Editing Thomas the Rhymer (section)

==Medieval romance==
<!---The 14th century romance "Thomas of Erceldoune", with accompanying prophecies,-->
The surviving medieval romance is a lengthier account which agrees with the content of the ballad.<ref>Richard Utz, "Medieval Philology and Nationalism: The British and German Editors of ''Thomas of Erceldoune''," ''Florilegium: Journal of the Canadian Society of Medievalists'' 23.2 (2006), 27–45.</ref>

The romance opens in the first person (migrating to the third),<ref group="lower-alpha">— or, to be more precise: "The narrative begins in the first person, but changes to the third, lapsing once for a moment into the first" {{Harv |Burnham |1908 |p=377}}</ref> but probably is not genuinely Thomas's own work. Murray dated the authorship to "shortly after 1400, or about a hundred years after Thomas's death",<ref name="murray-fairy"/> but more recent researchers set the date earlier, to the (late) 14th century. The romance often alludes to "the story," as if there had been a preceding recension, and [[Francis James Child|Child]] supposed that the "older story," if any such thing actually existed, "must be the work of Thomas".<ref>"als the story sayes" v.83 or "als the storye tellis" v. 123, {{Harvnb|Child|1884 |loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', 318b}}</ref>

As in ballad C, Huntley banks is the locale where Thomas made sighting of the elfin lady. The "Eldoune, Eldone tree (Thornton, I, 80, 84)" is also mentioned as in the ballad. Thomas is captivated by her, addressing her as queen of heaven, and she answers she is not so lofty, but hints she is of fairy kind. Thomas propositions her, but she warns him off saying that the slightest sin will undo her beauty. Thomas is undaunted, so she gives the "Mane of Molde" (i.e. Man of Earth; mortal man) (I, 117) consent to marry her and to accompany her.

"Seven tymes by hyr he lay," (I, 124), but she transforms into a hideous [[hag]] immediately after lying with him, and declares he shall not see "[[wikt:middle-earth|Medill-erthe]]" (I,160) for a twelvemonth ("twelmoneth", "xij Mones" vv.152, 159). As in the ballad, the lady points out one way towards heaven and another towards hell during their journey to her dominion (ca.200–220). The lady is followed by greyhounds and "raches" (i.e. scent dogs) (249–50). On arrival, Thomas is entertained with food and dancing, but then the lady tells him he must leave. To Thomas, his sojourn seems to last for only three days, but the lady tells him that three years ("thre ȝere"), or seven years ("seuen ȝere"), have passed (284–6) (the manuscripts vary), and he is brought back to the Elidon tree.

Fytte II is mostly devoted to prophecies. In the opening, Thomas asks for a token by which to remember the queen, and she offers him the choice of becoming a harper or a prophet ("harpe or carpe"). Rather than the "instrumental" gift, Thomas opts for the "vocal (rather ''oral'') accomplishments."{{sfn|Murray|1875|p=xlvii}} Thomas asks her to abide a bit and tell him some ''ferlys'' (marvels). She now starts to tell of future battles at Halidon Hill, Bannockburn, etc., which are easily identifiable historic engagements. (These are tabulated by Murray in his introduction.)

The prophecies of battles continue into Fytte III, but the language becomes symbolic. Near the end Thomas asks why [[Black Agnes]] of [[Dunbar]] (III, 660) imprisoned him, and she predicts her death. This mention of Black Agnes is an anachronism, Thomas of Erceldoune having lived a whole generation before her, and she was presumably confused with an earlier Countess of the March.{{sfn|Murray|1875|p=lxxxi}}

