Tam Lin
Tam Lin 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.
Synopsis
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 Carterhaugh. 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 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.
In different variations, Tam Lin is reportedly the grandson of the Laird of Roxburgh, the Laird of Foulis, the Earl of Forbes, or the Earl of Murray. His name also varies between versions as Tom Line, Tomlin, Young Tambling, Tam-a-line and Tamlane.
Variants
The ballad dates to at least as early as 1549.There have been several interpretations of the Tam Lin story:
- Francis James Child collected fourteen variants in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.
- Joseph Jacobs included a variant, "Tamlane", in More English Fairy Tales.
- John Myers Myers tells a variant in Silverlock.
- Michael Drayton's narrative poem Nimphidia includes the character who goes by the name Tomalin. In the poem he is a vassal and kinsman of Oberon, King of the Fairies.
Motifs
In some variants, "Hind Etin" has verses identical to this for the first meeting between the hero and heroine.
Recordings
Following are some of the notable recordings of the ballad, including their artists, titles, albums, and years:| Artist | Title | Album | Year |
| Frankie Armstrong | "Tam Lin" | I Heard a Woman Singing | 1984 |
| Davey Arthur | "Tam Lin" | Bigger Than You Think | |
| Anne Briggs | "Young Tambling" | Anne Briggs | 1971 |
| Broadside Electric | "Tam Lin" | Amplificata | 1995 |
| Cast Iron Filter | "Tam Lynn" | Paradise in Palestine | 1999 |
| Current 93 | "Tamlin" | Sixsixsix: Sicksicksick | 2005 |
| Daniel Dutton | "Tam Lin" | Twelve Ballads | 2006 |
| Séamus Egan | "Tamlin" | In Your Ear | 1998 |
| Elephant Revival | "Tam Lin Set" | It's Alive | 2012 |
| Tania Elizabeth | "Tam Lynn's" | This Side Up | 2000 |
| Fairport Convention | "Tam Lin" | Liege & Lief | 1969 |
| Fiddler's Green | "Tam Lin" | Wall of Folk | 2011 |
| Bob Hay | "Tam Lin" | Tam Lin and More Songs by Robert Burns | 2006 |
| The Imagined Village | "Tam Lyn Retold" | The Imagined Village | 2007 |
| Joe Jewell | "Tam Lin" | Bluebells of Scotland | 1997 |
| Bill Jones | "Tale of Tam Lin" | Panchpuran | 2001 |
| King Chiaullee | "Tam Lin" | Reel: Ode | 2003 |
| Jeremy Kittel | "Tamlin" | Celtic Fiddle | 2003 |
| Catriona MacDonald & Ian Lowthian | "Tam Lin" | Opus Blue | 1993 |
| Alastair McDonald | "Tam Lin" | Heroes & Legends of Scotland | 2007 |
| Mediæval Bæbes | "Tam Lin" | Mirabilis | 2005 |
| Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer | " " | Child Ballads | 2013 |
| Pete Morton | "Tamlyn" | Frivolous Love | 1984 |
| Mrs. Ackroyd Band | "Tam Lin" | Gnus & Roses | 1995 |
| Ian Page | "Tam Lin" | Folk Music of Scotland | 2008 |
| Pentangle | "Tam Lin" | The Time Has Come | 2007 |
| Steeleye Span | "Tam Lin" | Tonight's the Night, Live! | 1992 |
| Tempest | "Tam Lin" | Serrated Edge | 1992 |
| Tricky Pixie | "Tam Lin" | Mythcreants | 2009 |
| Trent Wagler & The Steel Wheels | "Tam Lin" | Blue Heaven | 2006 |
| Mike Waterson | "Tam Lyn" | For Pence and Spicy Ale | 1993 |
| Kathleen Yearwood | "Tam Lin" | Book of Hate | 1994 |
Adaptations
Prose
- "Elphin Irving, the Fairies' Cupbearer," in Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry by Allan Cunningham
- "Wild Robin," in Little Prudy's Fairy Book by Sophie May
- The Armourer's House, by Rosemary Sutcliff -- includes a telling of the Tam Lin tale, which parallels the novel's theme of a girl struggling to obtain her dreams.
