Janet And The Boy Tam Lin

a folk tale

It happened one time that an old man went out to a fair in a distant town.

This old man was big and stout but he had a sturdy wooden stool to sit on and some friends found a fine place for him to sit, in the shade of a tall tree on the edge of the park just by the road. They put up an old brown tent there too and let him sit inside the open end of it. And that was a real fair all right, with drummers banging and bagpipes blaring away whenever they wished and sportsmen shouting and some very loud singers further on. A clear bright morning it was indeed and the place was packed with folk strolling up and down among the tents and booths, with vehicles excluded for the holiday.

The old fellow just sat there by the road talking with anyone who chanced to happen near and then when anyone would stand still long enough for it, he would tell a story. He would hold out his hat and charge every person who might stop and listen one penny. And these were real old stories from olden days that everyone else at the fair had heard of, but nobody else knew.

Well, two kids heard about all this and they snuck around the side into his tent. They sat right down on the ground beside him but he was busy having a drink of water from a jug and biting off a huge mouthful-size bite from a whole loaf of bread and he didn't seem to notice. They waited quietly while he chewed.

There were just two kids, you see, a girl and boy holding hands, and the girl was named Emerald. Emerald was usually quite shy but not this time. Just as soon as the old man swallowed and looked down at the two of them in surprise, while he still had quite a few bread crumbs stuck in his big white woolly beard around his face, she spoke up and introduced herself. Then she asked; "Can you tell us a story about emeralds or sapphires or rubies?" Emerald was holding their combined two cents in her hand but she didn't offer it to the fellow yet.

Well, the old man blinked at her and she blinked back. He looked then in her eyes and realized that she was smart and so immediately he figured out that he must come up with a real good story to stop her going around telling people that he couldn't. He racked his brains a minute, took off his tall magician's style of hat and scratched his head. He finally shrugged and told her that he didn't have one, but that was kind of fibbing. Actually he kind of did. And he looked in her eyes again and smiled. He raised his eyebrows and said to her; "I know a story about a rock though. Will that do?"

Emerald smiled back. She could tell for sure that he was kind of fibbing.

Kind of begging then, he asked again; "A rock; will that do?"

And of course she nodded.

So the old man closed his eyes, sitting there on his little stool, and he leaned his elbow on his knee, like men will sometimes do, and he even covered his eyes with that hand to shut out the sunlight. That was just to make sure that he would see the story's pictures when they magically appeared inside his eyes, so he could talk about them.

The old man suddenly perceived a very life-like moving magic picture of a girl so he pointed at it and said this:

- + -

One time there was a girl named Janet. Janet was probably, I guess, about thirteen. I guess it's something like that anyway. Anyway, she was old enough to fall in love.

Behind Janet's house there was a path through an old garden over to her friend's house way over there. Janet would walk over there pretty much every day – she'd walk there and back too usually – to play with her friend. It was a wild old garden where that path went, with all the trees and grasses and shrubberies and everything and the wild strawberries and the flowers just growing every which way that they pleased. Birds would fly through all the time and there were some cats who prowled there too. There was a big rock in the center with a huge old wild rose bush bending up over it, a whole big rose bush that just grew bending across that big rock in the center of the garden, with roses on it. The path came right up to that spot and then jogged around and ran off to the neighbor's house, you see.

One day – it was a summer afternoon and a very fine summer afternoon indeed – there had been a little rain that morning to awake the beautiful colors in the garden and all of the wonderful smells – and Janet stopped to smell a rose.

She was very carefully just leaning in toward the big thorny bush and stretching up her face to smell the closest flower, and she pressed her nose very gently into that flower, and she just got just one whiff of that rose perfume, and she breathed it in, and the smell was as beautiful to her as any flower that anyone ever smelled anywhere in the world. It smelled beautiful all inside of her you know. And then! A voice spoke from the rock! A man's voice! Talking out of the rock!

Well, she was startled I may tell you. She was scared.

The man's voice – no, really it was a boy's voice and it was really beautiful and bright so the boy inside the rock sounded like he was singing a song to her – and his words were these: "If you would take from young Tam Lin a touch of Tam Lin's tree, if you would sniff my tender rose, then you must pay a fee."

Well of course she was affrighted and she ran on home.

