He heard the flowers cry.
He set his mug on the table and lifted his stiff body from the hard chair. He walked out to the balcony and looked over his land: rolling hills and dark forests and fertile fields.
Below him, in his courtyard, there were the flowers. He looked down. "Hush, my children," he whispered. "What is the matter?"
"Stolen!" came the answer. "Stolen!"
"Stolen? By whom?"
"The maiden in green!" a chorus of voices shouted in reply. "The maiden in green!"
The maiden in green? Strange, he knew of no maiden on his land. He looked up, and then he saw her, walking slowly through his courtyard, gold ribbon streaming from her golden hair, a stem with two dark red roses in her hand, the blossoms held up to her nose.
"How dare you!" he shouted, his deep, resonate voice echoing through the hills.
The girl looked up at him and laughed.
His face flashed, visages of monsters, daemons, the living dead passing over him. He lept from the parapet and soared like some otherworldly creature down upon the girl. She lifted her kirtle green a bit above her knee and stepped high as she ran from him, a merry sort of step, not really fleeing.
He landed in front of her. "How dare you come to Carterhaugh?"
She laughed, still stepping high and running like a graceful hind, her kirtle a bit above her knee.
"How dare you come to Carterhaugh," he shouted, flying through the air and landing in front of her again, "without command from me?"
She stopped and looked at him with a smile, her face red, her eyes twinkling. "I will come and go as I please," she said, "and ask no leave of thee."
He could have spoke horrible words to send the child away forever in fear. He could have become before her the most horrible monster she had ever dreamt, huge and hairy and blood oozing from his mouth.
But he did not do these things. Instead, he calmed and spoke in measured tones. "You have taken what is mine. You must pay."
The girl laughed again, lifting the roses to her nose. "And what is the fee?"
"I will have something of value from you. Or else I will have your maidenhead."
"I have nothing of value to give you. Nothing, that is, except my maidenhead." She held the roses to her nose and inhaled their fragrance. Her eyes were merry as she spoke. "Will you take it from me? By force?"
"You will give it to me."
"I am but a child, not yet thirteen." She lowered the rose and looked directly at him. "Why would a child give you her maidenhead?"
He stepped forward, towering above her. He was a tall man, and in his elfin appearance he was thin and strong and dominating. The girl looked up at him, from at least a foot and a half below, and smiled.
He was surprised, and pleased, at how the girl would not be intimidated. And so he stepped back and made a leg, a deep, respectful bow. "I am Tam Lin, young maiden. Your servant."
She reached a hand out to him. He took her hand and as he lifted it to his lips she bent her knee in a mild courtesy. "And I am Janet," she said.
"Come, young Janet. Dine with me."
The table was set with a feast as they sat, and Tam Lin took a cup and filled it with water from a goblet and set it in front of her. "For the roses," he said.
She laughed, and set the stem of roses in the cup.
"I have few visitors," he said. "My manners are not good. Please accept my apology for the way I welcomed you to my home."
"You are most mannerly, Tam Lin," the girl said. "There is no need to apologize."
He filled her goblet with wine, and then filled his, and they began to eat. The roasted pheasant was enticing, the mutton lean, the bread filling, the wine sweet.
"What brings you to Carterhaugh?" he asked her.
"I might ask the same of you," she said.
"Mine is a long and sad tale, m'lady. Someday I will sing it for you. But for now, I have asked you. What brings you to Carterhaugh?"
"This is my father's land," she said. "He has bequeathed this land to me upon my marriage."
"Are you to be married?"
"Someday. To a great and glorious knight."
"And what knight is that?"
"I do not know. None have yet won my heart."
Tam Lin looked deep into the child's beautiful blue eyes. "This is not your father's land. It is not his to bequeath."
She smiled at him. "My father owns all this land, all the land around us for many many miles. He is a great lord."
"I'm sure he is a great lord. But there are greater still than him, who have claim to this land."
"Are you greater than he?"
"I am not. But I serve another who is."
Janet smiled again. "The knight who wins my heart will not be a servant to an unknown lord. He will serve only my father."
Tam Lin abruptly pushed his chair back, away from the table, and stood in his full height before her. He extended his hand to her.
"Come, my little maiden, join me at the fire."
She took his hand and he led her into a great room with a roaring fire. They sat together in front of the fire.
"Tell me a tale, Janet," he said.
"I will, but then I must leave. My father will come looking for me soon."
"You are free to go whenever you wish."
She smiled at him. "The only tales I know are children's tales."
"I enjoy children's tales," Tam Lin said.
Janet stood and began a recitation.
"They appeared as if from nowhere, a boy and a girl. Their skin was green. They were brother and sister, it is believed. They were taken by the lord to his manor and fed, but they would not eat the meat, and they began to waste away. The children were feared by the villagers and one day were captured and taken to a wolfpit, into which the boy was thrown.
