Nice to see some new graphics again, I was beginning to think everyone was away on holiday? Hope all our regular visitors are doing well with your collections and keeping busy.
You really do have an uncanny knack for picking unusual artwork ... please keep up the good work! The first card is titled, The German Tour of Battle: "You down there, wait a second, first I want to finish up with these bearers of culture." (the old German foe, the French)
Very nice, short and to the point. Looks like that berserker is going to wreak havoc among the enemy, in wide, broad, crimson strokes ...
The second is much less nationalistic in fervor, a song, poem and folktale all wrapped into one.
Check it out ...
Erlkönig (The Alder-King)
Johann Gottfried von Herder introduced this character into German literature in Erlkönigs Tochter, a ballad published in his 1778 volume Stimmen der Volker in Liedern. It was based on a Danish folk ballad published in the 1739 Danske Kaempevisor. Herder undertook a free translation but mistranslated the Danish name elverkonge as "Erlkönig", "alder king"; the confusion appears to have arisen with the German word Erle, "alder". It has generally been assumed that the mistranslation was the result of error, but it has also been suggested that Herder was imaginatively trying to identify the malevolent sprite of the original tale with a woodland demon (hence the alder king).
The story, as retold by Herder, portrays a man named Sir Oluf riding to his marriage but being entranced by the music of the elves. One of the elf maidens, the Elverkonge's daughter, appears and invites him to dance with her. He refuses and spurns her offers of gifts and gold. Angered, she strikes him and sends him on his way, deathly pale. The following morning, on the day of his wedding, his bride finds him lying dead under his scarlet cloak.
Another unhappy German ending, can ya believe it? Some of those old Grimm Brüder stories didn't have happy endings either, heh.
Some of those old Grimm Brüder stories didn't have happy endings either, heh.