But that night she could not stop thinking how beautiful that voice had been, the way it seemed to sing so very brightly. All night she lay awake, kept up by the brightness of his song as though it was like a burning candle beside her bed. She thought about the magic boy's voice and wondered about his face and his eyes and how his hands must be very pretty. Of course then when the sun come up she hurried there again. With the morning dew wet all over everything, she stood there again to smell that rose. And the smell just turned into beauty inside her again.

And then the air trembled all around the rock and the bush and the whole place – the air just trembled like it does sometimes when there's a wind coming close – and the leaves on the rose bush made a sound like "shush" and the boy's voice spoke again, sounding very gentle this time but loud to make sure that she would hear; "Once thy've come, my lovely dear, and once thy've come anew. Wilt thou now pay to young Tam Lin the fee which is his due?"

And he appeared. Just, he just appeared. He looked like a ghost though. Have you ever seen a real ghost? He looked like he was made of smoke I guess, or like a bit of fog or a bit of misty cloud standing right there beside her in human shape and bigger than her and kind of sparkling too. And this sparkling cloud just shone as bright as anything, it seemed to her. And Tam Lin was a fine-looking lad I'm very sure indeed. She stared into his face and she held up his hands to look at them and all of him was just as pretty as she'd dreamed though, as I say, he was all made from something like cold smoke.

So Janet said to young Tam Lin; "What fee am I to pay? You are a Fairy lad; what do your Fairies say? What thing have I your heart desires? What is your regular fee? I've got a silver penny in my pocket if that would comfort thee."

"My heart's own darling miss;" spake he; "I claim one tender kiss."

And so, Janet kissed the boy and he kissed her back. And she took his hand and squeezed it one more time and pressed his hand against her heart and then she laughed and ran away.

But you know what people say. If you just only kiss a Fairy boy, you know, sometimes you get a baby. And Janet did! She got a baby! The summer weeks were rolling past and Janet could feel a tiny baby growing inside her tummy. Can you imagine how that felt?

And her tummy started to get big! It did! It felt kind of like a little raisin inside of her at first, like she'd swallowed a little raisin and it just stuck there and wouldn't go away. And then after a few days it felt like she'd swallowed one of those little tomatoes that you see, the little kind. A few weeks went by and she felt like she'd swallowed a whole big huge turnip that wouldn't go away! And her tummy got so big that some people could just look at her and guess that she had a baby.

So, she finally went to her father then. Her father was sitting by the fireplace in their house and smoking a magic pipe that he had and he was thinking about all kinds of things when she came over. Janet pulled up her dress up over her tummy to make sure that he would look at it. She even took his hand and Janet pressed her father's hand onto her tummy to make really sure that he would understand.

And her father smiled. His eyes came open wide staring at this tummy that had a baby in it and, I tell you, he smiled so big that even all of the little hairs in his eyebrows kind of stood up and the baby inside felt cozy from his smile.

And Janet's father said; "My darling miss, you are a woman in your bloom! This is a tender sight to see my grandchild in your womb!" And Janet smiled back at him. But then her father said; "Janet dear, you are so young that I must take a hand. Bring in the man who gave you this and I will make everything grand!" He said; "Bring your boyfriend here so I can talk to him honestly and I will make sure that he acts like a real gentleman. I will make sure he respects your sovereign rights and he shall become a father to your babe in every way. Everything that is your due from this fellow, I will make sure he pays."

Well, what could Janet say to that? Her boyfriend was like a dream. She could not even really think about their kisses, much less speak of them. And the only money he might own would be phantom Fairy treasure and their baby was even probably some kind of Fairy baby. And how could she possibly explain about the softness of the rose's petals on her nose and the rose perfume? She thought and thought and racked her brain but not a single thought came to her mind that she could possibly say.

Oh there was such a fight at their house then! Such an argument! Her father got really very angry when she wouldn't say who the boyfriend was. Her father shouted at her. He said; "What kind of horrible boyfriend have you got that you won't let me see?" And he was going to lock her up somewhere! He told her that he would. He really might lock her up someplace and then tell everyone he was trying to protect her. He could. And he called her stupid names!

Oh, the poor girl ran right out of the house in a weeping fit I may say, a fair proper huge great weeping fit with shouting and tears so she could barely see, and she ran out directly to the roses.

