Today we visit with another of my early folk favouriites, again first encountered on the legendary ‘Liege and Lief’ album by Fairport Convention. Tam (or Tamas) Lin (also called Tamlane, Tamlin, Tambling, Tomlin, Tam Lien, Tam-a-Line, Tam Lyn, or Tam Lane) is a character in a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. It is also associated with a reel of the same name, also known as the Glasgow Reel.
The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is found throughout Europe in folktales. The story has been adapted into numerous stories, songs and films. It is listed as the 39th Child Ballad and number 35 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
The ballad dates to at least as early as 1549 (the publication date of The Complaynt of Scotland that mentions “The Tayl of the Young Tamlene” among a long list of medieval romances). Michael Drayton’s narrative poem Nimphidia (1627) includes a character called Tomalin who is a vassal and kinsman of Oberon, King of the Fairies. Robert Burns wrote a version of Tam Lin based on older versions of the ballad, which was printed in James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (1796).
Most variants begin with the warning that Tam Lin collects either a possession or the virginity of any maiden who passes through the forest of Caterhaugh. When a young woman, usually called Janet or Margaret, goes to Carterhaugh and plucks a double rose, Tam appears and asks her why she has come without his leave and taken what is his. She states that she owns Carterhaugh because her father has given it to her.
In most variants, Janet then goes home and discovers that she is pregnant; some variants pick up the story at this point. When asked about her condition, she declares that her baby’s father is an elf whom she will not forsake. In some versions, she is informed of a herb that will induce abortion; in all the variants, when she returns to Carterhaugh and picks a plant, either the same roses as on her earlier visit or the herb, Tam reappears and challenges her action.
She asks him whether he was ever human, either after that reappearance or, in some versions, immediately after their first meeting resulted in her pregnancy. He reveals that he was a mortal man, who, falling from his horse, was caught and captured by the Queen of Fairies. Every seven years, the fairies give one of their people as a teind (tithe) to Hell and Tam fears he will become the tithe that night, which is Hallowe’en. He is to ride as part of a company of elven knights. Janet will recognise him by the white horse upon which he rides and by other signs. He instructs her to rescue him by pulling him down from the white horse, so Janet “catches” him this time, and holds him tightly. He warns her that the fairies will attempt to make her drop him by turning him into all manner of beasts, but that he will do her no harm. When he is finally turned into a burning coal, she is to throw him into a well, whereupon he will reappear as a naked man, and she must hide him. Janet does as she is asked and wins her knight. The Queen of Fairies is angry but acknowledges defeat.
Child took the threat to take out Tam Lin’s eyes as a common folklore precaution against mortals who could see fairies, in the tales of fairy ointment. Joseph Jacobs interpreted it as rather a reversal of the usual practice; the Queen of Faerie would have kept him from seeing the human woman who rescued him. In some variants, “Hind Etin” has verses identical to this for the first meeting between the hero and the heroine.
