Inside Her Mantle Green

more about Tam Lin

Frontispiece in Joseph Jacobs’ More English Fairy Tales. 1894.

"And again they turn me in your arms 
To a red-hot burning coal
Then dip me in a stand of milk,
And dip me in a well 

And last they'll shape me in your arms
To a dove and to a swan,
Then let me go my lady fair
And you your  love will win

For I will change all in your arms
To a mother naked knight
then cover me with your green mantle
I'll be myself again.'"
-from "Tam Lin," Child Ballad 39, based on my collated transcription

This week, I want to muse a little on Janet's green mantle in the famous 18th century Child Ballad and folktale "Tam Lin" from the Scottish borderlands. I originally shared the recording my brother Simon Linsteadt and I made of this song back in December, with full notes on the story, context, origins, etc. But the song has been back in my head recently, as has the miraculous power of Janet's green cloak, so I'm offering a few new things related to the ballad this week: 1) an easily accessible video-version of our version of the song for your listening pleasure 2) a poetic wander through the potency of the green mantle of a girl who starts the song a virgin and ends it as a mother  3) the lyrics to the version I sing here so you can follow along more easily— lyrics that I gathered and reconstructed from all extant versions of the ballad I could find, so that the story flowed most clearly and it was also understandable to the modern English-speaking ear. 

May this song and these reflections mantle you in peace, and in the green memory of a steadying love both within and without, a love beyond words.

1) The Song

2) The Mantle Green 

Mantle—  a sleeveless cloak, a shawl, a flush of emotion to the cheeks, the top of a bird's body across the feathered back and down both wings. A mantle is authority  passed like a cloak, the word of priestesses and of kings. Inanna left her mantle at one of the outer gates of hell. She put it on again when she'd hung down there on a hook for too long to speak of, and had been irrevocably changed. A mantle is a region of earth's interior between crust and core. Leave a red mantle on a tree on Imbolc eve and St. Brigid will bless it with the first morning dew, so that anything wrapped in it will heal, and all animals will birth well and full of milk. "Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you," says an anonymously written 12th century Irish prayer. "Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you, and from Bridget of the Mantle, Deep peace, deep peace!"**

Inside Janet's mantle is a garden of green myrtles just coming into flower. They smell like resin and grass, and when they open they'll be used for wedding crowns. Inside Janet's mantle is a pure spring flowing and flowing. Inside Janet's mantle are two doves which her beloved praises. Inside Janet's mantle is a heart that does not waver. Inside Janet's mantle are two arms that never lose their strength even when they are tired. Inside Janet's mantle is a womb that carries light, and the little child she would rock him all the winter's night, and all the long summer's day.

It's her mantle green that Tam Lin asks for in the heart of the forest, the man she seeks out despite the warnings, the man standing there at the crossroads between two worlds. Either gold rings or green mantles, or else their maidenhead, the elders say the tithe is for passing here where only otherworldly beings live. But Janet kilts up her green mantle a little above her knee, and goes straight there anyway, maybe just to prove she can, or maybe from a longing in her stronger than fear or death. And when she gets there somehow mantle and maidenhead and ring are all one, a female surrender that is a female power, to walk into the mouth of the wood, the middle of terror, the heart of love, stripping every last precious possession, in order to be joined to something bigger, inside and outside, and come away with child, an even bigger devotion. Janet walks right there, green mantled, and plucks the reddest rose, saying see, Tam Lin, I am the ring the veil the well the garden where the green lady's mantle blooms and gathers dew. I think she has absolutely no idea what she is really agreeing to, but she agrees. Later, it is Janet's green mantle that she wears as she stands, pregnant, and holds Tam Lin at the midnight crossroads while the fairy host turns him into every fighting animal and hot brand and sword in her arms. It's her green mantle that wins him back from hell, and keeps him human long enough to bring him home.

There is a prayer to the Mother of God which begins: "Remember O most Gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought they intercession was left unaided." I see pilgrims on their knees at a shrine, clutching the hem of her cloak. I see Her taking them under her mantle, blue and full as morning noon and night , all the skies we know and all the skies we don't. Janet's mantle is this mantle. Janet's is the mantle of courtly women who give their beloveds a sacred girdle so that they will come home whole from war. It is the mantle of peace-bearing saints and midwives closing the bones of new mothers after childbirth. It is the mantle the Mother of God herself gave birth to Christ upon in the cave among the animals. It is green with miracles and exudes the scent of a thousand herbs.

I want to remember all of this that's inside Janet's mantle today. Two doves either side of the heart. Womb that fears no transmutation. Arms brave enough and soft enough to hold snake and hot coal and lion and swan. Her mantle is so absolute in its love and so green in its grace— a lineage of miracles is sewn into it— that the Queen of Fairies herself cannot get through it to try to steal Tam Lin back at the end: But Janet she wrapped him out of sight, inside her mantle green. And so she’s won her own true love, and so she’ll take him home.

Hers is the mantle that holds us when we have just made it back from hell, from the otherworld, from delusion, and are gasping for air on the shore. Her mantle tells us it's safe to stay here now, it's safe to be in this body here, you don't need to leave it again. I think of the times I've gone far beyond my own mind while writing, and have trouble coming back. I think of the times I've gone far beyond my own heart in grief, and have trouble coming back. I think of the times I've gone far beyond my body in exhaustion and self- neglect, and have trouble coming back. Holding Tam Lin at the crossroads, Janet's mantle becomes Mary's mantle becomes Brigid's mantle becomes sheltering bird wings and spiritual power bestowed and the warm connective mantle of the inner earth, and it brings him back. It brings us back. Hers becomes the one whose shelter produces miracles. The one whose shelter transfigures and protects. Cloak of stars, green ground, above and below we are held. Both animal and spirit, we are holy. 

I want to say that I believe in the woman in me who has opened her cloak and her heart at that crossroads, and will hold him tight and fear him not, because he is her own true love. I want to say I believe in the man in me who has spent seven years in hell and must change into all seven of his fears and faces in her arms, to get back to her and to his own world. I'm saying that I have been Janet, holding myself steady at the midnight crossroads when parts of me lash out in pain and fear and cruelty and pride and grief. I'm saying that I have been Tam Lin, falling asleep on my horse, wandering worlds, making bargains beyond my understanding, gathering knowledge and vision until I am too tired to find my way, transforming, learning the animals, a little lost but never giving up the belief that I will get back to the part of me that is steadfastly tending heart and hearth. 

Every time I end up at at that crossroads I'm as scared as Janet is while she watches the fairy host go by at midnight, and I want to leave this crap for someone wiser or braver, I want someone to tell me what's going on and what to do, or better yet just bloody do it for me already, but there is no one but me to stand there when I'm called to stand there, and so I go to stand. And then at some point I always remember that all the parts of me are held by the mantle beneath the mantle, the water beneath the water, the love that comes from a source we cannot always see but know in every cell.

Inside Janet's mantle is a garden of green myrtles just coming into flower. They smell like resin and grass, and when they open they'll be used for wedding crowns. Inside Janet's mantle is a pure spring flowing and flowing. Inside Janet's mantle are two doves which her beloved praises. Inside Janet's mantle is a heart that does not waver. 

illustration by Katharine Pyle from Tamlane: A Story from an Old Scotch Ballad in Wonder Tales from Many Lands, 1920

3) The Lyrics - Tam Lin, Child Ballad 39
Sylvia V. Linsteadt’s version based on all extant texts

Oh I forbid you maidens all	
That wear gold in your hair,
To come or go by Carterhaugh,
For him Tam Lin is there.

There's none that goes by Carterhaugh
But they leave him a reward,
Either gold rings, or green mantles,
Or else their maidenhead.

But up spoke her, the fair Janet,
The fairest of her kin;
Says I'll come and go to Carterhaugh,
And ask no leave of him.

So Janet has kilted a green mantle,
A little above her knee,
And she has braided her yellow hair,
A little above her brow.

And when she came to Carterhaugh,
She went beside the well,
And there she found his steed standing,
But away was he himself

She had not plucked a red red rose
A rose but barely three,
Till up then started him Tam Lin
says Lady pull no more

Why do you pull the rose Janet,
And do you break tree?
Why do you come to Carterhaugh
Without the leave of me?

Carterhaugh it is my own
My father gave to me,
I'll come and go to Carterhaugh
I’ll ask no leave of thee.

