First of all, I’d like to apologize for missing a couple of
weeks. I always try to post something
during every calendar week, but I was so busy with work and other unrelated
projects that it just got away from me.
This would have been my Halloween post.
That said, this story is one that I’ve been wanting to post
about for a long time. It’s been a
favorite of mine since I heard Willy Claflin sing a variant of it at a local
storytelling festival. However, I was
quite surprised to find that it would end up falling under the banner it
did. Yet, when I looked up a list of
legendary characters, there was the name Tam Lin. That’s right, apparently the Ballad of Tam
Lin is in fact considered to be a legend.
I have noticed that ballads do tend to tell legends more
than any other kind of story. Also, more
like a legend than a folk tale, this story is more explicit about names and
places. The names Janet and Tam Lin are
rather clear, though there are some variants.
Also, Carterhaugh is apparently a real place (though, so is Bremen and
no one ever considered “The Bremen Town Musicians” to be a legend).
The lovely woods at Carterhaugh |
However, there’s just something about this story that seems
to extend past the historical or pseudo-historical nature of the legend and go
straight into the misty realms of the fairy tale.
First, some background.
The ballad of Tam Lin is native to the country of
Scotland. Though there are various
variations, the basic story is about the same.
The ballad starts with a warning that any maiden who goes into the woods
of Carterhaugh will lose either her possessions or her virginity. A young woman named Janet goes into the woods
to pick a double rose. She encounters
Tam Lin who asks her why she takes what is his (shades of “Beauty and the
Beast”). She states that she owns
Carterhaugh because her father has given it to her. She then goes home and soon finds that she is
pregnant (whether she actually does the deed with Tam Lin or whether it’s some
magical conception tends to change from version to version). Her father then inquires about the child’s
father. Janet says that he is a fairy
that she will not forsake. She’s then
told of a certain herb that she could take that will induce a miscarriage. She returns to Carterhaugh to pick this herb
and Tam Lin appears again. He questions
her actions and she questions whether he was ever human. He reveals that he was a human knight who was
caught by the Queen of Fairies when he fell from his horse. He then gives her instructions. He tells her that the Queen of the Fairies will
ride out on Halloween night in order to deliver a tithe of souls to Hell. Tam tells her that among the potential
tributes riding with the Queen, he’ll be there recognizable by his white
horse. He tells her to pull him off his
horse and grab hold of him. Only the
Queen will try to make her drop him by turning him into all manner of beasts
but that she must keep hold of him (this part is reminiscent of various folk
tales as well as the myth of Proteus).
It’s only when he turns into a burning coal she must throw him into a
well at which point he will turn human again and be free. On Halloween night, Janet rides out and
catches up to the Fairy Queen’s procession at midnight. She does as Tam Lin says and succeeds in
winning her knightly beau. The Fairy
Queen is beaten and utters a curse as she disappears (usually something along
the lines of “Tam Lin, if I had known I would have given you eyes of wood”).
The Fairy Queen |
The story had numerous variants. The name Tam Lin has various different
names. He’s been called Tamblin, Tom
Line, Tomlin, Tom-a-line and Tamlane.
Janet’s name is sometimes given as Margaret. Also, Tam Lin’s true lineage changes from
ballad to ballad. He’s been called the
grandson of the Lauird of Roxburgh, the Laird of Foulis, the Earl of Murray and
the Earl of Forbes. This ballad is so
widespread that Francis James Child collected fourteen different versions of it
for his book The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The ballad also
appears in our old friend Joseph Jacobs’ More English Fairy Tales.
Yet, Tam Lin’s status as a legend is still rather
puzzling.
The story holds elements of folk tale and myth
throughout. The rose is reminiscent of “Beauty
and the Beast” and Tam Lin himself is if not a beastly bridegroom, at least an
unearthly one. Janet’s struggle to hold him
as he’s changed not only brings to mind various folk tales (for example, “Jamie Freel and the Lady of Dublin”) as well as the story of Proteus.
Yet, a legend is a story that’s supposedly based in
historical happenings, right? Well,
actually . . .
The thing is that I may have been oversimplifying things
when I said legends had a root in history.
It’s more like they have a root in being believed. While many legends do focus on people who
actually lived, there are also legends about characters who might have lived. The defining trait of a legend is sometimes not
so much being based on real events as the fact that the audience for the story
is supposed to believe that it’s based on real events. Ghost stories are a good example. While we know that ghost stories are likely
fiction, it’s often traditional or at least expected to tell them as if they’re
real.
Nowadays it’s hard to believe that anyone would think a
fantastical story like Tam Lin was real.
Any record of there being a real Tam or a real Janet have been lost in
the sands of time. However, we do know
that people did believe in fairies for a good long time. They would also be careful not to offend them
so as to ward off their mischief. Perhaps
the ballad of Tam Lin served a purpose to those who believed in the fairy
superstitions and showed that even a human being can defeat them if need
be.
Anyway, it’s still one of my favorites and I know it’s a
favorite of others out there. I’ll link
to a few different musical versions HERE, HERE and HERE. I love the sense of scary wild magic it has
in it. I love the fantastical
transformations. I really, really love
that it’s also the story of a fair Lady rescuing a knight instead of the other
way around. And whatever its roots, I
have no problem thinking of Janet and Tam Lin as The Stuff of Legends!
Great post, I love this legend! I first heard it earlier this year at a folklore conference. It's interesting how Tam Lin has many names and there are different versions of the story. At the conference, the lady giving the talk explained that it's because this legend is common in the borderlands between England and Scotland, so it's hard to distinguish which version belongs to which country and so they've become entwined. Rather beautiful, how stories can define a landscape and mix like that.
ReplyDeleteHere's another song version that I love-even live!
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/UGDpQIwL3vI