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1 Sir Oluf rode by East and West
To bid his friends to his bridal-feast.
Gay goes the dance by the greenwood tree.
2 By the howe he took his way,
And there danced elf and fay.
3 By four and by five danced the blithesome band,
The Elf-King's daughter stretched out her hand.
4 The Elf-King's daughter spake up so free:
"And will Sir Oluf tread a measure with me?"
5 "I dare not, I may not the measure tread,
Tomorrow morn must I be wed."
6 "Oh, tread now a measure, Sir Oluf, with me!
Two buckskin boots will I give to thee,
7 "Boots that well beseem a knight
With gilded spurs a-shining bright.
8 "Oh, tread now a measure, Sir Oluf, with me!
A silken kirtle I'll give to thee.
9 "A silken kirtle so fair and fine
That my mother bleached in the wan moonshine."
10 "I may not, I dare not, the measure tread,
Tomorrow morn shall I be wed."
11 "Oh, tread now a measure, Sir Oluf, with me!
An orb of gold I'll give to thee."
12 "An orb of gold I fain would win,
But I may not dance with the fairy kin."
13 "And if though wilt not dance with me,
Scathe and sickness shall follow thee!"
14 She truck him 'twixt his shoulders broad,
It pieced his heart-roots like the keenest sword.
15 She lifted him up on his steed of pride:
"Ride home, Sir Oluf, and seek thy bride!"
16 Slow did he ride to his castle door,
And it was his mother that stood before.
17 "Lithe now and list, Sir Oluf my son,
Why is thy cheek so white and wan?"
18 "Well may my cheek be wan and white,
I have seen the elf-maids' dance this night."
19 "Lithe now and list, dear son of mine,
What shall I say to true-love thine?"
20 "Shalt say I am in the mead
A-proving hound and steed."
21 All in the morning when dawned the day
The bride rode in with glad array.
22 They poured the mead, they poured the wine:
"But where is Sir Oluf, bridegroom mine?"
23 "Sir Oluf is in the mead
A-proving hound and steed."
24 "Loves he hound and steed so free
Better than he loveth me?"
25 Through house and hall in search she sped,
She found him laid upon his bed.
26 She lifted up the mantle's fold,
There lay Sir Oluf, dead and cold.
27 She kissed him all in bridal bower,
She pined and died the selfsame hour.
28 All so early ere dawn grew red
Were three in Sir Oluf's hold lay dead.
29 Sir Oluf lay dead and his bride also,
The third was his mother who died for woe.
From the Introduction:
The burden of "The Elfin Shaft" (No. 7), "gay goes the dance by the greenwood tree," is wonderfully interwoven with the narrative, depicting at one and the same time the circle of dancers beside the darkening wood, whose depths conceal all manner of sinister powers, and the actual dance of the elf maids, as it beguiles the unsuspecting knight. Such pictures of Nature as abound in modern poetry are not to be found in the ballad....
During the time when fear of Nature dominated the ballad, the same feeling prevailed for the kingdom of Elfland. A few latish ballads have a certain liking for it, but in "The Elfin Shaft" (No. 7), the best known of these poems, Elfland is a region of eerie powers, which can entice and kill the man who trespasses on its boundaries. The main lines of this ballad can be traced through one country after another, from its birthplace in Brittany or Northern France to its diffusion over the greater part of Europe. Its Northern form, however, gets its distinictive stamp from the native folk-belief in the elfin dance and the elfin bolt, which make a new ballad of it. Where the white mists rise from the fens near the greenwood, weaving round tree and hill, there is the fairy dance, or where the sunbeams have thrown a rainbow, or still more frequently in the gloaming of the "white nights" of summer. This dance was known to all, and would present the most natural of subjects to the circle of singers down by the river of an evening. As for the elfin shaft, the other essential trait in the conception of elf-folk, it was originally believed that any person (or animal) who suddenly fell dead, or was seized with sudden pain, had been struck by the invisible arrow of the fairies. A slightly more advanced train of thought regarded a "fairy blow" between the shoulders as the magical means of inducing a painful or fatal sickness.
This dark horror is not to be found in all the elfin ballads. The same theme finds gayer treatment in the little ballad of the squire who lies down to sleep on the Elfin Howe, and is just saved by cockcrow from being borne off underground. A few ballads, indeed, depict the captive as returning to earth again, but this idea is rarer and springs from a shallower type of eeling.