Thomas the Rhymer is a popular Scottish folk ballad. The hero of the song, Thomas, is out one fine morning when a lady on a milk white steed comes riding over the moor towards him. Recognising that the beautiful woman is no mere mortal and no doubt recalling that it’s always best to be polite to the Fair Folk, Thomas bows and makes a very flattering greeting to the lady.
‘All hail the mighty queen of heaven, your like on earth I ne’er did see.’
It’s possible that Thomas overdid it since, liking the cut of his gib, the lady who is none other than a faery queen, abducts him and takes him to ‘fair elfland’ where she keeps him for seven years. At the end of which, she proposes giving him a gift in payment for his service. She offers to bless him with the ability to always tell the truth which does not please Thomas greatly.
‘Mine tongue is mine ayne’
The faery queen takes no notice of this and ‘blesses’ him anyway before releasing him back into the mortal realm. True Thomas he was known as ever after.
I’m not sure quite why this story, and it’s close relative – Tam Lynn – have always captured my imagination. There are literally dozens of stories of folk abducted by the Fair Folk. Likely young men – ideally musicians ir poets – were favourites, and this dates past folk song and folk lore back into Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Bretton and even Celtic myth. In fact if you want to go a bit further afield, Norwegian mythology has a counterpart – East of the Sun, West of the Moon is fairytale based on just such a myth. (Ok so the abductor is the Queen of the Huldre or trolls rather than Faeries as we might think of them but it’s clearly the same situation.) Or how about the Erlkonig of Germanic folklore? Plenty of examples there. Or Russia. Or Japan – where certain of the Yokai (loose translation ‘demons’ but really they’re faeries) take suitable mortals. Presumably the Europeans who colonised large parts of America took that particular folk tradition with them where it either evolved or co-mingled with Native American mythology because there are examples of ‘faery abduction stories there too’.
It’s not just far afield either. Just down the road from where I live, there is a site just over the border into Herefordshire where a faery abduction alledgedly took place a scant 100 years ago – it’s documented in Ella Leather’s famous collection of folktales. And then when I think back to my childhood in Dorset and in visits to Templemore and Cork in Ireland, I heard too many snippets of folktales of this category to count. Including one very famous one concerning the patroness of the MacCathy family and the gifting of the Stone of Eloquence.
When several independant sources all come up with the same story, it’s both cause for some serious anthropological consideration and an indication of a deep vein of the human psyche which a writer can, with a bit of skill, tap into.
Here’s something else about Thomas the Rhymer – he appears to have been a real person. A 13th C Scottish Laird by the name of Thomas de Ercildoun, alledgedly abducted by the queen of Faerie, reappearing after a seven year absence with an apparent gift for prophecy and truth telling. While you can dispute the involvement of supernatural forces, the basic facts – his birth, death, estate, family and disappearance are all a matter of historical record. It’s certainly enough to get a writer and folklorist all excited, believe me!
My favourite of these stories is Tam Lynn. Tam is an old Scottish pet form of Tom or Thomas but the folksong appears to predate Thomas the Rhymer. Slightly different story too. In Tam Lynn, it is bold Janet, the fair Laird’s daughter who bravely pits herself against the Faery Queen and rescues Tam. (I like to think that it’s because she actually wants Tam herself and not just that as an unwed girl who has fallen pregnant by Tam, that she has no other choice.) One of the reasons I like the song and story is that it’s a rare example of a woman in folktale doing what she wants and ultimately being the hero. Nor does Janet suffer for being independant and choosing her own mate – the same cannot be said for most other maidens in folksongs. Both songs clearly have their fairytale roots in much older and somewhat darker stories.
Tam Lynn does actually reference this dark origin;
For once in every seven years, they pay a teind to hell.
Seven years again. It’s a recurring theme all the way back to Celtic myth. Are you intrigued? I really hope so because this is part of the reason that I ended up writing a new and accidental Unveiled novel.
I know I said that ‘I Rule the Night’ was the last book. Technically that’s still true. It completed Emlynn’s character journey through the series arc and you can absolutely get the entire story from reading the four main books in the quartet. (Although many people have said how much more they’ve enjoyed the series reading the companion novels, novellas and short stories – always good to hear!) However one reader got in touch and asked if a certain pair of characters really were ok at the end of book 4. I decided the best answer would be a novella so I set out to write one. And then as so often happens to me, the characters took over and I had a book. So it was a rather longer answer than I intended to give but since I really enjoyed writing the book, I can’t say I’m sorry.
Betwixt and Between takes place the summer after I Rule the Night. It’s a slightly different book to the main quartet but I think it’s a gripping, fairly dark but often funny story. (I am aware I’m biased!) Strangely, I didn’t realise that I’d written a Tam Lynn retelling of sorts until I was two thirds of the way through. But it is and I think it can hold its head up with the other great retellings of that tale. It’s all about courage and grit in the end, and of course an act of faith – nothing less will let you take back your loved one from the Fair Folk.
It’s available now from amazon and will be available in paperback in a few days as well as from all other major retailers . As always you can read the book as a standalone or enjoy it as part of the series. If you’ve been hoping for another instalment of Unveiled or like stories about Faeries or Tam Lynn retellings, please give it a try. (And if you like it, maybe leave me a review?)
Here are some of my favourite Tam Lynn retellings:
Tam Lyn – Pamela Dean
Fire and Hemlock – Diana Wynne Jones
The Winter Rose – Patricia A McKillip
Perilous Gard – Elizabeth Marie Pope
Red Shift – Alan Garner
Labyrinth (ok it’s a film and it’s an Erlkonig retelling but it might just be one of my favourite films of all time so it goes on the list.)
Wintersong – S. Jae Jones (Erlkonig again)
Stolen Songbird – Danielle Jensen (sort of Erlkonig)
The Hollow Kingdom – Claire B Dunckle (I know I’m really stretching this list now but it’s so good.)
What are your favourite Tam Lyn or ‘abducted by the faeries’ stories? Leave me a comment. I want to know. (And don’t forget to check out Betwixt and Between!)