Lord Dunsany himself wrote a preface to this fairy tale. He said, “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.”
The story began when the Lord of Erl was told by his people they wanted a magic lord to rule them. That took some doing, but he sent his son Alveric to retrieve Lirazel, daughter of the King of Elfland, to be his wife and thus fix the situation. At first, the King was angered and sent guards to kill Alveric, but the young man of Erl fought them off, and Lizarel fell for him and decided to leave with him. Later, under a spell, she decided she wanted to see her old home again. The King, sorry to see his daughter ever being sad, used magic to enlarge Elfland and include the land of Erl.
“Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” —Walt Disney
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.” —Albert Einstein
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” —C. S. Lewis
From those wonderful viewpoints, everyone in Erl and Elfland survived eternally in the magic realm, as you will now hear.
Details
More Information
Language
English
Release Day
Feb 28, 2022
Release Date
March 1, 2022
Release Date Machine
1646092800
Imprint
John D. Rayburn
Provider
John D. Rayburn
Categories
Teen & Young Adult, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Education & Learning, Children/YA, YA, Fiction - All, Fiction - Child
Lord Dunsany (1878–1957), full name Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Eighteenth Baron of Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist best known for his fantasy works. He published over eighty books as well as hundreds of short stories and many successful plays and essays. Lord Dunsany lived most of his life in Ireland at Dunsany Castle and he received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College. He was also an avid chess player, and even invented an asymmetric chess variant called “Dunsany’s Chess.”
John Rayburn (1927–2024) was a veteran of sixty-two years in broadcasting. He served as a news and sports anchor and show host, and his television newscast achieved the largest share-of-audience figures of any major-market television newscast in the nation. He was a member of the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame. His network credits include reports and/or appearances on The Today Show, Huntley-Brinkley News, Walter Cronkite News, NBC Monitor, NBC News on the Hour, and others. He recorded dozens of books for the National Library Service and narrated innumerable radio and television recordings.
Overview
Lord Dunsany himself wrote a preface to this fairy tale. He said, “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.”
The story began when the Lord of Erl was told by his people they wanted a magic lord to rule them. That took some doing, but he sent his son Alveric to retrieve Lirazel, daughter of the King of Elfland, to be his wife and thus fix the situation. At first, the King was angered and sent guards to kill Alveric, but the young man of Erl fought them off, and Lizarel fell for him and decided to leave with him. Later, under a spell, she decided she wanted to see her old home again. The King, sorry to see his daughter ever being sad, used magic to enlarge Elfland and include the land of Erl.
“Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” —Walt Disney
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.” —Albert Einstein
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” —C. S. Lewis
From those wonderful viewpoints, everyone in Erl and Elfland survived eternally in the magic realm, as you will now hear.
