Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ut-ngp.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!oacb2
From: oacb2@ut-ngp.UUCP (oacb2)
Newsgroups: net.music.folk
Subject: Re: "Tam Lin"
Message-ID: <1721@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 03:48:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.1721
Posted: Fri May 10 03:48:44 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 23:47:06 EDT
References: <1494@reed.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U.Texas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 30

Child gives 9 versions of the ballad, all Scottish.  The earliest references
cited to a ballad of that name (probably, but not certainly, the same ballad)
are from the mid 16th century.  With no clues in the ballad itself, it's
impossible to date it very well.  It could be much older.

All the versions in Child are very much like the Fairport Convention
version, though the more complete versions are somewhat longer, except
for the last verse of the Fairport Convention version (which doesn't
make much sense to me).  It seems to be a parody of

	'But had I kend, Tam Lin,' she says,
	'What now this night I see,
	I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een,
	And put in twa een o tree.'

(Child 39A) or

	'I wad hae taen out his heart o flesh,
	Put in a heart o tree,
	That a' the maids o Middle Middle Mist
	Should neer hae taen Tam Lane frae me.'

(Child 39H)

None of the Child versions have the Queen of Fairies wishing she had changed
Tam Linn to something else, but several have her wishing she had replaced
his eyes or heart (with "tree" or stone).
-- 

	Mike Rubenstein, OACB, UT Medical Branch, Galveston TX 77550