Fairport Convention - "Tam Lin" from the Album Liege and Lief

"There are other worlds. This one is done with me."
	--Merlin (Nicol Williamson) in John Boorman's Excalibur

The world gets older, and the magic goes away. That has always been the nature of things.

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I forbid you maidens all that wear gold in your hair To travel to Carterhaugh for young Tam Lin is there None that go by Carterhaugh but they leave him a pledge Either their mantles of green or else their maidenheads Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee And she's gone to Carterhaugh as fast as go can she

She'd not pulled a double rose, a rose but only two When up then came young Tam Lin says "Lady pull no more" "And why come you to Carterhaugh without command from me?" "I'll come and go" young Janet said "And ask no leave of thee"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Sandy Denny was 21 years old when she joined Fairport Convention. Her voice of this time if you've never heard it is one to give you shivers, warm and full and rounded, and of unfailing and absolute perfect pitch.

The tale is that first the band auditioned her; then, though they had an album out on Polydor already, she auditioned the band. . . .

I've never heard that debut Fairport album with original singer Judy Dyble, but I will nevertheless say that, no matter how good Dyble may have been, a voice like Denny's couldn't help but expand the possibilities open to Fairport.

As would her conversance with English (and Scottish) traditional music. Before Sandy Denny joined, Fairport were a bunch of Brits who wanted to be The Byrds; after she joined, Fairport were the band that others, Steeleye Span and the rest, wanted to be.

It is impossible these days to introduce the term "British folk-rock" into the conversation without mentioning Fairport; they were its first and foremost practitioners, and without slighting the talent that is Richard Thompson's, they were that primarily because of Sandy Denny.

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Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee And she's gone to her father as fast as go can she Well up then spoke her father clear and he spoke meek and mild "Oh and alas Janet" he said "I think you go with child"

"Well if that be so" Janet said "Myself shall bear the blame There's not a knight in all your hall shall get the baby's name For if my love were an earthly knight as he is an elfin grey I'd not change my own true love for any knight you have"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *The first written reference to the Scottish ballad commonly known as "Tam Lin" dates from 1549, but there is every reason to suppose that the ballad is in fact much older. "Thomas the Rhymer," a ballad with which "Tam Lin" is often associated, and which shares some thematic similarities with "Tam Lin," originated at least 100 years earlier, and it's also possible that "Tam Lin" is the older of the two.

However old the ballad might be, whoever its original composers and contributors and singers might have been, there's no doubt that that they were practicing Christians. William when he came to do his Conquering came to a thoroughly Christianized land; the last pagan king in Britain had been slain some 350 years before his invasion.

But we all know Christian is isn't always as Christian does. Much of the pagan myth and ritual of the British Isles was not discarded, but was rather subsumed into folklore.

Into folklore like the ballad "Tam Lin," that is. What's interesting to me here is not just that "Tam Lin" is a fairy story with direct links to Celtic belief, but also that the story serves as an allegory as to how that Celtic belief, that Celtic magic if you will, came to be diminished with the spread of Christianity. Unlike many of the folk ballads, "Tam Lin" is understood to have something of a happy ending, but of course it's a happy ending for Tam Lin, and not so much of one for the fairies and their queen.

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So Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee And she's gone to Carterhaugh as fast as go can she. "Oh tell to me Tam Lin" she said "Why came you here to dwell?" "The Queen of Fairies caught me when from my horse I fell And at the end of seven years she pays a tithe to hell I so fair and full of flesh and fear'ed be myself

But tonight is Halloween and the fairy folk ride, Those that would their true love win at mile's cross they must hide First let pass the horses black and then let pass the brown Quickly run to the white steed and pull the rider down, For I'll ride on the white steed, the nearest to the town For I was an earthly knight, they give me that renown

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Fairport Convention released three albums with Sandy Denny in 1969. What We Did on Our Holidays was followed by Unhalfbricking was followed by the singular masterpiece of British folk-rock that is Liege & Lief.

It was like good morning, good afternoon, and goodnight: for after they--she--had revolutionized electric folk, when they were done with these records, Denny made the first of the several poor career decisions that she would make during her lifetime: she quit Fairport.

In hindsight, we can say that neither party would ever be so important or influential again. This may not have been apparent in the immediate aftermath of the split, however: Denny won Melody Maker's poll as Best Female Vocalist in both 1970 (as a member of her one- or two-off band Fotheringay) and 1971 (when she was promoting her first solo album, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens).

It became readily apparent, however, as time passed, as Denny's heavy drinking took a toll on her personally, and as her heavy smoking took its tithe on her voice. By 1975, when she had rejoined Fairport for a brief reunion, it was apparent that the bell-like clarity of her voice was likely gone, not to return.

Then, after a final, ill-conceived "contemporary rock" album, one day in 1978 she tumbled down some stairs, perhaps drunkenly, and four days later her voice in whatever form it might have taken was silent.

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Oh they will turn me in your arms to a newt or a snake But hold me tight and fear not, I am your baby's father And they will turn me in your arms into a lion bold But hold me tight and fear not and you will love your child,

And they will turn me in your arms into a naked knight But cloak me in your mantle and keep me out of sight" In the middle of the night she heard the bridle ring She heeded what he did say and young Tam Lin did win

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Although it's not mentioned in the Fairport rendition, most versions of "Tam Lin" explain that Janet was the heir to Carterhaugh Woods. When the fairies--or Tam Lin as their emissary--forbid her to enter the woods that in fact belong to her, they're not necessarily fighting words, but only because mortals had traditionally not dared to defy the powerful fey in the matter. As someone who knows a lot more than me on the subject has written: "The battle over Tam Lin is also a battle over the magic in the woods, and whose claim was greater."

The fairies' defeat in the matter of Tam Lin, then, seems to mirror the eclipse of Celtic paganism and its sequestering under Christian envangelism. "Tam Lin," so often noted in this day and age for its strong feminine hero, is pretty plainly to me an allegory for the rise of Christianity, and of course its contrapositive, the death of magic.

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Then up spoke the Fairy Queen, an angry Queen was she "Woe betide her ill-farred face, an ill death may she die

Had I known Tam Lin" she said "This night I did see I'd have looked him in the eyes and turned him to a tree"

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Sandy Denny's voice at her height, on "Tam Lin," young and powerful, five, six, seven years before things would dissipate messily, is like furniture of fine burnished wood. You can almost smell the lemon oil, watch the rag infused with its essence as it slides frictionless across that polished table top.

Her voice is like Armagnac, caramel, honey, syrup, and the rich rich burn as it envelopes you. It's like violins, layers upon layers of warmth, so deep and so sad you're not sure just how far down it all goes, the vibrato there stately weeping for all the magic yet to be lost.



File Under: British Folk Rock, Scottish Balladry, Songs with versions by Robert Burns