Steeleye Span's greatest version of Thomas the Rhymer

The view up the Eildon Hills from near where Thomas probably met the Queen of Elfland

Steeleye Span's first and best 6:44 minute version of their interpretation of my favourite Border Ballad.

It comes from what is probably my favourite album of theirs - Now We Are Six from 1974 - favourite, not because of its being consistently good, but because of its unmatched ability - in several places - to capture a quality of uncanny and deeply-appealing magic that I seek from the very best of folk music.  

In Thomas the Rhymer, the rock section is balanced by a superb, quiet, close-miked section with acoustic guitar and flute and violin obliggato - repeated with quietly pulsing electric guitar and bass. 

This richly rewards intensive listening on stereo headphones - notable the section on the choice of three road (to Heaven, Hell, or Elfland). As a kid we didn't have headphones, so my friend Gareth and I would take turns to lie on the floor, with head sandwiched between the stereo speakers...  

Epic electric folk at its supreme best...

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True Thomas sat on Huntly bank 

And he beheld a lady gay 

A lady that was brisk and bold 

Come riding o’er the ferny brae 

Her skirt was of the grass green silk, 

Her mantle of the velvet fine 

At every lock of her horse’s mane 

Hung fifty silver bells and nine 

True Thomas, he pulled off his cap 

And bowed him low down to his knee 

“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven 

Your like on earth I ne’er did see.” 

(Transition to quiet section)

“No, no, Thomas,” she said, 

“That name does not belong to me 

I am the queen of fair Elfland 

And I have come to visit thee.” 

“You must go with me, Thomas,” she said, 

“True Thomas, you must go with me 

And must serve me seven years 

Through well or woe, as chance may be.” 

Chorus X 4: (Again rock style)

Hark and carp, 

come along with me, 

Thomas the Rhymer 

She turned about her milk white steed 

And took Thomas up behind 

And aye whenever her bridle rang 

Her steed flew swifter than the wind 

For forty days and forty nights 

They rode through red blood to the knee 

And they saw neither sun nor moon 

But heard the roaring of the sea 

And they rode on and further on 

Further and swifter than the wind 

Until they came to a desert wide 

And living land was left behind 

(Quiet section again - muted electric guitar and bass - the best bit of all!)

“Don’t you see yon narrow, narrow road 

So thick beset with thorns and briars? 

That is the road to righteousness 

Though after it but few enquire.” 

 

“Don’t you see yon broad, broad road

That lies across the lily leaven? 

That is the road to wickedness 

Though some call it the road to heaven.” 

 

“Don’t you see yon bonny, bonny road 

That lies across the ferny brae? 

That is the road to fair Elfland 

Where you and I this night must go.”

Chorus (repeat to fade): 

Hark and carp, 

come along with me, 

Thomas the Rhymer 

Walter Scott and the failure of Romantic Christianity

Sir Walter Scott's dates were 1771-1832 - much the same as the life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). But if Coleridge stands as an example of how our spiritual life in the West could (and should) have gone towards a fully-integrated Romanic Christianity; Scott is representative of what actually happened to the British culture at large. 

Scott was a very devout Christian - a Presbyterian as a child and Episcopalian as an adult. And he was also a great Romantic - whose influence (both via long narrative poems and dozens of novels; also his widely-read collection of Border Ballads) was international and lasting. 

But the Christianity and Romanticism were kept rigorously separate. It is startling to read in the account of the ballad Thomas the Rhymer, how Scotts assumptions were entirely and unconsciously dedicated to 'explaining away' all the supernatural and prophetic elements of the poem and the author's life. The hypothesis that True Thomas really was a prophet, or really had some kind of an encounter with elves, is not even entertained. 

Scott was, in this respect, entirely an 'Enlightenment' rationalist. And he embodied the duality, the schism, between Christianity and the romantic, which has persisted since - until Christianity has dwindled to very little public significance. 

I mean that magic, mysticism, enchantment, animism and all such - are rationalized and explained away; being both excluded-from, and regarded as hostile-to, Christianity. 

By such maneuvers, Christian life began to be regarded rationally, objectively, sealed off from the whole range of human experience - and became ever more wholly external. The romantic, which was about intense personal experience and gave life meaning at a micro level, was regarded as merely fictional - and psychological. 

A serious Christian like Scott might also be a romantic, but on the assumption that the romantic element was merely a kind of entertainment, a commercial exercise, or an historical document; without reality or relevance for the serious things of life.  

