If my love were an earthly knight,
As he's an elfin grey,
I wad na gie my ain true-love
For nae lord that ye hae.
Tam Lin is
Child Ballad #39, stemming from the
Oral Tradition, and one of the most popular ballads, both as a song and as a source for literature. It is from the south of Scotland, and was first recorded in the mid-sixteenth century.
In a nutshell: Headstrong young Janet hears that the mysterious Tam Lin has forbidden all maidens to go to the wood called Carterhaugh (a real place; it's near Selkirk), on pain of... how shall we put this... no longer being maidens. She declares that she will go to Carterhaugh, but she has no sooner picked a rose
* in ballads and stories, picking a rose summons the ruler of the place. See also
Beauty and the Beast.
than Tam Lin himself shows up...
Some time later, a knight at Janet's father's court remarks that Janet looks knocked up. Janet agrees, but says the baby's father is not any of the men at her father's court. She returns to Carterhaugh and speaks to Tam Lin.
Tam Lin tells Janet that he was once mortal, but was captured by the Queen of the Fairies and is now in danger of being offered as a tithe to Hell
* There's an oblique reference to this in
Sandman.
. Janet can save him, he explains, if she waits by Miles Cross until midnight on Halloween, pulls him down off his horse, and holds on to him throughout his transformations. Janet does this, and the Queen of the Fairies is obliged to let Tam Lin go.
The numerous variants collected by Francis Child can be found
here
.
Tropes featured in the ballad
Works derived from this ballad
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