Ed de Moel

Child Ballads - Additions and Corrections

39. Tam Lin

P. 335. Mr. Macmath has found an earlier transcript of B in Glenriddel's Manuscripts, VIII, 106, 1789. The variations (except those of spelling, which are numerous) are as follows:

   12. that wears.
13. go.
33. has snoded.
35. is gaen.
51. had not.
63. comes.
72. give.
82,4, 162,4, 352,4. above.
111. Out then: gray-head.
113. And ever alas, fair Janet, he says.
133. fair Janet.
134. thow gaes.
141. If I.
143. Ther'e not.
144, 344. bairns.
154. ye nae, wrongly.
165. she is on.
192. groves green.
201. Thomas.
202. for his.
203. Whether ever.
223. from the.
224. Then from.
233. The Queen o Fairies has.
234. do dwell.
236. Fiend, wrongly.
241. is a Hallow-een.
243. And them.
253. Amongst.
271. ride on.
276. gave.
304. wardly.
313. Hald me.
342. then in.
374. And there.
383. Them that hes.
384. Has.
403,4. eyes.
411. I kend.
414. I'd.

J

'The Queen of the Fairies,' Macmath Manuscript, p. 57. "Taken down by me 14th October, 1886, from the recitation of Mr. Alexander Kirk, Inspector of Poor, Dairy, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, who learned it about fifty years ago from the singing of David Ray, Barlay, Balmaclellan."

This copy has been considerably made over, and was very likely learned from print. The cane in the maid's hand, already sufficiently occupied, either with the Bible or with holy water, is an imbecility such as only the "makers" of latter days are capable of. (There is a cane in another ballad which I cannot at this moment recall.)

1   The maid that sits in Katherine's Hall,
Clad in her robes so black,
She has to yon garden gone,
For flowers to flower her hat.
2   She had not pulled the red, red rose,
A double rose but three,
When up there starts a gentleman,
Just at this lady's knee.
3   Says, Who's this pulls the red, red rose?
Breaks branches off the tree?
Or who's this treads my garden-grass,
Without the leave of me?
4   'Yes, I will pull the red, red rose,
Break branches off the tree,
This garden in Moorcartney wood,
Without the leave o thee.'
5   He took her by the milk-white hand
And gently laid her down,
Just in below some shady trees
Where the green leaves hung down.
6   'Come tell to me, kind sir,' she said,
'What before you never told;
Are you an earthly man?' said she,
'A knight or a baron bold?'
7   'I'll tell to you, fair lady,' he said,
'What before I neer did tell;
I 'm Earl Douglas's second son,
With the queen of the fairies I dwell.
8   'When riding through yon forest-wood,
And by yon grass-green well,
A sudden sleep me overtook,
And off my steed I fell.
9   'The queen of the fairies, being there,
Made me with her to dwell,
And still once in the seven years
We pay a teind to hell.
10   'And because I am an earthly man,
Myself doth greatly fear,
For the cleverest man in all our train
To Pluto must go this year.
11   'This night is Halloween, lady,
And the fairies they will ride;
The maid that will her true-love win
At Miles Cross she may bide.'
12   'But how shall I thee ken, though, sir?
Or how shall I thee know,
Ainang a pack o hellish wraiths,
Before I never saw?'
13   'Some rides upon a black horse, lady,
And some upon a brown,
But I myself on a milk-white steed,
And I aye nearest the toun.
14   'My right hand shall be covered, lady,
My left hand shall be bare,
And that's a token good enough
That you will find me there.
15   'Take the Bible in your right hand,
With God for to be your guide,
Take holy water in thy left hand,
And throw it on every side.'
16   She's taen her mantle her about,
A cane into her hand,
And she has unto Miles Cross gone,
As hard as she can gang.
17   First she has letten the black pass by,
And then she has letten the brown,
But she's taen a fast hold o the milk-white steed,
And she's pulled Earl Thomas doun.
18   The queen of the fairies being there,
Sae loud she's letten a cry,
'The maid that sits in Katherine's Hall
This night has gotten her prey.
19   'But hadst thou waited, fair lady,
Till about this time the morn,
He would hae been as far from thee or me
As the wind that blew when he was born.'
20   They turned him in this lady's arms
Like the adder and the snake;
She held him fast; why should she not?
Though her poor heart was like to break.
21   They turned him in this lady's arms
Like two red gads of aim;
She held him fast; why should she not?
She knew they could do her no harm.
22   They turned him in this lady's arms
Like to all things that was vile;
She held him fast; why should she not?
The father of her child.
23   They turned him in this lady's arms
Like to a naked knight;
She's taen him hame to her ain bower,
And clothed him in armour bright.

338 a, 507, II, 505 b.

A king transformed into a nightingale being plunged three times into water resumes his shape: Vernaleken, K.- u. H. Märchen, No 15, p. 79. In Guillaume de Palerne, ed. Michelant, v. 7770 ff., pp. 225, 226, the queen who changes the werewolf back into a man takes care that he shall have a warm bath as soon as the transformation is over; but this may be merely the bath preliminary to his being dubbed knight (as in Li Chevaliers as Deus Espees, ed. Förster, vv. 1547-49, p. 50, and L'Ordene de Chevalerie, vv. 111-124, Barbazan-Méon, I, 63, 64). A fairy maiden is turned into a wooden statue. This is burned and the ashes thrown into a pond, whence she immediately emerges in her proper shape. She is next doomed to take the form of a snake. Her lover, acting under advice, cuts up a good part of the snake into little bits, and throws these into a pond. She emerges again. J.H. Knowles, Folk-Tales of Kashmir, p. 468 ff.. (G.L.K.)

339 b, II, 505 b.

Fairy salve and indiscreet users of it. See also Sébillot, Contes pop. de la Haute-Bretagne, II, 41, 42, cf. I, 122-3; the same, Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne, I, 89, 109; the same, Litt. orale de la Haute-B., pp. 19-23, 24-27, and note; Mrs. Bray, Traditions of Devonshire, 1838, I, 184-188, I, 175 ff. of the new ed. called The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy; "Lageniensis " [J. O'Hanlon], Irish Folk- Lore, Glasgow, n.d., pp. 48-49. In a Breton story a fairy gives a one-eyed woman an eye of crystal, warning her not to speak of what she may see with it. Disregarding this injunction, the woman is deprived of the gift. Sébillot, Contes pop. de la Haute-Bretagne, II, 24-25. (G.L.K.)

340. The danger of lying under trees at noon. "Is not this connected with the belief in a δαιμόνιον μεσημβρινόν (LXX, Psalm xci, 6)? as to which see Rochholz, Deutscher Unsterblichkeitsglaube, pp. 62 ff., 67 ff., and cf. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, pp. 1092-3." Kittredge, Sir Orfeo, in the American Journal of Philology, VII, 190, where also there is something about the dangerous character of orchards. Of processions of fairy knights, see p. 189 of the same.

Tam o Lin. Add: Tom a Lin, Robert Mylne's Manuscript Collection of Scots Poems, Part I, 8, 1707. (W. Macmath.)

To be Corrected in the Print.

356 b, D c 13. Read O go not.

The following are mostly trivial variations from the spelling of the text.

508 a, 74. Read by.

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