Tam Lin


British folk-rock group Fairport Convention’s version of the traditional Scottish ballad “Tam Lin”—included on their 1969 album Liege & Lief—is, lyrically, a feminist affirmation, limning a world over which men still think they have control but seem obtusely and, at times, almost comically unaware of who wields the real power: women. This scarcely makes the Fairport Convention version of the ballad unique—most versions of "Tam Lin" have this proto-gynarchic torque to them; but the melodies of the various versions of the ballad can differ widely. I myself am partial to Fairport Convention’s arrangement and melody; moreover, Sandy Denny’s voice, transcendent as usual, truly soars throughout the seven minutes and thirteen seconds of FC’s take on the ballad and she manages to breathe a separate life into each of the characters, be they female or male.

The ballad takes its title from the name of its main male character, which is in a way part of its subtly subversive irony. Its real hero is not Tam Lin, who, though now a captive of the Fairies, was once an "earthly knight," for Tam is almost entirely passive throughout and is, as it turns out, in need of rescue like an archetypal "damsel in distress." No, the true hero of the ballad is Janet, whose character is defined by her rejection of passivity, her refusal to be ruled by men (or anyone else) and her proud and defiant insistence on being an aggressively proactive agent in deciding her own fate—and, for that matter, Tam's. Janet is by far the strongest and most assertive character in the ballad, surpassing even the Queen of the Fairies, the ballad's other strong and assertive character (also female). The action of the song, as well, is described largely from Janet’s perspective. "Tam Lin" turns the standard Mediaeval trope of two knights battling for a fair maiden's hand on its head; for it is a tale of two female characters, Janet and the Fairy Queen, battling for the right to possess a man, making it a Medieval/Renaissance Quest Tale told with a significant and disorienting twist: it is the “fair damsel” Janet who saves the “manly” Knight Tam from his chthonic fate.

The song begins with a male voice—most likely that of Janet's father—issuing a blanket interdiction to "maidens all"1:

I forbid you maidens all
that wear gold in your hair
To travel to Carterhaugh
for young Tam Lin is there 

None that go by Carterhaugh
but they leave him a pledge
Either their mantles of green
or else their maidenheads

Janet's immediate response to this sexually-fraught proscription, her very first act in the ballad, is to tie "her kirtle green/ A bit above her knee"—a powerful first image: redolent of flowering, verdant youth2 and also vaguely intimate—and defiantly head straight to Carterhaugh, the forest where Tam Lin dwells. Once there, she plucks one of the forbidden roses, for which action Tam appears to reprimand her. Symbolically, she deflowers him—the first of a series of reversals of traditional gender roles in the ballad. "And why come you to Carterhaugh/ Without command from me?" asks the elf-knight Tam Lin. "I'll come and go ..../ And ask no leave of thee," Janet defiantly replies, addressing Tam with the more familiar “thee” (the only such use of the familiar second person in the ballad) in contrast to Tam’s more formal “you” when he addresses her.


Carterhaugh

These gender (and power) reversals continue throughout the ballad. Reversals—of gender roles; of the roles of parent and child; even Tam’s reversion from elf-knight back into “earthly knight”—become an important motif in the ballad.

Janet is impregnated by Tam but refuses to be shamed by it or bullied because of it:

Well up then spoke her father dear
and he spoke meek and mild

"Oh and alas Janet" he said
"I think you go with child."

"Well if that be so" Janet said
"Myself shall bear the blame
There's not a knight in all your hall
shall get the baby's name."

Interestingly—and oddly—the  blanket prohibition-issuing father of the opening verses is now, in the face of Janet's presumably shameful out-of-wedlock pregnancy, "meek and mild" ...  adjectives typically associated with women in Mediaeval ballads and tales. Janet remains steadfast in her determination not to allow anyone to choose her fate for her. She returns to Carterhaugh to learn how to win Tam and rescue him from his apparent fate of being sacrificed by the Fairy Queen to infernal powers. Tam explains:

... [A]t the end of seven years
she [i.e., the Queen  of the Fairies] pays a tithe to hell
I so fair and full of flesh
am feared it be myself

I so fair and full of flesh—this, it need hardly be pointed out, is an unusual way for a knight to describe himself. It sounds more like how a Bold Knight might describe his Maiden Fair. Tam is fearful; he explains to Janet that she must not be in order to rescue Tam from being delivered to a fate amounting to eternal damnation.

Janet ultimately rescues Tam by pulling him from his horse on Halloween night and holding on to him as he undergoes a series of protean changes, as Tam instructed her to do:

"Oh they [i.e., the Fairies] will turn me in your arms
to a newt or a snake
But hold me tight and fear not ...

"And they will turn me in your arms
into a lion bold
But hold me tight and fear not ...

"And they will turn me in your arms
into a naked knight
But cloak me in your mantle
and keep me out of sight"

Janet holds on to Tam as he manifests a series of fearful and intimidating personae—a newt; a snake; a lion—intended to frighten her until, ultimately, his true (and original) nature is revealed and he is symbolically reborn: helpless, naked, and in need of salvation, brought back into mortal life through a woman's resolute strength and determination—the ballad's final and most telling gender reversal. Tam’s role in his own salvation is reduced to describing to Janet what she must do to rescue him 3.

Janet’s triumph is underscored by the Queen of the Fairies’ ire. It is evident that the Queen feels she has been bested by a rival with keener skills and she is left with no recourse other than to curse Janet for outdueling her: “An ill death may she die!” This coda serves to emphasize the stakes for Janet: although there is no direct confrontation between Janet and the Queen, it is abundantly clear that failure on Janet’s part would have entailed dire consequences for her, as well as for Tam. But Janet manages to triumph not merely in a role traditionally forbidden to women, but also against an opponent with supernatural powers.



Relevant Resources Available at MCL

On Freegal Music, if you search “Tam Lin”, it will bring up over a dozen different versions of the ballad, including a live version by a different Fairport Convention line-up. This is a good version, but nowhere near the perfection of the Sandy Denny version. Included in the results is the Steeleye Span version, sung by angel-voiced Maddy Pryor.

The Ballad of Tam Lin by Kathleen McGowan. A hoopla eBook novel version of the legend.

Denny, Sandy. No More Sad Refrains: The Anthology Includes demos and rare recordings.

Fairport Convention. Come All Ye - The First Ten Years (1968 To 1978) Available on hoopla; includes a live version of “Tam Lin.”

Kamala: Feminist Folktales from Around the World edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps

Osborne, Mary Pope Favorite Medieval Tales Some well-known European Medieval Tales.


1. As parent of a teenager, I can say with some measure of authority that if you really want your teenaged child NOT to do something, the absolute worst thing you can do is what Janet’s father does here, which is to point out to her (and not just her, but to “maidens all”!) that there’s this really cool, possibly dangerous, thing—in this case a proverbial “bad boy rebel type”—who’s not far away, right over there, in those woods, and he’s really seductive in a forbidden-fruit sort of way and not like those other boring “good boys” at all and I bet, I just BET you think you’re the one woman whose love can finally change or tame him but trust me you’re NOT and now that I’ve pointed all of this tempting stuff out to you here’s my point: Stay away from that supercool, smoldering, hot guy.

Parents: This is an awful strategy. It never works. In fact, it’s guaranteed to backfire just as it does for Janet’s father. Modern times, Medieval times, Renaissance times, Caveman times—it doesn’t matter. Throughout the history of humankind, this strategy has never worked and has, in fact, always had the opposite of the desired effect.

2.The ballad associates the color green with Janet after first tying it to Tam’s demanded “pledges,” one of which is a young woman’s (to put it decorously) “virtue.”

3.This is a truly bizarre aspect of how the tale is related. Janet’s actual heroic actions are never depicted. Instead, Tam goes into elaborate descriptions of what will happen and what Janet must do but Janet’s deeds are almost an afterthought in the song: “She heeded what he did say/ and young Tam Lin did win.” That’s it. It’s almost an anti-climax. It’s weird and I don’t know what to make of it.

Pic of Carterhaugh from Wikimedia Commons labeled for noncommercial reuse.

—Tom G., Hopewell Branch

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