===Manuscript sources===
The medieval romance survives complete or in fragments in five manuscripts, the earliest of which is the Lincoln codex compiled by [[Robert Thornton (scribe)|Robert Thornton]]:{{sfn|Murray|1875|pp=lvi–lxi}}
* [[Lincoln Thornton Manuscript|Thornton MS.]] (olim. Lincoln A., 1. 17) – ca. 1430–1440.{{sfn|Laing|Small|1885|pp=82–83, 142–165}}
* MS. Cambridge Ff. 5, 48 – mid 15th century.
* MS. Cotton Vitellius E. x., – late 15th century.
* MS. Landsowne 762 – ca. 1524–30
* MS. Sloane 2578 MSS.  – 1547. Lacks first fitt.
All these texts were edited in parallel by [[James Murray (lexicographer)|J. A. H. Murray]] in ''The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune'' (1875).<ref>{{Harvnb |Murray |1875}}</ref>

The Cotton MS. gives an "[[Incipit]] prophecia Thome Arseldon" and an "[[wikt:explicit|Explicit]] prophetia thome de Arseldoune",<ref>{{harvnb|Murray|1875|pp=2, 47}}</ref> thus this was the version that Walter Scott excerpted as Appendix. The Sloane MS. begins the second fytte with: "Heare begynethe þe ij<sup>d</sup> fytt I saye / of S''ir'' thom''as'' of Arseldon,"{{sfn|Murray|1875|p=18}} and the Thornton MS. gives the "[[wikt:explicit|Explicit]] Thomas of Erseldowne" after the 700th line.{{sfn|Murray|1875|p=46}}

===Relationship between romance and ballad forms===
The romance dates from the late 14th to the early 15th century (see [[#Medieval romance|below]]), while the ballad texts available do not antedate ca. 1700–1750 at the earliest.{{Refn|name="child-balladdate"|{{Harvnb |Child|1884 |loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', 320a}}, "the earliest version (A) can be traced at furthest only into the first half of the last century. Child's comment in volume 1 did not include the Greenwood text he appendixed in Vol. IV, but Nelson has assigned the same 1700–1750 period ("early to mid-eighteenth-century text") for the Greenwood text.{{sfn|Nelson|1966|p=143}}  Cooper prefers to push it back to a "text whose origins can be traced back to before 1700"<ref name="cooper2005-172">{{Harvnb |Cooper |2005 |p=172 and n5}}</ref>}} While some people believe that the romance gave rise to the ballads (in their existing forms) at a relatively late date, this view is not uncontroversial.

[[Walter Scott]] stated that the romance was "the undoubted original", the ballad versions having been corrupted "with changes by oral tradition".<ref>{{Harvnb|Scott|1803|loc=''Minstrelsy'' '''II''', pp. 274-}}. This commentary comes under Scott's "Appendix to the Thomas the Rhymer", where he prints an excerpt from the romance (the version with an Incipit, i.e. the Cotton MS, as spelled out by Murray in his catalog of "Printed Editions", {{Harvnb|Murray|1875|p=lxi}})</ref> Murray flatly dismisses this inference of oral transmission, characterizing the ballad as a modernization by a contemporary versifier.<ref>Scott goes on to say it was "as if the older tale had been regularly and systematically modernized by a poet of the present day", {{Harv|Scott|1803|loc=''Minstrelsy'' '''II''', p. 274}}, and Murray, seizing on this statement, comments that "the 'as if' in the last sentence might be safely left out, and that the 'traditional ballad' never grew 'by oral tradition' out of the older, is clear...", {{Harvnb|Murray|1875|p=liii}}</ref> Privately, Scott also held his "suspicion of modern manufacture."<ref name="anderson-ltr">Letter of [[Robert Anderson (editor and biographer)|Robert Anderson]], who compiled ''The Works of the British Poets'', to [[Thomas Percy (bishop of Dromore)|Bishop Percy]], {{Harv|Murray|1875 |p=liii n1}}, taken from Nicholl's ''Illustrations of Literature'', p.89</ref>{{Refn|name="henigan-RSJC"|"Dismissed by Ritson as new-fangled and by Scott as inauthentic, Mrs Brown's ballads were considered exemplary by both Robert Jamieson and, later, Francis James Child, who gave her variants pride of place in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads" in Henigan's review of Rieuwerts' book.<ref name="rieuwerts"/>}}

