Authors: Tam Lin (pdf)
Blackstock is not Carleton. It has its own history and its own characters, and even some minor physical differences: those who trouble to consider such things will notice, for example, that Davis Hall has disappeared, that the old Music Building has taken on considerable grandeur, and that a number of distances have been altered.
The people who occupy Blackstock are entirely imaginary. In particular, I never encountered at Carleton, in the Classics Department or outside it, anybody remotely resembling Melinda Wolfe or Professor Medeous. It would also be unwise, though certainly in accord with human nature, to identify the author with the protagonist.
I do not mean to denigrate my debt to Carleton, which is enormous: what little I may be said to know about the joys and responsibilities of the intellect and the glory of literature Carleton, and in particular its Classics and English Departments, has taught me. My errors, of course, are my own.
AFTERWORD
This is the hardest part of the book; what I had to say about "Tam Lin," I've said already. But there are a few bare facts that may be interesting. "Tam Lin" is not in fact a fairy tale at all, but a member of that curious class, the sixteenth-century Scottish ballad.
You can find it in Volume I of Francis James Child's invaluable work,
The English and
Scottish Popular Ballads
—it's Number 39. I was first introduced to it by Fairport Convention, who included a rather sedate (by their later standards) rock version of it on their album
Liege and Leaf.
The song had fascinated me for years. I liked the fact that the girl got to rescue the boy; the way she went straight to Carter Hall the moment somebody told her not to; the fact that she was the one who plucked the rose; the shape-shifting; the ominous and ambiguous ending that gives the Faerie Queen the last word.
I was still fascinated when Terri Windling told me about the Fairy Tale Line, and after delving among all my much-loved fairy tales and mumbling to myself a lot, I finally confessed to her that I wanted to adapt a ballad instead. It had enough fairy-tale elements in it to satisfy her. She thought I might set it in Elizabethan England, which seemed to be a splendid idea, except that I couldn't get anywhere with it. I was scowling over all the alternate versions in Child (they go from A to I), when I came across some verses that are not included in the song I knew.
Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba',
And out then came the fair Janet,
Ance the flower among them a'.
Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess,
And out then came the fair Janet,
As green as onie glass.
And suddenly it all reminded me of college, where the fear of getting pregnant collaborated with the conviction that you weren't nearly as smart as you'd thought you were, that you would never amount to anything practical even if all the professors thought you were a genius, and that the world was going to hell so fast that you'd be lucky to have a B.A. to show the devil when it got there, to produce a sub-clinical state of frenzy; where juggling your love life with anything else was almost but never quite completely impossible; where we all did any number of foolish and peculiar things while surrounded by and occasionally even absorbing the wisdom of the ages.
This was a song about adolescents. I could set it in a college. I did; and everything else, including the ghosts, who had no part in the original outline, sprang from that.
In many versions of the song, the last verse reads, "O ha d I known at early morn
Tomlin would from me gone, I would have taken out his heart of flesh, Put in a heart of stone."
At the moment, if you asked me, I would say that this book is about keeping the heart of flesh in a world that wants to put in a heart of stone; and about how, regardless of the accusations regularly flung at them from all quarters, learning and literature can help their adherents accomplish that.
If you asked me tomorrow, I might say something else.
Pamela Dean
Minneapolis, Minnesota
8 July 1990
TAM LIN (CHILD 39—A)
O I forbid you, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tam Lin is there.
There's nane that gaes by Carterhaugh
But they leave him a wad,
Either their rings, or green mantles,
Or else their maidenhead.
Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee,
And she has broded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree,
And she's awa to Carterhaugh
As fast as she can hie.
When she came to Carterhaugh
Tam Lin was at the well,
And there she fand his steed standing,
But away was himsel.
She had na pu'd a double rose,
A rose but only twa,
Till up then started young Tam Lin,
Says, Lady, thou's pu nae mae.
Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,
And why breaks thou the wand?
Or why comes thou to Carterhaugh
Withoutten my command?
"Carterhaugh, it is my own,
My daddy gave it me;
I'll come and gang by Carterhaugh,
And ask nae leave at thee."
Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee,
And she has broded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree,
And she is to her father's ha,
As fast as she can hie.
Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the ba,
And out then came the fair Janet,
The flower among them a'.
Four and twenty ladies fair
Were playing at the chess,
And out then came the fair Janet,
As green as onie glass.
Out then spak an auld grey knight,
Lay oer the castle wa,
And says, Alas, fair Janet, for thee,
But we'll be blamed a'.
"Haud your tongue, ye auld fac'd knight,
Some ill death may ye die!
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I'll father none on thee."
Out then spak her father dear,
And he spak meek and mild,
"And ever alas, sweet Janet," he says,
"I think thou gaest wi child."
"If that I gae wi child, father,
Mysel maun bear the blame,
There's neer a laird about your ha
Shall get the bairn's name.
"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.
"The steed that my true love rides on
Is lighter than the wind,
Wi siller he is shod before,
Wi burning gowd behind."
Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee,
And she has broded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree,
And she's awa to Carterhaugh
As fast as she can hie.
When she came to Carterhaugh,
Tam Lin was at the well,
And there she fand his steed standing,
But away was himsel.
She had na pud a double rose,
A rose but only twa,
Till up then started young Tam Lin,
Says, Lady, thou pu's nae mae.
"Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,
Amang the groves sae green,
And a' to kill the bonny babe
That we gat us between?"
"O tell me, tell me, Tam Lin," she says,
"For's sake that died on tree,
If eer ye was in holy chapel,
Or Christendom did see?"
"Roxbrugh he was my grandfather,
Took me with him to bide,
And ance it fell upon a day
That wae did me betide.
"And ance it fell upon a day
A cauld day and a snell,
When we were frae the hunting come,
That frae my horse I fell;
The Queen o' Fairies she caught me,
In yon green hill do dwell.
"And pleasant is the fairy land,
But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years,
We pay a tiend to hell,
I am sae fair and fu o flesh,
I'm feard it be mysel.
"But the night is Halloween, lady,
The morn is Hallow day.
Then win me, win me, an ye will,
For weel I wat ye may.
"Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride,
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide."
"But how shall I thee ken, Tam Lin,
Or how my true-love know,
Amang sa mony unco knights,
The like I never saw?"
"O first let pass the black, lady,
And syne let pass the brown,
But quickly run to the milk-white steed,
Pu ye his rider down.
"For I'll ride on the milk-white steed,
And ay nearest the town,
Because I was an earthly knight
They gie me that renown.
"My right hand will be gloved, lady,
My left hand will be bare,
Cockt up shall my bonnet be,
And kaimed down shall my hair,
And thae's the takens I gie thee,
Nae doubt I will be there.
"They'll turn me in your arms, lady,
Into an esk and adder,
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
I am your bairn's father.
"They'll turn me to a bear sae grim,
And then a lion bold;
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
And ye shall love your child.
"Again they'll turn me in your arms
To a red het gand of airn;
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
I'll do to you nae harm.
"And last they'll turn me in your arms
Into the burning gleed;
Then throw me into well water,
O throw me in with speed.
"And then I'll be your ain true-love,
I'll turn a naked knight;
Then cover me wi your green mantle,
And cover me out o sight."
Gloomy, gloomy was the night,
And eerie was the way,
As fair Jenny in her green mantle
To Miles Cross she did gae.
About the middle o the night
She heard the bridles ring;
This lady was as glad at that
As any earthly thing.
First she let the black pass by,
And syne she let the brown,
But quickly she ran to the milk-white steed,
And pu'd the rider down.
Sae weel she minded what he did say,
And young Tam Lin did win;
Syne covered him wi her green mantle,
As blythe's a bird in spring.
Out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
Out of a bush o broom;
"Them that has gotten young Tam Lin
Has gotten a stately groom."
Out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
And an angry woman was she;
"Shame betide her ill-far'd face,
And an ill death may she die,
For she's taen awa the bonniest knight
In a' my companie.
"But had I kend, Tam Lin," she says,
"What now this night I see,
I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een,
And put in twa een o tree."