But you must know by then the blossoms had gone by. Summer's end it was for sure, and by every summer's end rose blossoms always have gone by. There were petals scattered on the ground, a million wilting petals all around the great stone where she was standing. Before, the bush would hold its flowers out to her but now there was nothing left except dry thorny flower stems sticking out. The bush was going to sleep, you see, because of course it felt the winter coming.

Oh, the poor girl was shocked. She wondered what to do. She got hold of herself and stopped crying, though. She got hold of herself and decided to call out for Tam Lin, to just call out to him and see if he would answer. So Janet softly whispered this: "Wake thee up my darling boy, wake thee from thy slumber. I have got thy tiny babe and it shall have its father."

And the cold rock trembled just a little. A faint faint voice that sounded drowsy came out of it and she leaned very close to hear. Tam Lin kind of muttered; "I must be dreaming. I dreamed the fair maid spoke and said she has my baby!" But then he snored. He snored. Then the rock shook just a little as he rolled over in his Fairy bed inside the rock. He went straight back to sleep.

Oh, you can imagine how Janet felt! Can you imagine? First off, she was ashamed of herself that she had run out here all worked up in such a fuss and now finds out that she has gotten such a lazy fellow. That's for sure. And she was angry.

Know what she did? Janet just bent down and shoved her hand right into the rock! She did! She reached inside the rock. You see, really it was a door to a whole Fairy castle that was under all the garden. A whole Fairy castle was under the ground under the garden and under that rock there, and Tam Lin was like a guard at the castle door. You see, that's what the rock really was, the magic gate to a whole Fairy castle! Janet just shoved her hand right inside that rock and she felt around in there. She felt around and felt something and she grabbed it, and she had Tam Lin by his leg.

"Oh what is this!" cried young Tam Lin. "The fair maid's gone fair mad! You!" he cried out through the door; "Let go me leg!" But he did not strike at her hand. No he did not. He did not even struggle when she squeezed to get a grip. Young Tam Lin was a gentleman.

But then as she was just about to drag him out – and him not even kicking or screaming – then bump! She couldn't pull him out of the rock. She realized she could not even get her fist out of there unless she was to let go. But she definitely did try to yank him, you must know. But every time she yanked, Tam Lin would give a little shout. She'd yank to pull him out of the rock and he'd go "Oof! Ouch!" See, he was laying there inside the Fairy castle right at the front door. That was his station like a soldier. He was just laying there in his bed inside the front door when this human hand reaches through the door and grabs him. And he wouldn't mind going out to her but he can't get through the door and she keeps yanking on him. "Oof!" he says; "Ouch!"

And of course, she doesn't give that up until another idea comes to her head. This one was a better idea too, I guess. She lets go of his leg in there and pulls her hand right out without him. And then she starts reaching up and breaking the old flower stems on the bush.

Do you know why she was doing this? Because there's something important on the ends of the old flower stems on a wild rose bush. Do you know what it is? There's something important. On the ends of the old flower stems there is a little piece of fruit there, a tiny kind that's called a "rose apple". It's way too small for us human folk to eat but some of the birds love them in the winter when there's snow. A thick deep fall of snow will cover the rose bush like a soft heavy blanket and it makes places inside among the branches like little caves where the birds can go. They get sheltered from the weather while they eat the little fruits. And besides even that, there are seeds! There are rose seeds inside the rose apples on the ends of the old dry flower stems. But now Janet is snapping some of the stems so they hang down loose.

Now Tam Lin sings: "Oh no fair maid, thou should not do! I stand guard for these things! The apples must be on the rose to feed the winterwings!" And with these first words that he sang to her instead of just talking, that mist in Tam Lin's shape appears and stands there tall beside her. And Tam Lin kneels down and takes her hand and looks up in her face and says; "For my sake darling, for the love and joy you find in me, for the joy this babe may bring to me, please spare the rose's child."

She kneels down too and throws her arms around the ghostly shape but there's nothing solid she can hold. "Why won't you come with me?" she says.

"I cannot come!" he cries. "The door's locked shut with golden bolts and golden chains wrapped round. This ghostly mist in your sweet arms is nothing but my song!" And he goes on to sing; "Alas the day I wandered here to seek the Fairy Queen!" And he sings his story to her. He used to be a human boy, he sings. He was passing by one day at twilight in the evening in the spring. He saw the Fairies dancing round this bush and heard their music ring majestical and sweet. And he saw the lovely Queen herself standing on this rock and shimmering in air so he went ahead and joined their dance. You know what that means! When you find Fairies dancing and join in with them, you can get stuck! You can get stuck for a long long time! He'd been living with the Fairies ever since. And he told Janet that he used to be happy there.

Oh, that was one surprise after another for Janet. What was she to do? She begged him, was there any way for him to get out of Fairyland?

And he replies there is one way. There is. Tomorrow night is Halloween! It's Halloween tomorrow night and all the folk of this whole castle will dress up in their splendid gear and deck their great Fairy horses with shining armor and all like that, and they will carry long spear pikes with banners on them that will glow like skies full of stars. Yes, tomorrow night halfway from dusk to dawn the Fairy host will ride out on the human land. They will ride out on the human land all covered with a shining cloud of power. They've always done that there, you see, every year. You know, when human beings first came here a long time ago and the Fairies decided to live underground – a long time ago – the human beings and the Fairies signed a contract. That's right, we have a contract now, and that contract says those particular Fairies can ride out every Halloween night in all of their fanciest gear, no matter how scary it gets. See?

And down there at the crossroads of that path, Janet must wait. Halfway from dusk to dawn on Halloween, she must hide in the shrubberies right by the path while this whole weird host of Fairy folk in amazing costumes and armored horses and pointy spears with flags flying come trotting along. She has to crouch down in the shrubberies with a dark blanket over so she looks like nothing but a shrubbery herself there in the dark. She must be very still. Would you do that? Would you do that for Tam Lin? And then! She has to keep peeking out of the blanket to see Tam Lin. He tells her, look for the glorious Queen on the most glorious horse for there behind her on that horse will ride a prisoner of the Queen. That prisoner will be he. Janet must leap out of the bushes right in the middle of that whole army trotting along and grab him and pull him off onto the ground. She has to. Would you do that?

She tells him that she will.

But there is even worse!

Once she has got him on the ground at the center of the road, she must hold on to him no matter what! He warns that he will change shape into scary things. If she wants this fellow, she must wrap herself around him and hold on tight no matter how scary he becomes. First, he says, he will become a roaring lion and though the lion may try to claw, she must hold tight. And then, though he becomes a big dog and snaps, she must hold onto him tight. Then he will become an eagle with sharp claws struggling in her arms to spread its wings. And then a huge disgusting slimy smelly frog! And if she wants him she must hold on tight through all of that, for then he'll turn into a piece of red-hot glowing iron, like a red-hot glowing iron statue lying with her on the ground. Then she must have a great bucket full of water ready that she can dump on him. She must quench him like a blacksmith does with red-hot iron, you see. She must quench her man. Then she must wrap him in her blanket for he will be lying there in his real self, but naked on the cold ground and weak as any new-born baby.

So she agrees to all of that, everything. She promises to do it all.

And Tam Lin kneels down again and takes her hands and kisses them. He says; "Thank you once and thank you twice and thank you now as well. Though Fairy jewels may glitter bright, this castle is my jail. Though Fairy harps may stir the soul and Fairy songs the heart, though Fairy wine is honey sweet and Fairy meat fair tart, I am nothing but a prisoner here for lacking you."

And that next night when the Fairies are all getting ready for their ride, putting on their fanciest silk and satin skins that shine with countless jewels and putting on their heads that look like helmets with shining eyes, and they're getting their horses all decked too – well then, Tam Lin puts on rags. He puts on rags! To show everybody how he feels. And he puts golden handcuffs on his wrists, golden manacles with golden chain, to show how he felt. That's what Fairies usually do instead of talking; they do something for you to see. That's what they like to do instead of talking.

So then the great castle door where Tam Lin's bed was kept, that door was thrown open and the Fairy host went riding out.

