvara u izblijedjelom kupinjaku. Hrskave ljuske bukovih i odbačenih hrastovih žirova ležaše u crvenkastosmeđem glibu sagnjile paprati, gdje su kiše ekvinocija toliko natopile zemlju da je studen probijala kroz potplate cipela, razdriruća hladnoća kao nagovještaj zime, mrzlina koja vas ščepa za donji dio trbuha i ne pušta, snažno gnječi i tiska."
U pogledu sadržaja; sveprisutni Carteričin topos ljubavi između čovjeka i nečovjeka. Koliko su time Carteričine proze ogled posthumanizma kao furke i nadolazećeg totalitarizma ovog doba?
Žudnja, putena i emocionalna, za nečovjekom, u ovom slučajem- vilenjakom, je sve prisutnija u kulturnim obrascima posthumanističkog podteksta te transhumanističke prakse.
Transhumanizam je već začet u transrodnoj ideologiji te taj degenerativni i fundementalistički drek svoj smrad vješto prikriva. Najbolji dokaz tome jest činjenica da u medijima gotovo da i nema riječi o transhumanizmu.
Normalno je da je rod socijalni konstukt, normalno je da dva muškarca odgajaju djecu, normalno je da ljudi mijenjaju spolove i rodove, normalan je i pobačaj.
Hm, malo je čudna ta normalnost, zar ne?
No, kako god, pročitajte ovu priču!
¡Hasta luego!
Read
January 8, 2022I worked as an outdoor educator for two decades. Many people I met therein had a very romantic view of 'nature'. It was lovely and beautiful and healing etc etc. Now it can be this, but it can, like the story says 'do you harm'. Like Algernon Blackwoods 'The Wendigo', this story reminds us not to assume a rosy romantic view of our wild places. I love the way she makes this plain and feminine. Mother nature, in the protagonist, has teeth.
March 22, 2024
3.7
The shifting tenses and beautiful poetic prose keeps the reader on their toes, and while the style chosen by the author can trip the reader up at times, the story itself presents the beauty and horror of nature and the enticement and terror of being kept in the loving hands of a god that you must eventually outgrow or lose the possibility of freedom forever.
The shifting tenses and beautiful poetic prose keeps the reader on their toes, and while the style chosen by the author can trip the reader up at times, the story itself presents the beauty and horror of nature and the enticement and terror of being kept in the loving hands of a god that you must eventually outgrow or lose the possibility of freedom forever.
March 13, 2025
Stunning. I googled Latin words for "slutty" to describe how alluring one paragraph was. I hungrily ate this shit up.
I have a few complaints -I got urked the wrong way one too many times- I almost wanted to decrease the rating over it. HOWEVER, I was urked positively more than negatively.
I have a few complaints -I got urked the wrong way one too many times- I almost wanted to decrease the rating over it. HOWEVER, I was urked positively more than negatively.
March 17, 2021
Read for uni 📚
Read
October 26, 2022“‘Mother, mother, you have murdered me!’”
March 22, 2023
What a wonderful English Angela had...
May 9, 2023
Pięknie napisane, muszę rzucić okiem na więcej historii tej autorki
February 22, 2024
The writing style ,the way she describes everything ,the eery feelings of this book are all immaculate.
September 27, 2024
so raw and vulnerable
February 4, 2025
(read for school)
Read
May 9, 2025A complicated read but good.
May 11, 2025
A diaphanous retelling, as Carter is wont to retell.
October 12, 2025
she ate at the end i guess
August 8, 2024
A sweet, little, poisonous tale! Wish it was longer or the story collection had more like this one.
I loved the poetry of the language, the surreal feeling, the ambiguity and the metaphors.
I loved the poetry of the language, the surreal feeling, the ambiguity and the metaphors.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews