Tam Lin
Tamlin
The rescue of a mortal from the grasp of captor fairies was a venture fraught with danger. Few people were steadfast enough for the attempt, but there were some. One was a Scotsman, the daughter of the Earl of March. Janet was her name.
Near the castle where she lived, just north of the English border, was a place called Carterhaugh Wood, known to be guarded by an elfin knight. No maiden went there and returned unscathed, but Janet cared not a whit for the danger. Early one summer afternoon she left her father's hall and went blithely to a well in the wood, to pluck the briar roses there. She picked one - and the knight appeared before her in the leafy shade, tall and pale and cloaked in silk.
The setting sun had begun to send shafts of gold through the leaves before Janet left that wood, a maid no more. But she went again another day to find the knightly stranger, for she had loved him at once. In the drowsy summer afternoons, he told her what he was - no elf, but as mortal as she. His name was Tam Lin, and he was the grandsom of the Earl of Roxburgh, captured by the fairies years before. He had served the Fairy Queen since, guarding her wood by day and riding with her troop at night.
What mortal could rescue Tam Lin from that shadow life but Janet who loved him? She told him she would save him if she could, and Tam Lin described how the mortal must challenge the power of the Fairy Queen. Then he faded into the sun-speckled forest. On the Eve of Allhallows, following Tam Lin's instructions, Janet stole through the moonlit wood to a crossroads nearby - an in-between place, where fairies might be seen - and hid herself behind a thorn hedge. At midnight she heard the thrills of music pipes and the softer tones of lyres; she saw a glow, as of throngs of fireflies, suffusing the sky just beyond the crossroads.
With jingling bridles and pealing bells, the fairy troop came into view. At its head, riding tall on a black horse, was the Queen, her countenance as pale as an image seen in an antique glass. Lords and ladies followed, their delicate, ghostly faces turned up toward the moonlight, their elfin looks flowing behind.
At last, in that uncertain light, Janet saw Tam Lin and knew him by the signs he had given her in Carterhaugh Wood. He rod a moon-white horse, he wore only one gauntlet, and on his brow rested a golden circlet. As Tam Lin had bade her, Janet acted. When he came abreast of her, she sprang fearlessly from her hiding place and dragged him from the saddle. At once a shrill, fiercy cry rang out.
Tam Lin is away!
The Queen reined in her horse, swiveled in her saddle and fixed Tam Lin with an icy gaze.
The knight's warm body seemed to melt in Janet's grasp. She clutched empty air and thought Tam Lin was lost. But he was not: Tiny feet beat against her palm and a salamander writhed in an effort at escape. With an instinct quicker than thought, Janet cupped her hands and contained the creature. The elfin Queen's eyes glittered, and the salamander swelled until Janet found herself holding the cold, scaly coils of a serpent that flexed and twined about her arms and neck. She set her jaw and pressed herself against the creature, clutching it in a lover's embrace while a numbing chill crept through her heart. Janet did not flinch or slacken, for the knight had told her what her trial would be:
All that could save him from his enchantment was the unyielding grasp of a mortal lover, given at midnight on Allhallows Eve. The Fairy Queen cried out, and the scales under Janet's hands melted away, to be replaced by the thick fur and shining teeth of a bear. Janet trembled, but she held her breath against the beast's rank odor and stood fast, her arms grasping its massive body. With a cry of rage, the Fairy Queen lifted her arm, and all around, Janet heard a sound as of sails flapping in the wind: Straining against her grip was a swan, its bill pecking sharply at her face, its great wings beating against her arms.
But the mortal grasp never weakened. And at last the struggling stopped. Where serpent, beast and bird had fought was only a heavy iron bar - but that bar was incandescent with its heat, burning the mortal flesh. It was the end, and Janet knew it. Dodging the trampling hoofs of the fairy horses and closing her ears against the eldritch cries, she ran into the Caterhaugh Wood and cast the iron into the well. There was a hiss of stream as the bar struck the water, then silence. From the well stepped a naked man - Tam Lin, reborn into the mortal world. Janet wrapped him in her cloak.
Behind them was the elfin Queen, steadying her dancing horse and regarding them with cold eyes. The battle was over.
Had I but known that an earthly woman would win you away with her love, Tam Lin," she cried, "I would have taken out your heart of flesh and given you one of stone.
She wheeled and summoned her company to her, and then the fairy band faded like wraiths into the trees. But Tam Lin and Janet scarcely heard, the chroniclers say - their thoughts were only for mortal love.
Fairies - Content | Myths and Legends