C. E. Nelson argued for a common archetype (from which all the ballads derive), composed around the year 1700 by "a literate individual of antiquarian bent" living in [[Berwickshire]].{{sfn|Nelson|1966|p=147}} Nelson starts off with a working assumption that the archetype ballad, "a not too remote ancestor of [Mrs] Greenwood['s version]" was "purposefully reduced from the romance".{{sfn|Nelson|1966|p=143}} What made his argument convincing was his observation that the romance was actually "printed as late as the seventeenth century"{{sfn|Nelson|1966|p=143}} (a printing of 1652 existed, republished {{Harvnb |Albrecht |1954}}), a fact missed by several commentators and not noticed in Murray's "Published Texts" section.

The localization of the archetype to Berwickshire is natural because the Greenwood group of ballads (which closely abide by the romance) belong to this area,{{sfn|Nelson|1966|pp=142–143}} and because this was the native place of the traditionary hero, Thomas of Erceldoune.{{sfn|Nelson|1966|p=143}} Having made his examination, Nelson declared that his assumptions were justified by evidence, deciding in favour of the "eighteenth-century origin and the subsequent tradition of [the ballad of] 'Thomas Rhymer'",{{sfn|Nelson|1966|p=147}} a conclusion applicable not only to the Greenwood group of ballads but also to the Brown group. This view is followed by [[Katharine Mary Briggs]]'s folk-tale dictionary of 1971,{{Refn |"The various forms of the ballad of True Thomas all seem to be based on the medieval romance, 'Thomas of Ercidoun'"<ref name="briggs"/>}} and David Fowler.<ref>{{citation |last=Fowler |first=David C. |title=Rymes of Robin Hood |editor-last=Knight |editor-first=Stephen Thomas |editor-link=Stephen Thomas Knight |work=Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism |pages=73–4 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd |year=1999 |isbn=0859915255 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=69bYyY9xiKYC&pg=PA74}}</ref>

From the opposite point of view, Child thought that the ballad "must be of considerable age", even though the earliest available to him was datable only to ca. 1700–1750.<ref name="child-balladdate"/> E. B. Lyle, who has published extensively on Thomas the Rhymer,<ref>{{Harvnb |Utz |2006}} surveys post-1950s scholarship on Thomas.</ref> presents the hypothesis that the ballad had once existed in a very early form upon which the romance was based as its source.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lyle |first=E. B. |title=The Relationship between Thomas the Rhymer and Thomas of Erceldoune |journal=Leeds Studies in English |volume=NS 4 |year=1970 |pages=23–30|url=https://archive.org/details/lse-1970-whole-issue}}</ref> One supporter of this view is [[Helen Cooper (literary scholar)|Helen Cooper]] who remarks that the ballad "has one of the strongest claims to medieval origins";<ref>{{citation |last=Cooper |first=Helen |title= Thomas of Erceldoune: Romance as Prophecy |pages=171– |editor-last= Saunders |editor-first=Corinne J. |work= Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England |publisher=DS Brewer |year=2005 |type=preview |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xGtdAIU0uEwC&pg=PA172 |isbn=0191530271}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Helen |title= The English Romance in Time : Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth the Death of Shakespeare |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |format=preview |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WjfkLVXWNy4C&pg=PA467 |isbn=0191530271}}, p.467 n17: "[Lyle's paper] suggests that an early form of the ballad may underlie the romance."</ref> another is [[Richard Firth Green]] who has provided strong evidence for his contention that "continuous oral transmission is the only credible explanation," by showing that one detail in the medieval romance, omitted from the seventeenth-century print, is preserved in the Greenwood version.<ref>{{citation |last=Green |first=Richard Firth |title=The Ballad and the Middle Ages |editor-last=Gray |editor-first=Douglas |editor2-last=Cooper |editor2-first=Helen |editor-last3=Mapstone |editor-first3=Sally |work=The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |page=168}}</ref><ref>Green, Richard Firth (2021). "'Thomas Rymer' and Oral Tradition," Notes and Queries, 68, 4.</ref>