And Janet was sure hiding down at the little crossroads. She had been crouching in the bushes by the path two hours at least. At least! She was warm enough under the blanket there but she was getting pretty tired of pretending to be a shrub and it gets pretty scary out here in the garden alone waiting for Fairies. I can tell you, every time anything moved or made the slightest sound she would jump a foot even when it was just an owl or cat or mouse. Well, finally she saw a glow appear over there where the rock and rose bush were and she got a hold of herself quick and pulled the blanket up to hide her face. She was peeking out.

And here they came. And they were gorgeous in all their gleaming array on their great horses with banners flying high among the terrible sharp points of their spears. A ghostly glow was all around even with the moon so bright and the horses' hooves made the earth shake like the top of a drum. There was Janet peeking out from her hiding place and saw the Fairy Queen! There was the Fairy Queen herself on a splendid horse and riding on the rump of that horse there was a boy in raggedy clothes. The boy was holding up his hands to show his golden handcuffs.

Janet just leaped out and grabbed him by the leg and just dug her heals into the dirt and yanked on him. Down he came! Down onto the earth among all of those horses' hooves. She grabbed him with all her might.

He turned into a huge lion that was roaring and trying to get loose. She held him tight. He turned into one of those big dogs that looks like the size of a horse with scratchy fur and that dog struggled and snarled and snapped. But she held him tight. And then he was an eagle like the ancient eagle kings of Old Carpathia, an eagle that could shade a whole wide valley by spreading out its wings while it swooped down from the high mountain tips to the green pasture by the valley stream and there would snatch a calf up in its knife-sharp claws. Such an eagle was this boy, so she held him tight. And then he stank! Suddenly he just reeked like a rotten swamp! Suddenly she was holding onto this huge frog with bumps all over it and there was gooey slime everywhere! And the frog said "Croak!".

But then suddenly he got so hot! He changed shape to himself but he was made of iron and it was glowing so hot red that it was bright. And good Janet jumped up and grabbed that bucket of water there and threw it all over him. There was a big cloud of steam then there he was.

It was him for true, Tam Lin in a real flesh body. He was just lying there on the earth at the little crossroads weak as a newborn babe. He just reached his hands out toward her for he couldn't talk. And he was naked too, so she ran and got the blanket and wrapped him up.

It was only then that Janet looked around. After all of that she looked around and saw the Fairy host were there. They had been riding round and round while Janet was doing all of that but they were totally silent and the earth was still. She looked and stared because no single sound came from all these beings riding round.

And then the Fairy Queen appears. The Queen rides in to the center where Janet is sitting by her man, and Tam Lin is lying weak and helpless all wrapped up. And the Queen looked down into Tam Lin's face and frowned. She shook her head. She spoke him thus:

"O giver to the chickadees, this looks a mean small deed. 'Tis very harsh a sight for me, thy new-sworn sovereign liege. Oh, I knew well thy human heart but strove to comfort thee. Though I knew well your fickle parts, thy oaths were sworn to me. Once ten times fifty times, my lad, thy wing did brush my leg. Twice ten a hundred times, good boy, ye pecked my swelling figs. Twice two two ten a thousand times, I cupped thy peeping eggs. Thrice three three hundred million times I've nested on thy twig. To go fleeing thus from my house in rags, ye shame me and betray me."

And Tam Lin weakly shook his head 'no' because he knew that he'd better not make her any madder than she was. You'd better not ever do anything to insult the Fairies, especially not her. Don't ever insult the Fairies! But all he could do was shake his head and hope she would understand.

And when she got no other answer but only that, the Queen reached her fingers down inside of her bodice and pulled out a shining crystal rock that she had between her bosoms and she held it up for him to see. It wasn't very big but it was crystal like a diamond with red pulsing light shining from the center from a blood-red ruby that was flashing inside. The Queen held this up for Tam Lin to see and she frowned at him and the ruby light flashed around all over the ground and the trees and the garden and shone up among the stars. And she said this to him:

"If I had known when you first came how you were bound to go; if I had known so long ago that you would leave me so; if I had seen how we would part, I would have pressed this Fairy stone into thy breast to be thy heart and taken thine from thee."

And with those words all said, the Queen reached into her purse and pulled out a lizard! A lizard! And the lizard leaped up out of her hand at once and leaped high through the air while she also threw that Fairy stone as hard as she could throw and the lizard caught the stone in mid-air in its mouth and flew a long ways and landed with a big rustle of the shrubberies way out there somewhere among the trees. The lizard vanished with the jewel still in its mouth, somewhere in the forest, and one of the cats who go out at night to prowl, he ran off chasing it but he sure didn't catch it.

