"Tam Lin"

Hello, and welcome to the May 2022 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. Please allow me to begin by thanking Wylie Beckert, the artist who painted the stunning Tam Lin work of art in this month's social media cards, for permitting me to use her painting. Isn't it gorgeous? You'll find her online at wyliebeckert.com and patreon.com/wyliebeckert.

I first encountered "Tam Lin" on a mixtape given to me by a friend in the early 1990s, which was loaded with songs from Fairport Convention's 1969 album Liege and Lief. It's an ancient, well-loved ballad with so many historical and contemporary versions addressed by so much folkloristic scholarship and public research it would be impossible to offer a thorough treatment of the material here. However, it's also a great follow-up to January's "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" and April's "Molly Whuppie" for reasons which will soon become apparent, and it provides us with the opportunity to look at an area of storytelling I've lectured about as a guest at science fiction conventions but haven't addressed much here; namely, world-building.

This is a Folklore & Fiction dispatch excerpt. To read the full dispatch, create a free account or log in to your existing account for access to the archives.

Greetings! I'm Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran. I hold B.A. in Celtic Studies from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm also an author, poet, and musician under the name C.S. MacCath. My long-running Folklore & Fiction project integrates these passions with a focus on folklore scholarship aimed at storytellers, and I bring a deep appreciation of animism, ecology, and folkloristics to my own storytelling. You can find me online at csmaccath.com, folkloreandfiction.com, and linktr.ee/csmaccath.