He took her by the milk-white hand
And gently laid her down,
And what they did I cannot say—
She ne'er returned a maid.

Four and twenty ladies fair
Were sewing at the silk
And out then came the fair Janet,
Her face as pale as milk

Up then spoke her father dear,
He spoke meek and mild,
"And ever alas, my sweet Janet”
"I fear you go with child."

"If I be with child, father,
Myself must bear the blame,
There's not a knight about your house
Shall give the bairn' his name.

If I be with child father
Twill prove a wondrous birth
For well I swear I’m not with bairn
To any man on earth

"If my love were an earthly knight,
As he's an elfin grey,
I would not give my own true-love
To any knight alive

She primped herself and preened herself,
By the bright light of the moon,
And she's away to Carterhaugh,
To speak with him Tam Lin 

She had not pulled a flower a flower
A flower but only three
Till up then started him Tam Lin,
says lady pull no more.

'Why do you pull the flower, Janet
And why do you break the tree?
Why try to kill the bonny babe
That we got us between

'If my child was to an earthly man,
As to a wild shade
I’d rock him all the winter's night
And all the long summer's day.

O tell me, tell me, true Tam Lin," 
"For his sake who died on the tree,
If ever you were in a church,
Or christendom did see?"

The truth I’ll tell to you Janet
A word I will not lie
A knight sired me and a lady bore
As well as they did thee

When I was just a boy of nine
My uncle sent for me
To hunt and hawk and ride with him
And keep him company

There came a wind out of the north
A sharp wind and a cold
A deep deep sleep came over me
And from my horse I fell

The queen of fairies captured me
In yon green hill to dwell
Now I’m a fairy lithe of limb
Fair lady view me well	

But oh, at every seven years,
They pay the tithe to hell;
And I’m also man and fair of flesh,
I fear twill be myself.

This night is winter’s eve, Janet,
And morn is winter’s day,
And if you dare your true love to win,
You  have no time to waste

Just at the mark of the midnight hour
the fairy folk will ride,
And they that would their true-love win,
At Miles Cross must bide.'

First let pass the black black horse,
And second pass the brown,
But quickly run to the milk-white steed,
And pull his rider down.
	.
They'll turn me in your arms, Lady
To an adder and a snake
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
for I am your bairn’s father

'They'll turn me next to a bear so great
then to a lion bold
But hold me fast and fear me not
As ye shall love your child

And again they turn me in your arms 
To a red-hot burning coal
Then dip me in a stand of milk,
And dip me in a well 

And last they'll shape me in your arms
To a dove and to a swan,
Then let me go my lady fair
And you your  love will win

For I will change all in your arms
To a mother naked knight
then cover me with your green mantle
I'll be myself again.' 

About the dead hour of the night
She heard the bridles ring.
And Janet was as glad of that
As any earthly thing.

And first went by the black black steed,
And then went by the brown;
But fast she gripped the milk-white steed,
And pulled the rider down.

They shaped him in fair Janet's arms
To an adder and a snake
She held him tight, and feared him not
He was her bairn’s father

And then he changed all in her arms
Into a wild bear
She held him tight and feared him not
For He was her own true love;

And next he changed all in her arms
into a red-hot coal
She dipped him in water and milk
For he was her husband dear

And last he changed all in her arms
Into a dove and swan
And there he was her own Tam Lin
a mother-naked knight

Up then spoke the fairy queen,
and an angry woman was she
said 'she’s taken away the bonniest knight’
In all my company'

'Had I but known, Tam Lin,' she says,
Before ye came through here,
I would’ve taken your heart of flesh,
And put in a heart of stone.

But Janet she wrapped him out of sight,
Inside her mantle green
And so she’s won her own true love
and so she’ll take  him home. 

detail of St. Bride’s mantle in John McKirdy Duncan’s painting “St. Bride” (1913)

** "Deep peace of the Yellow Shepherd to you,
Deep peace of the Wandering Shepherdess to you,
Deep peace of the Flock of Stars to you,
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you,
Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you,
And from Bridget of the Mantle,
Deep peace, deep peace!"

- from the 12th century anonymous Irish prayer ("Blessing of Peace-Healing,"  translated by Fiona MacLeod) from The Celtic Quest, edited by Jane Lahr