Later - the two split even further apart; so that the archetypal romantic became anti-Christian (as with Byron, or the New Age) and the serious Christians anti-romantic (as with those modern evangelicals who regard Tolkien and CS Lewis as literally demonic). 

The split between Christianity and romanticism is a version of the split between objective and subjective: for serious Christians the faith became 'objective' - i.e. external, public, logical, something to be 'followed' - while Romanticism was merely subjective, and to be explained-away. 

And for those who believed in Romanticism, there was an attempt at thoroughgoing subjectivism/ relativism and living by instinct - which explained-away Christianity along with science and all other attempts at objectivity.  

Consequently, Romanticism and Christianity both became partial and ineffectual. Church Christianity is now almost wholly secular and bureaucratic; Romanticism is quasi-therapeutic, commercial and recreational.

There might be some unconscious integration of the two; for instance, one suspects that Scott had a 'real' interest in the supernatural - that at some level his interest in Thomas the Rhymer was based on the possibility that the supernatural elements might somehow be true... 

But lacking any conscious and explicit acknowledgment and theorization of such an integration; 'modern Man' (since Scott's time) cannot achieve any effective reuniting of inner life. 

It was the project of Rudolf Steiner and then Owen Barfield to provide a conscious and explicit theoretical basis for healing the the subjective-objective, Romantic-Christian split. This, they largely achieved - and our task now is to put the theories into action in our own everyday lives. 

The True Tale of Thomas the Rhymer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Rhymer

The True Tale of Thomas the Rhymer

The truth of it was different from the tale.
But, after all, was pretty much the same...
I lay beneath the Eildon Tree, and slept.
And unto me she came, the Faery Queen

And this was not a dream, I know its truth
By consequence that after followed.
It happened all within the compass of a dream
But nothing afterward was ere again the same.

She came for me, she knew that I was there
It was no accident that I was seen and chosen.
A poet and - it seems - some little more
That might be gifted by enchanted touch.

A touch of the lips - my lips, her hand.
(Not, by God!, her lips! - a fatal act!
I never was her lover - nothing like.
Those who know me can be sure of that.)

A touch of my lips upon her lily-white hand
And everything changed - for me and for the world.
I was a man stunned - she swept me up
With supernatural strength and ease

To sit behind upon her milk-white steed.
A sudden whirl of motion, shadows,
Rain, and was it blood? Upon a bank we sat.
Three roads, or paths, there were ahead.

A narrow thorny path to Heaven strait.
That one was not for me - nor was
A broad, sinister road, with stones beneath;
But a bonny heather track with ferns aside.

What joy! to take that lovely track
Of poetry, prophecy and love of her.
To be her leman chaste, her servant, een an angel
Between the worlds of Faery and of Men.

A touch, my lips upon her hand, and lo!
The truth of things was open, veils a-part.
I could speak no lies, I saw direct;
And what I saw I after spoke - and men took note.

I stayed in Faery seven years of learning
And of bliss - then I returned.
Where had I been? Oh nowhere far.
A time so fast that Men perceive it not, a blur.

All I did, we did, to Men a shimmer;
Not quite seen, not quite believed - not quite.
And then back I came to wake upon that bank,
Hardly changed - but little time had passed.

I had, however, been missed - I could not lie.
I told my residence, explained that Faery
Had me taken. Now I'm back, with messages -
They flowed like milk, like wine, like rivers...

Few poems I wrote - but where ere I went
I spoke the truth in rhyme - astonished all.
They wrote of it, as best they could - the sayings
Compiled in ledgers; learned, repeated.

All was true. From this Men knew
Their narrow world was compassed about
With something greater, deeper, wiser.
Many came to faith by me.

Seven more years were passed - I held a feast.
Music, song, speeches, poems - I stood...
All around me friends, lords, retainers, family...
My steward came and told of wonders new.

A hart, a hind, through Ercildoune were walking.
Moon-white, and glowed a whiter still.
I kissed my wife, my bairns, my Lord.
I bowed to all - the meaning was foretold.

Onto the moon-lit street... I recognized
The Queen's beasts. They turned - I followed
Into a darkling wood: Time lurched
And back to Faery instantly was drawn.

Centuries passed on Middle Earth - My story
Remains, inspires, glamours - is garbled.
But truth persists. The Eildon Hills
Still cast enchantment wide into the world.

Bruce Charlton - extempore 20 November 2015

Five favourite electric folk LPs

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[For an excellently written essay on what was 'electric folk' music, go to the Wikipedia - accessed today.]