- Scottish Folk-Tales and Legends, by Barbara Ker Wilson
- Thursday, by Catherine Storr
- Red Shift, by Alan Garner
- The Queen of Spells, by Dahlov Ipcar
- The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope
- Wild Robin, written and illustrated by Susan Jeffers
- The Hawthorn Tree, by Patrick Little
- Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones
- Nattens demon, by Margit Sandemo
- Tam Lin: An Old Ballad, by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Charles Mikolaycak
- Tam Lin by Susan Cooper, illustrated by Warwick Hutton
- Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean
- The Nightwood, written and illustrated by Robin Muller
- Tam Lin, in the graphic novel series Ballads and Sagas edited by Charles Vess
- Winter Rose, by Patricia McKillip
- Never Let Go, by Geraldine McCaughrean, illustrated by Jason Cockcroft
- Burd Janet, by Jane Yolen, in Not One Damsel in Distress
- "Cotillion", by Delia Sherman, in Firebirds, edited by Sharyn November
- The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurst
- "My Kingdom," by Hannah Wolf Bowen, Abyss & Apex, Winter 2004
- by Holly Black
- "He Said, Sidhe Said" by Tanya Huff, in Faerie Tales ed. Russell Davis and Martin H. Greenberg
- An Earthly Knight, by Janet McNaughton
- Gnat Stokes and the Foggy Bottom Swamp Queen, by Sally Keehn
- Blood and Iron, by Elizabeth Bear
- "Shapes," by K. Elizabeth Cornwell, in Fickle Muses
- The Shadow and the Rose, by Amanda DeWees
- Feyland, by Anthea Sharp
- Tamlyn, by James Moloney
- For Your Heart, by A.L. Davroe
- The Fairwick Chronicles, by Juliet Dark
- Casting Shadows, by Amanda DeWees
- Among the Shadows, by Amanda DeWees
- Thorn Jack, by Katherine Harbour
- Mirk and the Midnight Hour, by Jane Nickerson
- Summer's Lease, by Eluki bes Shahar
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
- Roses and Rot, by Kat Howard
- With Roses in Their Hair, by Kayla Bashe
Theatre
- Tam Lin by N. G. McClernan
- The Thyme of the Season by Duncan Pflaster
Film
- Tam-Lin directed by Roddy McDowall, and starring Ava Gardner.
Other
- Tam-Lin, a closet drama written by Elaine Lee and illustrated by Charles Vess, in The Book of Ballads and Sagas, Vess's collection of adaptations of traditional songs, mostly into comics form.
- In Carolyn Parkhurst's novel The Dogs of Babel, a section of Tam Lin plays a pivotal role in the story. In it the narrator, Paul Iverson, discovers that his recently deceased wife left an encrypted message to him in their bookshelf, quoting Tam Lin.
- In the Vertigo comic book, Fables, Tam Lin died in the defence of the last stronghold of the Fables against the forces of the Adversary. He is claimed to be the knight loved by the queen of the faeries, who had a reputation of a scoundrel, but gave up his chance of freedom to his page.
- In the Vertigo comic book series, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, the notion that Faerie pays a sacrificial tithe to Hell is mentioned in the storyline "Season of Mists".
- In the Vertigo comic book series The Books of Magic, The Names of Magic, and The Books of Faerie, Tamlin is the father of the protagonist Timothy Hunter, potentially the greatest sorcerer in the world. In The Books of Faerie: The Widow's Tale, the story of Tamlin's romance with Queen Titania of Faerie is revealed.
- In The House of the Scorpion, a novel by Nancy Farmer, Tam Lin is the bodyguard of the protagonist, the clone of Matteo Alacrán.
- The multi-faceted novel Red Shift by Alan Garner can be read as a subtle reworking of the ballad.
- In the fantasy novel The Battle of Evernight by Cecilia Dart-Thornton, the story of Tam Lin is told as the story of Tamlain Conmor.
- The novel Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, is a version of Tam Lin in which Tam Lin's captivity lasts into the 20th century.
- The story was also inserted in Cecilia Dart-Thornton's last book of the Bitterbynd trilogy, The Battle of Evernight.
- In the Shin Megami Tensei series of video games, Tam Lin is a recurring demon that can often be recruited relatively early and is one of the very few demons whose design share an exact model with another demon – its brother model being another northern European mythological hero, Cu Chulainn.
- This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful and illustrated by Vernon Hill.
- Tamlin appears in the fantasy novel Rumors of Spring by Richard Grant.
- The Rose, The Knight, and The Faery Host are paintings by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law depicting various parts of the Tam Lin legend.
- The Choose Your Own Adventure book Enchanted Kingdom has an ending in which the reader/player's character is rescued from the fairies by a girl whom the character has befriended, who has to hold onto the character through three transformations.
- In Jim Butcher's novel Cold Days Tam Lin is referenced as a former Knight of the Winter Court
- In Kevin Macdonald's 2013 film "The Way I Live Now", Fairport Convention's version of Tam Lin is played.
- Linda Marshall Griffith's BBC Radio 4 drama "This Changeling Self" is a modern reimagining of the Tam Lin story.