Editing Thomas the Rhymer (section)

===Ballad synopsis===
The brief outline of the ballad is that while Thomas is lying outdoors on a slope by a tree in the Erceldoune neighborhood, the queen of Elfland appears to him riding upon a horse and beckons him to come away. When he consents, she shows him three marvels: the road to Heaven, the road to Hell, and the road to her own world (which they follow). After seven years, Thomas is brought back into the mortal realm. Asking for a token by which to remember the queen, he is offered the choice of having powers of harpistry, or else of prophecy, and of these he chooses the latter.

[[File:Scott-Minstrelsy-Works-v1-p195-True Thomas tune.jpg|thumb|Music score to the ballad of "True Thomas", from Scott's ''Minstrelsy''.]]
The scene of Thomas's encounter with the elf-queen is "Huntly Bank" and the "Eildon Tree" (versions B, C, and E){{sfn|Child|1884|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', 320}}{{sfn|Child|1892|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''IV''', pp. 454–5}} or  "Farnalie" (version D)<ref group="lower-alpha">Or at least "Farnalie" is given as the spot to where the queen returned Thomas in the final stanza of the D version. {{Harvnb|Child|1892|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''IV''', pp. 454–5}}</ref> All these refer to the area of [[Eildon Hill]]s, in the vicinity of [[Earlston]]: Huntly Bank was a slope on the hill and the tree stood there also, as Scott explained:{{sfn|Scott|1803|loc=''Minstrelsy'' '''II''', p. 343}}<ref>"Huntley Bank, a place on the descent of the Eildon Hills," {{cite book |last=Scott |first=Walter |title=Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft |publisher=G. Routledge and sons |year=1887 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KpILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA112 |page=112}}</ref> Emily B. Lyle was able to localize "farnalie" there as well.<ref>She identified it with ''farnileie'' on the Eildon Hills, which appears in a document of 1208 about a land dispute "between the monasteries of Melrose and Kelso". Scott had failed to make this identification. ({{Harvnb|Lyle|1969|p=66}}; repr. {{Harvnb|Lyle|2007|p=12}})</ref>

The queen wears a skirt of grass-green silk and a velvet mantle, and is mounted either on a milk-white steed (in Ballad A), or on a dapple-gray horse (B, D, E and R (the Romance)). The horse has nine and fifty bells on each ''[[wikt:tett#Scots|tett]]'' (Scots English. "lock of matted hair"<ref>Tait (sometimes written ''tate'' and ''tett''), a lock of matted hair. [https://books.google.com/books?id=zLACAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA226 Mackay's Dictionary] (1888); Tate, tait, teat, tatte 2. "Lock, applied to hair" [https://archive.org/details/jamiesonsdictio01johngoog/page/n618 <!-- pg=549 --> John Jamieson's Dictionary] (Abridged, 1867).</ref>) on its mane in A, nine hung on its mane in E, and three bells on either side of the bridle in R, whereas she had nine bells in her hand in D, offered as a prize for his harping and [[wikt:carp|carping]] (music and storytelling).

Thomas mistakenly addresses her as the "Queen of Heaven" (i.e. the [[Virgin Mary]]{{sfnp|Child|1892|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', p. 319}}), which she corrects by identifying herself as "Queen of fair Elfland" (A, C). In other variants, she reticently identifies herself only as "lady of an [[wikt:unco#Scots|unco]] land" (B), or "lady gay" (E), much like the medieval romance. But since the unnamed land of the queen is approached by a path leading neither to Heaven nor Hell, etc., it can be assumed to be "Fairyland," to put it in more modern terminology.<ref name="murray-fairy">{{Harvnb|Murray|1875|p=xxiii}}</ref>

In C and E, the queen dares Thomas to kiss her lips, a corruption of Thomas's embrace in the romance that is lacking in A and B though crucial to a cogent plot, since "it is contact with the fairy that gives her the power to carry her paramour off" according to Child. Absent in the ballads also is the motif of the queen losing her beauty ([[Loathly lady]] motif): Child considered that the "ballad is no worse, and the romance would have been much better" without it, "impressive" though it may be, since it did not belong in his opinion to the "proper and original story," which he thought was a blithe tale like that of [[Ogier the Dane]] and [[Morgan le Fay|Morgan le fay]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Child|1884|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', p. 320ab, and note §}}</ref> If he chooses to go with her, Thomas is warned he will be unable to return for seven years (A, B, D, E). In the romance the queen's warning is "only for a twelvemonth",<ref>{{Harvnb |Child|1884|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', p. 320b}}</ref> but he overstays by more than three (or seven) years.

Then she wheels around her milk-white steed and lets Thomas ride on the {{linktext|crupper}} behind (A, C), or she rides the dapple-gray while he runs (B, E). He must wade knee-high through a river (B, C, E), exaggerated as an expanse of blood (perhaps "river of blood"), in A.{{sfn|Child|1884|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', p. 321b}} They reach a "garden green," and Thomas wants to pluck a fruit to slake his hunger but the queen interrupts, admonishing him that he will be accursed or damned (A, B, D, E). The language in B suggests this is "the [[Forbidden fruit|fruit of the Forbidden Tree]]",<ref>{{Harvnb|Child|1884|loc=''Pop. Ball.'' '''I''', 321a, note *}}</ref> and variants D, E call it an apple. The queen provides Thomas with food to sate his hunger.

The queen now tells Thomas to lay his head to rest on her knee (A, B, C), and shows him three marvels ("[[wikt:ferly|ferlies]] three"), which are the road to Hell, the road to Heaven, and the road to her homeland (named Elfland in A). It is the road beyond the meadow or lawn overgrown with lilies<ref>Leven, "a lawn, an open space between woods"; Lily leven "a lawn overspread with lilies or flowers" [https://books.google.com/books?id=y_s3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA327 John Jamieson's Dict.] (Abridged, 1867)</ref> that leads to Heaven, except in C where the looks deceive and the lily road leads to Hell, while the thorny road leads to Heaven.

The queen instructs Thomas not to speak to others in Elfland, and to allow her to do all the talking. In the end, he receives as present "a coat of the even cloth, and a pair of shoes of velvet green" (A) or "tongue that can never lie" (B) or both (C). Version E uniquely mentions the Queen's fear that Thomas may be chosen as "[[wikt:teind|teinding]] unto hell",<ref name="child-add"/> that is to say, the {{linktext|tithe}} in the form of humans that Elfland is obliged to pay periodically. In the romance, the Queen explains that the collection of the "fee to hell" draws near, and Thomas must be sent back to earth to spare him from that peril. (See § [[#Literary criticism|Literary criticism]] for further literary analysis.)