At stated periods, which the ballads make to be seven years, the fiend of hell is entitled to take his teind, tithe, or kane from the people of fairy-land: A 24, B 23, C 5, D 15, G 28, H 15. The fiend prefers those that are fair and fu o flesh, according to A, G; ane o flesh and blood, D. H makes the queen fear for herself; "the koors they hae gane round about, and I fear it will be mysel." H is not discordant with popular tradition elsewhere, which attributes to fairies the practice of abstracting young children to serve as substitutes for themselves in this tribute: Scott's Minstrelsy, II, 220, 1802. D 15 says "the last here goes to hell," which would certainly not be equitable, and C "we're a' dung down to hell," where "all" must be meant only of the naturalized members of the community. Poor Alison Pearson, who lost her life in 1586 for believing these things, testified that the tribute was annual. Mr William Sympson, who had been taken away by the fairies, "bidd her sign herself that she be not taken away, for the teind of them are tane to hell everie year:" Scott, as above, p. 208. The kindly queen of the fairies[332] will not allow Thomas of Erceldoune to be exposed to this peril, and hurries him back to earth the day before the fiend comes for his due. Thomas is in peculiar danger, for the reason given in A, G, R.
To morne of helle þe foulle fende
Amange this folke will feche his fee;
And þou art mekill man and hende;
I trowe full wele he wolde chese the.
The elf-queen, A 42, B 40, would have taken out Tam's twa gray een, had she known he was to be borrowed, and have put in twa een of tree, B 41, D 34, E 21, H 14; she would have taken out his heart of flesh, and have put in, B, D, E, a heart of stane, H of tree. The taking out of the eyes would probably be to deprive Tam of the faculty of recognizing fairy folk thereafter. Mortals whose eyes have been touched with fairies' salve can see them when they are to others invisible, and such persons, upon distinguishing and saluting fairies, have often had not simply this power but their ordinary eyesight taken away: see Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 304, Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagn, 1843, II, 202, IV, etc. Grimm has given instances of witches, Slavic, German, Norse and Italian, taking out the heart of man (which they are wont to devour), and replacing it in some instances with straw, wood, or something of the kind; nor do the Roman witches appear to have been behind later ones in this dealing: Deutsche Mythologie, 904 f, and the note III, 312.
The fairy in the Lai de Lauval, v. 547, rides on a white palfrey, and also two damsels, her harbingers, v. 471; so the fairy princess in the English Launfal, Halliwell, Fairy Mythology, p. 30. The fairy king and all his knights and ladies ride on white steeds in King Orfeo, Halliwell, as above, p. 41. The queen of Elfland rides a milk-white steed in Thomas Rymer, A, C; in B, and all copies of Thomas of Erceldoune, her palfrey is dapple gray. Tam Lin, A 28, B 27, etc., is distinguished from all the rest of his "court" by being thus mounted; all the other horses are black or brown.
Tam Lane was taken by the fairies, according to G 26, 27, while sleeping under an apple-tree. In Sir Orfeo (ed. Zielke, v. 68) it was the queen's sleeping under an ympe-tree that led to her being carried off by the fairy king, and the ympe-tree we may suppose to be some kind of fruit tree, if not exclusively the apple. Thomas of Erceldoune is lying under a semely [derne, cumly] tree, when he sees the fairy queen. The derivation of that poem from Ogier le Danois shows that this must have been an apple-tree. Special trees are considered in Greece dangerous to lie under in summer and at noon, as exposing one to be taken by the nereids or fairies, especially plane, poplar, fig, nut, and St John's bread: Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 119. The elder and the linden are favorites of the elves in Denmark.
The rencounter at the beginning between Tam Lin and Janet (in the wood, D, F, G) is repeated between Hind Etin [Young Akin] and Margaret in 'Hind Etin,' further on. Some Slavic ballads open in a similar way, but there is nothing noteworthy in that: see p. 41. "First they did call me Jack," etc., D 9, is a commonplace of frequent occurrence: see, e.g., 'The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter.'
Some humorous verses, excellent in their way, about one Tam o Lin are very well known: as Tam o the Linn, Chambers, Scottish Songs, p. 455, Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 33, ed. 1870; Sharpe's Ballads, new ed., p. 44, p. 137, No XVI; Tommy Linn, North Country Chorister, ed. Ritson, p. 3; Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, p. 271, ed. 1849; Thomas o Linn, Kinloch MSS, III, 45, V, 81; Tam o Lin, Campbell MSS., II, 107. (Miss Joanna Baillie tried her hand at an imitation, but the jocosity of the real thing is not feminine.) A fool sings this stanza from such a song in Wager's comedy, 'The longer thou livest, the more fool thou art,' put at about 1568; see Furnivall, Captain Cox, his Ballads and Books, p. cxxvii:
Tom a Lin and his wife, and his wiues mother,
They went ouer a bridge all three together;
The bridge was broken, and they fell in:
'The deuil go with all!' quoth Tom a Lin.
Mr Halliwell-Phillips (as above) says that "an immense variety of songs and catches relating to Tommy Linn are known throughout the country." Brian o Lynn seems to be popular in Ireland: Lover's Legends and Stories of Ireland, p. 260 f. There is no connection between the song and the ballad beyond the name: the song is no parody, no burlesque, of the ballad, as it has been called.
"Carterhaugh is a plain at the confluence of the Ettrick with the Yarrow, scarcely an English mile above the town of Selkirk, and on this plain they show two or three rings on the ground, where, they say, the stands of milk and water stood, and upon which grass never grows." Glenriddell MS.