Tam Lin ( Child 39, Roud 35) (also called Tamlane, Tamlin, Tomlin, Tam Lien, Tam-a-Line, Tam Lyn, or Tam Lane) is a ballad collected from traditional singers in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the USA. . through all forms of transformation is found throughout Europe in folktales. [1]: 336–7 The story has been adapted into various stories, songs and films.
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. In some versions she states that she owns Carterhaugh because her father has given it to her. He rapes 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 holding him tightly. He warns her that the fairies will attempt to make her drop him by turning him into all manner of beasts (see Proteus), 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 (Tam Lin being the most common) as Tom Line, Tomlin, Young Tambling, and Tam-a-line.
The ballad dates to at least as early as 1549 (the publication date of The Complaynt of Scotland that mentions "The Tayl of the Ȝong Tamlene" ('The Tale of the Young Tamelene') among a long list of medieval romances). [1]: 336 [2]
There have been several interpretations of the Tam Lin story:
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. [3]
In some variants, " Hind Etin" has verses identical to this for the first meeting between the hero and heroine. [1]: 340
Tam Lin -- A song by Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer
The following bands and singers have recorded musical versions, all called "Tam Lin" unless otherwise stated:
There are also versions which change the original story. "Tam Lyn Retold" by Benjamin Zephaniah & Eliza Carthy (on the 2007 album The Imagined Village) retells the story with the girl meeting a man in a club and having a one-night stand. Six months later she finds him to say she is pregnant and finds out he is an immigrant without a valid visa and has a court case the following day. She attends the court and sees him go though various transformations before becoming himself: a kind peaceful person. The judge sees this and lets him become a legal citizen, free to bring up his child with his wife. "Discovery" by Three Weird Sisters hints at a darker Tam Lin with ulterior motives for his seduction of the girl.
The song was recorded by the Celtic rock group Coyote Run, in their own unique style on their album Between Wick and Flame. This version includes a narrative in the words of Tam Lin himself. Tam Lin is referred to in the Kate Bush song "The Empty Bullring", "B" side to her hit "Breathing". The song is also featured on the "This Woman's Work" box set.
As well as these versions, the name has also been used as the stage name of a New York City–based singer-songwriter, an LP by Frankie Armstrong, Brian Pearson, Blowzabella and Jon Gillaspie, and for the title of an Irish reel.
The earliest surviving broadsides were published in the 1540s. In 1543 Henry VIII prohibited their publication. Early Anglican psalters warned against them. [1]
Broadsides pasted on walls of pubs
Ballad sellers and chapmen
In the eighteenth century broadside publishers like Dicey (Northampton and London) and Turner (Coventry) began printing longer ballads (33 - 60 verses) printed on broadsheets and based on folktales and legends, As other forms of affordable literature became more widely available, and literacy became more widespread the market for broadsides changed. The growing professional and middle classes could buy books and go to pleasure gardens - the urban and rural working class bought ballads.
https://archive.org/details/journaloffolkson02folk Vol 2 No 8. pp 141 Yorkshire and London (3)
https://archive.org/details/journaloffolkson03folk
Folk Song Collection in England started in the second half of the nineteenth century and continues today. Many collectors have contributed to our knowledge of folk song by collecting texts and tunes from traditional singers. The collections they created are a valuable cultural resource and have provided a fertile source of material for singers and musicians in a series of folk music revivals as well as for composers of classical music.