- + -

Well, the pictures stopped right there and, feeling quite surprised to see no more, the old man stopped. He felt disappointed how it ended so abrupt and he found himself worrying that Emerald would dislike it too. He waited patiently a moment more with eyes still shut but all there was was just a small figure of one of his friends down in the left corner and that friend was waving at him to go ahead and talk. So he leaned down to face Emerald up close and opened his eyes and blinked in the light. And from the way that she was frowning back at him, he saw that he was right.

The old man said to himself; "Oh dear! She's waiting for some more!" The girl was certainly not reaching out as yet to hand over the pennies.

"Well then," the old fellow said to her, "a lot of people think that story has a terrible ending but it's okay. See, people think it's horrible how the Fairy Queen would have reached in and ripped out Tam Lin's heart and put a stone in him instead, but that would have been something good from the way she sees things. If he had come back to the human land with a Fairy heart, he could have walked about everywhere seeing all of the magic in the world instead of just the stuff like everyone sees. He could have walked back and forth to Fairyland as he pleased. But Janet wanted him and he wanted her so he came back to really be with her all the time. Do you see?"

Emerald nodded at that, but still was definitely awaiting more.

The old man scratched the back of his neck in a certain spot to think, and then ventured on: "Well, how about this: That's where babies come from. Babies come from love. They had that baby and they had some more and all of the human people in the world now come from them. And every time a human baby is born even today, it's one of theirs too."

He looked at Emerald and she looked back as cool as you might please. But then suddenly, the sly old fellow found a new trick up his sleeve. To his great relief, his friends suddenly held up a picture in his eyes at that very moment while he was looking at her. But then, seeing how good the picture looked, he felt like holding it back for a surprise. He squinted his eyes to try and make her feel she really owed the money now and if she didn't pay then he could say that she was cheating.

She looked carefully at the old man's face while he puckered his eyebrows and scrunched up his nose. She understood that look of mean determination right enough and she was not the least bit sure if he was fooling.

He asked her in a rumbling tone; "Did you like the story?"

She looked down at her hand where the pennies were and felt ashamed to see them there. She was just about to hold them out when the old man shouted; "Wait! I forgot! About the jewel!" While she gaped at him in startlement, he pointed way out beyond the park where there were woods – or maybe he was pointing toward the distant ocean or the stars – and he said; "I know it for a fact; if you go looking for the Fairy stone, someday you'll find it. I know this for a fact. And when you find it, you can press it right into your chest and keep your human heart as well and then you'll see everything!"

"Me?" she cried. "Me?"

"That's right!" he answered. "I know it for a fact."

She stared into his eyes to see if truth was there. Quick, she stood up and reached out to give them over and the old fellow with a flourish of his hand pulled off his tall magician's hat and held it out for her to drop the pennies in. She held the coins over the waiting hat just like it was a wishing well. But then suddenly she once more turned a hard look on him and asked in a very hard voice; "How do you know if I can find it?"

And of course the old man answered; "The Fairies just now told me."

So Emerald then made a wish just like that shaggy old bedraggled hat had been a wishing well somewhere. She wished to find the Fairy stone someday. She silently dropped them in.

There's one thing left to tell and it is this: Suddenly a wild applause broke out. They both looked up in great surprise to find maybe thirty people, maybe forty, standing about. The strangers were clapping and laughing and craning over each other's shoulders like it was a livestock show with geese or ducks or aught, and standing up on tiptoe too. The ones in back were pushing in, so those in front were even being slowly shoved reluctantly in under the edge of the old man's tent.

Well, then the boy stood up, the one who'd come with Emerald and held her hand. He hadn't said a word or scarcely moved till then, but he was a smart good lad. He was kind of wiry, and he had to kind of unfold himself to stand up, and he stretched rather like an eagle spreading out its wings. The lad then reached to take the old man's hat right from his hand.

The old man just said; "Huh?" and the lad winked back to reassure him.

Then quick the boy stood up before the crowd and held the magic hat and cried to everyone; "Don't dare sneak off until you've paid!"