And thinking lang, fell soun asleep
Beneath an apple tree.
Then by it came the Elfin Queen
And laid her hand on me;
And from that time since ever I mind
I've been in her companie....
He seems to have been an outlandish and unhuman creature—if this next rhyme tells of him truly (gait, meaning road; pin, (?) knife; coft, bought; moss, peat-bog; and boonmost—you can guess):
Tam o' the linn came up the gait,
Wi' twenty puddings on a plate,
And every pudding had a pin,