Broadsides and ballads
Name | Active period | Areas covered | Location of Collection | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
John Broadwood | Before 1843 | Surrey | - | "Old English Songs", (1843) [2] |
Sabine Baring-Gould | 1864 - ?1895 | Devon and Cornwall | Devon Heritage Centre; Plymouth and West Devon Record Office; Houghton Library | "Songs of the West" (1889 - 91), and "A Garland of Country Songs" (1894) [3] |
Frank Kidson | 1886 to 1920s | Mainly Yorkshire | Mitchell Library, Glasgow | |
Lucy Broadwood | 1890s onward | Surrey, Sussex | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Surrey History Centre | "English County Songs" (1893) "English Traditional Songs and Carols" (1908) [4] |
Anne Gilchrist | 1898-1909 | Northern England, various | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Articles in "The Choir" and the Folk Song Society Journal. |
Cecil Sharp | 1899- | Somerset, Oxon, Midlands, many other areas, Appalachia | Clare College, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs (1974), English folk songs from the southern Appalachians (1932) both edited by Maud Karpeles. |
Ralph Vaughan Williams | 1903 | Southern England, East Anglia, Herefordshire, West Midlands, Northern England | British Library, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
George Gardiner | 1904 - 1909 | Hampshire, also Somerset, Cornwall, Surrey and Sussex | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
Henry and Robert Hammond | 1904-1907 | Dorset, also Somerset, Hampshire, Worcestershire, Devon, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
Percy Grainger | 1905-1911 | Lincolnshire | Example | One of the first to record singers on wax cylinders |
Janet Heatley Blunt | 1905-1911 | Adderbury, Oxon | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Collected the tradition of a single village. With Cecil Sharp preserved the Adderbury Morris Dance tradition. |
George Butterworth | 1907- | Sussex, East Anglia, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | |
Ella Mary Leather | 1908-22 | Herefordshire | Example | Example |
Clive Carey | 1911-1949 | Sussex, Surrey, Essex, Australia | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
Alfred Williams | 1913-16 | Upper Thames - Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire, | Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre | http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/folk_search.php |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
1911 - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Essex, London, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, S. Australia
Williams 1913-16 "The Alfred Williams manuscript collection resides at the Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre, including his folk song notebooks. These cover the period coverage 1913-16 and the principal geographical coverage is the Thames Valley, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire." Texts only. Albino 1913-1918 Cotswolds George Butterworth 1911-
Maud Karpeles
Collinson
Cyril Tawney Grey Funnel Lines: Traditional Song & Verse of the Royal Navy 1900-1970
Stubbses
Mike Yates,
John Broadwood
Frank Kidson
Lucy Broadwood:
There seems to me to be an odd and possibly false distinction being made here between the older broadsides, containing mostly ballads, and later "broadside ballads". Not all of the older ballads were masterpieces - they were as much literary products of their time as the later ballads, and some of the later ballads have become part of the English and Scottish tradition being sung and enjoyed by traditional singers alongside some of the Child ballads. I'm not an expert, but I'd be interested in an article which traced the development of the broadside from the earliest examples through to the nineteenth century. I doubt broadsides died away because of some imaginary cultural degeneration from a golden age - they were replaced by other forms of cheap literature, and other means of transmitting songs, which was at least part of their purpose for at least some 19th century rural communities.
Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy (Roud Folk song Index|Roud]] 165) is an English folk song.
64 names. Most common
{{Reflist}
Tam Lin ( Child 39, Roud 35) (also called Tamlane, Tamlin, Tomlin, Tam Lien, Tam-a-Line, Tam Lyn, or Tam Lane) is a ballad collected from traditional singers in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the USA. . through all forms of transformation is found throughout Europe in folktales. [1]: 336–7 The story has been adapted into various stories, songs and films.
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. In some versions she states that she owns Carterhaugh because her father has given it to her. He rapes 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 holding him tightly. He warns her that the fairies will attempt to make her drop him by turning him into all manner of beasts (see Proteus), 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 (Tam Lin being the most common) as Tom Line, Tomlin, Young Tambling, and Tam-a-line.
The ballad dates to at least as early as 1549 (the publication date of The Complaynt of Scotland that mentions "The Tayl of the Ȝong Tamlene" ('The Tale of the Young Tamelene') among a long list of medieval romances). [1]: 336 [2]
There have been several interpretations of the Tam Lin story:
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. [3]
In some variants, " Hind Etin" has verses identical to this for the first meeting between the hero and heroine. [1]: 340
Tam Lin -- A song by Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer
The following bands and singers have recorded musical versions, all called "Tam Lin" unless otherwise stated:
There are also versions which change the original story. "Tam Lyn Retold" by Benjamin Zephaniah & Eliza Carthy (on the 2007 album The Imagined Village) retells the story with the girl meeting a man in a club and having a one-night stand. Six months later she finds him to say she is pregnant and finds out he is an immigrant without a valid visa and has a court case the following day. She attends the court and sees him go though various transformations before becoming himself: a kind peaceful person. The judge sees this and lets him become a legal citizen, free to bring up his child with his wife. "Discovery" by Three Weird Sisters hints at a darker Tam Lin with ulterior motives for his seduction of the girl.
The song was recorded by the Celtic rock group Coyote Run, in their own unique style on their album Between Wick and Flame. This version includes a narrative in the words of Tam Lin himself. Tam Lin is referred to in the Kate Bush song "The Empty Bullring", "B" side to her hit "Breathing". The song is also featured on the "This Woman's Work" box set.
As well as these versions, the name has also been used as the stage name of a New York City–based singer-songwriter, an LP by Frankie Armstrong, Brian Pearson, Blowzabella and Jon Gillaspie, and for the title of an Irish reel.
