Lankin

Lord Lankin
Name	Lankin
Race	Elf
Age
Occupation	Lord
Physical appearance	High cheekbones, hair tied in a ponytail, perfect nose
Residence	Fairyland
Death
Parents
Relatives
Children
Marital Status
Appearances
Books	Lords and Ladies The Shepherd's Crown
Cameos

Lord Lankin is a powerful figure in the elf hierarchy, standing second only to his Queen.

He exerts more power and glamour than the lesser Elves, and like other elves, he is cruel, evil and callous. He eagerly awaits the day he can hunt freely the humans of Discworld.

Annotation

There is a song about someone named Lankin on Roundworld. A good version is on the Steeleye Span album Commoners' Crown. Lyrics include a Lord warning his Lady about this bogeyman:

Beware the moss;
Beware the moors;
Beware of Long Lankin!
Be sure the doors are bolted well,
Lest Lankin should creep in!

The rest of the song deals with the grisly slaying of a Lady and her young child while the master of the house is away. Different versions of this song have been sung in the North of England in one form or another for seven hundred years, maybe longer. Other variants of the ballad use different names, commonly Lamkin, Lammikin, or Rankin and some explain that the murderer is an unpaid mason who holds a gruesome grudge. There are some who theorize that the folktale is based on actual events, the name an epithet for a pale skinned man who is possibly a leper. Other scholars suggest that the name indicates a character that is of the fairy folk, whose unpaid masonry fee was in the currency of blood and human life.[1][2]