FOOTNOTES:
[323] These are the concluding verses, coming much nearer to the language of this world than the rest. They may have a basis of tradition:
Whar they war aware o the Fairy King,
A huntan wi his train.
Four an twenty gentlemen
Cam by on steeds o brown;
In his hand ilk bore a siller wand,
On his head a siller crown.
Four an twenty beltit knichts
On duiplit greys cam by;
Gowden their wands an crowns, whilk scanct
Like streamers in the sky.
Four an twenty noble kings
Cam by on steeds o snaw,
But True Thomas, the gude Rhymer,
Was king outower them a'.
[324] "Tamlane: an old Scottish Border Ballad. Aberdeen, Lewis and James Smith, 1862. "I am indebted for a sight of this copy, and for the information as to the editor, to Mr Macmath.
[325] Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 221-24, ed. 1802.
[326] Restoration from enchantment is effected by drinking blood, in other ballads, as Grundtvig, No 55, II, 156, No 58, II, 174; in No 56, II, 158, by a maid in falcon shape eating of a bit of flesh which her lover had cut from his breast.
[327] Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp 115-17, "from Chourmouzis, [Greek: Krêtika], p. 69 f, Athens, 1842." Chourmouzis heard this story, about 1820 or 1830, from an old Cretan peasant, who had heard it from his grandfather.
[328] The silence of the Cretan fairy, as B. Schmidt has remarked, even seems to explain Sophocles calling the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis "speechless," [Greek: aphthongous gamous]. Sophocles gives the transformations as being lion, snake, fire, water: Scholia in Pindari Nemea, III, 60; Schmidt, as before, p. 116, note. That a firm grip and a fearless one would make any sea-god do your will would appear from the additional instances of Menelaus and Proteus, in Odyssey, IV, and of Hercules and Nereus, Apollodorus, II, 5, 11, 4, Scholia in Apollonii Argonaut., IV, 1396. Proteus masks as lion, snake, panther, boar, running water, tree; Nereus as water, fire, or, as Apollodorus says, in all sorts of shapes. Bacchus was accustomed to transform himself when violence was done him, but it is not recorded that he was ever brought to terms like the watery divinities. See Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, II, 60-64, who also well remarks that the tales of the White Ladies, who, to be released from a ban, must be kissed three times in various shapes, as toad, wolf, snake, etc., have relation to these Greek traditions.
[329] The significance of the immersion in water is shown by Mannhardt, Wald-u. Feldkulte, II, 64 ff. The disorder in the stanzas of A at this place has of course been rectified. In Scott's version, I, transformations are added at random from C, after the dipping in milk and in water, which seems indeed to have been regarded by the reciters only as a measure for cooling red-hot iron or the burning gleed, and not as the act essential for restoration to the human nature.
[330] Possibly the holy water in D 17, G 32, is a relic of the water-bath.
[331] In the MS. of B also the transformation into a het gad of iron comes just before the direction to dip the object into a stand of milk; but we have the turning into a mother-naked man several stanzas earlier. By reading, in 331, I'll turn, and putting 33 after 34, we should have the order of events which we find in A.
That Tam Lin should go into water or milk as a dove or snake, or in some other of his temporary forms, and come out a man, is the only disposition which is consistent with the order of the world to which he belongs. Mannhardt gives us a most curious and interesting insight into some of the laws of that world in Wald-u. Feldkulte, II, 64-70. The wife of a Cashmere king, in a story there cited from Benfey's Pantschatantra, I, 254, § 92, is delivered of a serpent, but is reported to have borne a son. Another king offers his daughter in marriage, and the Cashmere king, to keep his secret, accepts the proposal. In due time the princess claims her bridegroom, and they give her the snake. Though greatly distressed, she accepts her lot, and takes the snake about to the holy places, at the last of which she receives a command to put the snake into the water-tank. As soon as this is done the snake takes the form of a man. A woman's giving birth to a snake was by no means a rare thing in Karst in the seventeenth century, and it was the rule in one noble family that all the offspring should be in serpent form, or at least have a serpent's head; but a bath in water turned them into human shape. For elves and water nymphs who have entered into connections with men in the form of women, bathing in water is equally necessary for resuming their previous shape, as appears from an ancient version of the story of Melusina: Gervasius, ed. Liebrecht, p. 4 f, and Vincentius Bellovacensis, Speculum Naturale, 2, 127 (from Helinaudus), cited by Liebrecht, at p. 66.
