Elves' Hill

Elves' Hill (Danish: Elverhøj) is a comedy by Johan Ludvig Heiberg, with overture and incidental music by Friedrich Kuhlau (Op.

[3] The work incorporated both the texts and melodies of two traditional ballad pieces featuring folklore about the Elven king.

The two ballads used were Elvehøj (DgF 46B) which begins "Jeg lagde mit hoved til Elverhøj" (I laid my head down on Elves' Hill)" and Elveskud (DgF 47B) that begins "Herr Oluf han rider saa vide" (Sir Oluf he rideth so far-and-wide).

These ballads had appeared in Udvalgte Danske Viser fra Middelalderen (1812), edited by Werner Abrahamson [da].

It is set to Kuhlau's arrangement to a tune already being sung to the lyrics originally written by Johannes Ewald for an entirely different play.