Burd Ellen and her three brothers are playing football. The youngest brother, known as Childe Rowland, kicks the ball over the church roof and into the trees beyond.
Burd Ellen and Rowland race each other to fetch the ball - Rowland runs round the church to the right and Burd Ellen to the left. Burd Ellen reaches the trees but Rowland doesn't arrive. Everyone searches for him but he seems to have vanished.
Burd Ellen decides to ask the wizard Merlin what might have happened and he tells her that Rowland has been taken by the Elf Queen to her land beneath the earth because he ran 'widdershins' around the church - he should have run the same way as Burd Ellen.
Burd Ellen decides to follow Merlin's instructions to go to the Elf Queen's kingdom and save her brother. But her mother and father insist that her two other brothers, Robert and Duncan, try first.
When they don't come back, Burd Ellen follows Merlin's instructions to whirl round widdershins three times round on top of the mound behind the church and she finds herself in the Elf Queen's land beneath the earth.
She meets a cow-herd who points which way her brothers went - but Merlin has told her that she must use her sword to run through anyone who speaks to her in the Elf Land and so she does as Merlin has told her. As soon as she does so, the man disappears!
The same thing happens when a lady looking after her chickens helps Burd Ellen.
With Merlin's voice giving her advice Burd Ellen realises that everything in the Elf Land is upside-down and back-to-front so the Elf Palace she is looking for must grow down under the ground.
She whirls around widdershins again and finds herself in the Elf Palace. The Queen of the Elves will not let her take Childe Rowland back - unless Burd Ellen can hold onto him tightly. So Burd Ellen does hold on tightly whilst Childe Rowland shape-shifts into a wolf, then an eagle, then a fish then a flame but she doesn't let go and so the Elf Queen's spell is broken. The Elf Queen even agrees to let Robert and Duncan go too.
But just as they are about to return to their own world the Elf Queen offers Burd Ellen some food and drink for all her hard work. Burd Ellen is just about to eat when she hears Merlin's voice in her head reminding her that if she eats or drinks anything in the Elf Land then she will have to stay there forever.
Although she is really hungry and thirsty Burd Ellen refuses the Elf Queen's offer and immediately the door between the Elf World and the real world opens up and Burd Ellen and all three brothers find themselves back home - with the missing football in Childe Rowland's hands!