===Literary criticism===
<!--The theme of this song also closely relates to another song, that of [[Tam Lin]], which follows the same general topical lines. Its more general theme relates to temptation and mortal pleasures.-->

In the romance, the queen declares that Thomas has stayed three years but can remain no longer, because "the foul fiend of Hell will come among the (fairy) folk and fetch his fee" (modernized from Thornton text, vv.289–290). This "fee" "refers to the common belief that the fairies "paid kane" to hell, by the sacrifice of one or more individuals to the devil every seventh year."<!--ref name="murray-lxxxi"/--> (The word teind is actually used in the Greenwood variant of Thomas the Rymer: "Ilka seven year, Thomas, / We pay our teindings unto hell, ... I fear, Thomas, it will be yerself".<ref name="child-add"/>) The situation is akin to the one presented to the title character of "[[Tam Lin]]" who is in the company of the Queen of Fairies, but says he fears he will be given up as the [[tithe]] ({{Langx|sco|[[teind]]}} or kane) paid to hell.<!--ref name="child-1-339a"-->{{sfn|Child |1884 |loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', p.339a}} The common [[Motif-Index of Folk-Literature|motif]] has been identified as type F.257 "Tribute taken from fairies by fiend at stated periods"<ref name="briggs">{{cite book |last=Briggs |first=Katherine M. |title=A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language Part B: Folk Legends}}</ref> except that while Tam Lin must devise his own rescue, in the case of the Rymer, "the kindly queen of the fairies will not allow Thomas of Erceldoune to be exposed to this peril, and hurries him back to earth the day before the fiend comes for his due".{{sfn|Child |1884 |loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', p.339a}} [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] also alludes to the "Devil's tithe" as concerns the Rhymer's tale in a passing witty remark<ref>Tolkien refers to this as follows: "The road to fairyland is not the road to Heaven; nor even to Hell, I believe, though some have held that it may lead thither indirectly by the Devil's tithe," and subsequently quoting stanzas of the ballad "Thomas Rymer" beginning ""O see you not yon narrow road/" (text from {{Harvnb |Jamieson |1806 |p=9}}). In essay "On Fairy Stories" (orig. pub. 1947), reprinted in p.98 of {{citation |last=Tolkien |first=J.R.R. |title=Tree and Leaf (On Fairy-Stories) |work=A Tolkien Miscellany |publisher=SFBC |year=2002 |orig-year=1947 |pages=97–145 |format=doc |url=http://www.excelsiorclassical.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Tolkien_On-Fairy-Stories.doc |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402132942/http://www.excelsiorclassical.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Tolkien_On-Fairy-Stories.doc |archive-date=2 April 2015 }}</ref>

====Influences====
It has been suggested that [[John Keats]]'s poem ''[[La Belle Dame sans Merci]]'' borrows motif and structure from the legend of Thomas the Rhymer.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Susan |title=Poetry and the Fate of the Senses |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2002 |isbn=0226774139 |page=126 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xL4jr8ZkPVYC&pg=PA126}}</ref>

[[Washington Irving]], while visiting Walter Scott, was told the legend of Thomas the Rhymer,<ref>{{cite book |last=Irving |first=Washington |title=The Crayon Miscellany |publisher=G.P. Putnam |year=1861 |pages=238–240 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=538RAAAAYAAJ&pg=238}}</ref> and it became one of the sources for Irving's short story ''[[Rip van Winkle]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Myers |first=Andrew B. |title=A Century of commentary on the works of Washington Irving, 1860–1974 |publisher=Sleepy Hollow Restorations |year=1976 |page=[https://archive.org/details/centuryofcomment00myer/page/462 462] |isbn=9780912882284 |format=snippet |url= https://archive.org/details/centuryofcomment00myer|url-access=registration }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Humphrey |first=Richard |title=Scott: Waverley |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1993 |page=23 |isbn=9780521378888 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=7DA4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA23}}</ref>