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In order of release:

1. Steeleye Span - Parcel of Rogues. It in 1973, when this album had just been released, that I heard on the radio "One Misty Moisty Morning" - and was smitten.

2. Ashley Hutchings and others - Morris On, 1972 (but I didn't hear it until a couple of years later). Electric Morris dancing and song! I borrowed an accordeon, so I was John Kirkpatrick; my friend Gareth got a bass guitar, so he was Ashley Hutchings - and that was the totality of our electric folk band...

3. Ashley Hutchings and John Kirkpatrick and others - The Compleat Dancing Master, 1974. A sequence of words and music about dancing from medieval (the time of Chaucer) to 19th century (Thomas Hardy) with a wonderful cast of actors and musicians. The perfect 'concept album'.

4. Steeleye Span - Commoner's Crown, 1975. It is very hard to choose (how can I miss out mentioning "Thomas the Rhymer" from Now we are six?) but I suppose this was the very best of Steeleye's albums, with "Long Lankin" as its summit; and I love "Bach goes to Limerick".

5. The Albion Country Band - Battle of the Field, 1976. A minor miracle of interlocking parts - including Martin Carthy at his uncompromising best in "Gallant Poacher" and the weirdly wonderful oboe of Sue Harris...

Ah, what an era. Short but deliciously sweet.

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Uncanny Steeleye

Demon Lover is a little known example of how - in the early 1970s - Steeleye Span were often able to capture the uncanny and supernatural style of Romanticism that was pioneered by Coleridge. The chilling lyrics are derived from an ancient Border Ballad - and seem to refer to a demon who masquerades as a beautiful fairy in order to entice-away a young wife.

The strands of English folk music have included this uncanny element; although not many performers are able to treat it with the seriousness required for it really to hit home. In Steeleye Span's case, it was specifically the lead guitarist and vocalist Robert Johnson who brought this into the band (e.g. King Henry, Alison Gross, Thomas the Rhymer, Long Lankin).

This mood is quite easy to for modern people ruin by any taint of irony or commercialism - and it only lasted for the first four albums of Johnson's membership of Steeleye, being largely spoiled by the producer Mike Batt - after which Johnson left Steeleye to make a 'concept album' of Lord Dunsany's novel The King of Elfland's Daughter.

As I have often remarked, it is a sadness to me that this early 70s Romantic Revival, of which The Watersons, Steeleye Span and The Albion Country Band were a part; and which was quite genuine in terms of its picking-up the impulse from Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth; failed to kick-on by rejecting and failing to Romanticise Christianity.

(Many of the adherents seem to have had neo-pagan, anything-but-Christian, sympathies - although the Watersons recorded many gospel revival songs, and some Christmas carols were popular.)

Instead, this reborn Romanticism was (yet-again) appropriated (especially by journalists, critics and scholars) and distorted/ diverted into Leftist politics... It is hard to blame musicians for failing to do what people seemingly better equipped also failed to do, and the true direction of which was, and is, novel and far from obvious; nonetheless it is a sadness.

While I have enjoyed plenty of folk music since this time - it always lacks the implied depths and serious intent of those early years.

Tam Lin - a "strong female protagonist", folklore faeries, and low magic - in the Scottish Borders

We recently visited Carterhaugh and "Tamlane's Well" in Eskdale, in the Scottish Borders west of Selkirk - which is the location for one of the most famous of the supernatural ballads: Tam Lin.

(Note - the above are not my pictures.)

While Thomas the Rhymer is a high magical ballad, dealing with matters of elves as a third kind (neither Men nor angels) death and prophecy - and a possible source of insight and enhanced power; Tam Lin is much more of a folkloric depiction of faeries: beautiful yet dangerous because alien. 

And the ballad of Tam Lin is a love/lust story, focused on the need for human courage and ingenuity in dealing with the Fair Folk.

While the most famous recording of Tam Lin is by Fairport Convention; I personally don't much enjoy it, nor any of the others I have encountered except for the incomplete version by The Pentangle, used in that weird, flawed, but somewhat interesting, 1970 movie. 

Tam Lin continues to exert a fascination across recent decades, especially for women singers; probably because it may be taken as a prototype of a currently dominant narrative trope of a spunky heroine who falls in love with, and redeems, a dangerously attractive Bad Boy.

...Although naturally; being a traditional and orally-transmitted poem (with many, and contradicting, variants!) the original Tam Lin does this now-clichéd trope much better than modern Hollywood!

Stephanie Beacham as Janet, Ian McShane as Tam ("Tom") Lin, in the 1970 movie - depicting her "Have I just made a terrible mistake?" moment.