Tam Lin: ballad
Black-feathered bird perched on a branch outside,
Are you so wise to settle this charade:
What is as short-timed as the summer tide,
And in the race from fall to fall it fades?
It is the passion in two people’s hearts
That is betrayed and breaks the bond apart.
Saw you Tam Lin riding his steed again
Through Miles Cross and the road to Carterhaugh?
To no surprise, the spell of Faerieland
Bewitched Tam Lin and brought him to his fall.
The Queen of Faerie fiendishly she waits;
One day, the tiend of hell’s paid, soon or late.
The seasons passed, six summers since the day
Tam Lin’s true love, fair Jeanette did him steal
From Devil’s train; t’was death his part to play,
But he himself forlorn began to feel.
For ever since he came from Carterhaugh,
A longing for that land left him distraught.
While lost in thought, he left lovelorn his dear
Jeanette, unkindly took away her bliss,
’Til from the land a handsome lad appeared,
Her heavy heart rekindled with a kiss.
Feeling deceived, Tam Lin alone left town
To roam uncertain whither he was bound.
Black-feathered bird perched on a branch outside,
Are you so wise to settle this charade:
What is as short-timed as the summer tide,
And in the race from fall to fall it fades?
It is a love after the first caress,
That soon seeks the embrace of someone else.
My friend, I sing this song locked in a cage,
With my guitar to keep me company;
Now no release can find me at this stage
Tam Lin’s my name, to hell my fate takes me.
The Queen of Faerie fiendishly she waits;
One day, the tiend of hell’s paid, soon or late.
Explanation
The legend of Tam Lin was sung and written — in several versions — in the books of Scottish lyrics. It is a fairy tale that tells the encounter between Tam Lin, a young man living in the “fairy ground”*, and Janet, a maiden who dares to venture into Faërie*, becomes his lover, and rescues him from the Fairy Queen.
The “tiend of hell”, in old songs and in this poem, is a sacrifice the fairy-folk pay every seven years, to which Tam Lin was then — and now — the offering.
I hope the meaning of this poem is clear enough: Tam Lin sings about how, even though he was saved by Janet, the charm of fairy is so powerful that not even death can keep him apart. Now, years after, once more he is in the Queen of Fairy’s grasp.
* A popular expression for the other world, the fairy land.
** That is, fairy land. The name is proposed by J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy-Stories”.