The earliest surviving broadsides were published in the 1540s. In 1543 Henry VIII prohibited their publication. Early Anglican psalters warned against them. [1]
Broadsides pasted on walls of pubs
Ballad sellers and chapmen
In the eighteenth century broadside publishers like Dicey (Northampton and London) and Turner (Coventry) began printing longer ballads (33 - 60 verses) printed on broadsheets and based on folktales and legends, As other forms of affordable literature became more widely available, and literacy became more widespread the market for broadsides changed. The growing professional and middle classes could buy books and go to pleasure gardens - the urban and rural working class bought ballads.
https://archive.org/details/journaloffolkson02folk Vol 2 No 8. pp 141 Yorkshire and London (3)
https://archive.org/details/journaloffolkson03folk
Folk Song Collection in England started in the second half of the nineteenth century and continues today. Many collectors have contributed to our knowledge of folk song by collecting texts and tunes from traditional singers. The collections they created are a valuable cultural resource and have provided a fertile source of material for singers and musicians in a series of folk music revivals as well as for composers of classical music.
Broadsides and ballads
Name | Active period | Areas covered | Location of Collection | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
John Broadwood | Before 1843 | Surrey | - | "Old English Songs", (1843) [2] |
Sabine Baring-Gould | 1864 - ?1895 | Devon and Cornwall | Devon Heritage Centre; Plymouth and West Devon Record Office; Houghton Library | "Songs of the West" (1889 - 91), and "A Garland of Country Songs" (1894) [3] |
Frank Kidson | 1886 to 1920s | Mainly Yorkshire | Mitchell Library, Glasgow | |
Lucy Broadwood | 1890s onward | Surrey, Sussex | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Surrey History Centre | "English County Songs" (1893) "English Traditional Songs and Carols" (1908) [4] |
Anne Gilchrist | 1898-1909 | Northern England, various | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Articles in "The Choir" and the Folk Song Society Journal. |
Cecil Sharp | 1899- | Somerset, Oxon, Midlands, many other areas, Appalachia | Clare College, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs (1974), English folk songs from the southern Appalachians (1932) both edited by Maud Karpeles. |
Ralph Vaughan Williams | 1903 | Southern England, East Anglia, Herefordshire, West Midlands, Northern England | British Library, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
George Gardiner | 1904 - 1909 | Hampshire, also Somerset, Cornwall, Surrey and Sussex | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
Henry and Robert Hammond | 1904-1907 | Dorset, also Somerset, Hampshire, Worcestershire, Devon, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
Percy Grainger | 1905-1911 | Lincolnshire | Example | One of the first to record singers on wax cylinders |
Janet Heatley Blunt | 1905-1911 | Adderbury, Oxon | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Collected the tradition of a single village. With Cecil Sharp preserved the Adderbury Morris Dance tradition. |
George Butterworth | 1907- | Sussex, East Anglia, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | |
Ella Mary Leather | 1908-22 | Herefordshire | Example | Example |
Clive Carey | 1911-1949 | Sussex, Surrey, Essex, Australia | Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | Example |
Alfred Williams | 1913-16 | Upper Thames - Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire, | Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre | http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/folk_search.php |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
1911 - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Essex, London, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, S. Australia
Williams 1913-16 "The Alfred Williams manuscript collection resides at the Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre, including his folk song notebooks. These cover the period coverage 1913-16 and the principal geographical coverage is the Thames Valley, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire." Texts only. Albino 1913-1918 Cotswolds George Butterworth 1911-
Maud Karpeles
Collinson
Cyril Tawney Grey Funnel Lines: Traditional Song & Verse of the Royal Navy 1900-1970
Stubbses
Mike Yates,
John Broadwood
Frank Kidson
Lucy Broadwood:
There seems to me to be an odd and possibly false distinction being made here between the older broadsides, containing mostly ballads, and later "broadside ballads". Not all of the older ballads were masterpieces - they were as much literary products of their time as the later ballads, and some of the later ballads have become part of the English and Scottish tradition being sung and enjoyed by traditional singers alongside some of the Child ballads. I'm not an expert, but I'd be interested in an article which traced the development of the broadside from the earliest examples through to the nineteenth century. I doubt broadsides died away because of some imaginary cultural degeneration from a golden age - they were replaced by other forms of cheap literature, and other means of transmitting songs, which was at least part of their purpose for at least some 19th century rural communities.
Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy (Roud Folk song Index|Roud]] 165) is an English folk song.
64 names. Most common
{{Reflist}