A lad who had been changed into an ass by a couple of witches recovers his shape merely by jumping into water and rolling about in it: William of Malmesbury's Kings of England, c. 10, cited by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, iii, 109; Düntzer, Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 538. Simple illusions of magic, such as clods and wisps made to appear swine to our eyes, are inevitably dissolved when the unrealities touch water. Liebrecht's Gervasius, p. 65.
[332] Cf. 'Allison Gross.'
[40]
THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOURICE
Skene MSS, No 8, p. 25. Sharpe's Ballad Book, ed. Laing, p. 169.
We see from this pretty fragment, which, after the nature of the best popular ballad, forces you to chant and will not be read, that a woman had been carried off, four days after bearing a son, to serve as nurse in the elf-queen's family. She is promised that she shall be permitted to return home if she will tend the fairy's bairn till he has got the use of his legs. We could well have spared stanzas 10-12, which belong to '[Thomas Rymer],' to know a little more of the proper story.
That elves and water-spirits have frequently solicited the help of mortal women at lying-in time is well known: see Stewart's Popular Superstitions of the Highlands, p. 104; Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, Nos 41, 49, 68, 69, 304; Müllenhoff, Nos 443, 444; Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagen, 1843, II, 200, Nos 1-4; Asbjørnsen, Norske Huldre-Eventyr, 2d ed., I, 16; Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen, p. 6 f; Keightley's Fairy Mythology, pp 122, 261, 275, 301, 311, 388, 488.[333] They also like to have their offspring suckled by earthly women. It is said, writes Gervase of Tilbury, that nobody is more exposed to being carried off by water-sprites than a woman in milk, and that they sometimes restore such a woman, with pay for her services, after she has nursed their wretched fry seven years. He had himself seen a woman who had been abducted for this purpose, while washing clothes on the bank of the Rhone. She had to nurse the nix's son under the water for that term, and then was sent back unhurt. Otia Imperialia, III, 85, Liebrecht, p. 38. Choice is naturally made of the healthiest and handsomest mothers for this office. "A fine young woman of Nithsdale, when first made a mother, was sitting singing and rocking her child, when a pretty lady came into her cottage, covered with a fairy mantle. She carried a beautiful child in her arms, swaddled in green silk. 'Gie my bonnie thing a suck,' said the fairy. The young woman, conscious to whom the child belonged, took it kindly in her arms, and laid it to her breast. The lady instantly disappeared, saying, 'Nurse kin', an ne'er want.' The young mother nurtured the two babes, and was astonished, whenever she awoke, at finding the richest suits of apparel for both children, with meat of most delicious flavor. This food tasted, says tradition, like loaf mixed with wine and honey," etc. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 302.
1
I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,
An a cow low down in yon glen;
Lang, lang will my young son greet
Or his mither bid him come ben.
2
I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,
An a cow low down in yon fauld;
Lang, lang will my young son greet
Or his mither take him frae cauld.
* * * * *
3
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Waken, Queen of Elfan,
An hear your nourice moan.'
4
'O moan ye for your meat,
Or moan ye for your fee,
Or moan ye for the ither bounties
That ladies are wont to gie?'
5
'I moan na for my meat,
Nor moan I for my fee,
Nor moan I for the ither bounties
That ladies are wont to gie.
6
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
But I moan for my young son
I left in four nights auld.
7
'I moan na for my meat,
Nor yet for my fee,
But I mourn for Christen land,
It's there I fain would be.'
8
'O nurse my bairn, nourice,' she says,
'Till he stan at your knee,
An ye's win hame to Christen land,
Whar fain it's ye wad be.
9
'O keep my bairn, nourice,
Till he gang by the hauld,
An ye's win hame to your young son
Ye left in four nights auld.'
* * * * *
10
'O nourice lay your head
Upo my knee:
See ye na that narrow road
Up by yon tree?
11
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
That's the road the righteous goes,
And that's the road to heaven.
12
'An see na ye that braid road,
Down by yon sunny fell?
Yon's the road the wicked gae,
An that's the road to hell.'
* * * * *
11. an a bonnie cow low, with an crossed out.
22. yon fall: fauld in margin.
64. auld not in MS., supplied from 94.
73. Christend.
81. she says is probably the comment of the singer or reciter.