"The lord was enraged and rode full well to the pit but by the time he arrived, the boy had been killed by a captured wolf. The girl was taken away by the villagers. The lord and his knights descended on the village and burned it to the ground and rescued the girl, but it was too late for her, she had already been with the men in the village.
"Deciding to spare her life despite her state, the lord sent the green-skinned girl in a nearby household where she was engaged as a parlor maid. She soon became with child by the gentleman of the house, and when the child was born, he was green-skinned like his mother. The gentleman rejected the child and sent her out, and the villagers descended on her again and she fled to a cave. When the villagers entered the cave, the girl and her child were gone. The villagers searched, descending deeper and deeper into the cave until they came to an opening that led to a vast and wonderful underground kingdom. There, they were captured and enslaved by the faeries and forced to serve the green-skinned girl and her green-skinned child for the rest of their lives."
"A fine tale," Tam Lin said.
"It was told to me by my nursemaid," Janet replied.
"You are a maiden in green," he said, nodding at her kirtle.
"Yes," she said, blushing slightly. "But my flesh is pale."
"I can make you green," he said, and with a nod he turned her skin to green.
She laughed. "I am the green maiden of Wolfpit now!" she said, turning in a circle, lifting her kirtle a bit above her knee.
"I can make you anything you wish," Tam Lin said, nodding again and turning her skin back to white.
"I wish for nothing, I wish only to be free!" She twirled again, and again.
Tam Lin laughed. "You wish to be free?"
"Yes," she said, her voice full of merriment. "I wish to be free to do whatever I wish!" She laughed and twirled and twirled until she was dizzy and had to catch herself from falling.
Tam Lin's heart ached at the idea of such freedom.
"You tell me a story now!" she said. "Tell me how you come to be in Carterhaugh!"
He stood. "No, that is a tale for another day. Today, I am with the most joyful girl I have ever met and I will not burden her with a tale of woe."
She looked up at him as he stood tall before her, her face red from dancing. "Must I leave you now?" she asked.
"I wish for you to stay with me forever and be my maiden."
"If I stay with you even another hour," she said, "I will not be your maiden."
"No?"
"No. For you will take my maidenhead."
"Only if you will give it to me."
"I will." She laughed, and twirled again.
"Come," he said, gesturing to the door.
He led the child to a large, cold chamber room and there left her alone. Attendants appeared as if from nowhere, three women, and they were strange and wonderful, pale and dark-haired with ice-cold eyes. They did not speak. One began unfastening the bodice of her kirtle, another unwound her braid and began brushing out her long blond hair, a third lit the fire and turned out the bed.
Soon Janet was naked, and they wrapped her in a white sheet and they disappeared and Janet was alone.
A moment later Tam Lin came in the room, wearing a long, flowing robe. He looked like an elfin lord, or a king of the faeries. He took her in his arms and kissed her, then laid her on his bed. He stood by the side of the bed and opened his robe and it fell to the ground and he was naked. As if mesmerized, Janet stared, and then opened the white sheet that was around her and she was naked as well.
Tam Lin admired the young girl as she lay on his bed. She was thin and long-limbed, she held her legs together, straight, stretching nearly the full length of his bed. Like her legs, her feet were long and thin, not the dainty little feet of a lady but instead strong and solid, feet that could carry her for many miles if the need arose. His gaze followed up her legs, to her calves and thighs, again thin but strong. Her hips were narrow and girlish, but he was momentarily entranced by the small but thick triangle of hair on her pubic mound. His eyes moved up, to her pale chest; her breasts stood up firmly, small and childish and adorable, at the peak of each a womanly nipple, wide and light-pink and puffing up above the soft white flesh of her breasts and ending in stiff dark pink nubs.
It was hard for him to tear his eyes away from her breasts, but he finally lifted them to her face. She had a serious look now, a determined look. She was so beautiful, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, her silken hair combed out now and laying around her face like radiant beams of sunshine, her blue eyes shining, her pale, soft cheeks tinted slightly with blush. As he looked at her face, she smiled.
Tam Lin climbed onto the bed, fully erect now and ready to take young Janet's maidenhead. She lifted her arms above her head and lifted her legs in the air, spreading them open wide and offering her innocence to him.
Tam Lin had made love to many women; concubines, harlots, village wives seeking food from his fields, and indeed maidens who ventured onto his land and had nothing else of value to give him. But never had a woman been so willing, so eager, to open for him. Never had he climbed atop a woman as beautiful as this child. Never had he been so excited, so overwhelmed with lust and desire and need. It was as if she were ensnaring him in some magical trap, and yet he want to be captured so very much.
As he knelt between her legs he reached down and grasped his cock and directed it to her sex. It did not look like a virgin cunt to him, it was wet and open and womanly, dark red and shining with sexual awakening. His head entered into her lips and he was shaking, entranced by her warmth and wetness as her lips kissed his head.
With just the tip of his cock inside her lips, he leaned over her, supporting himself above her with one hand, still gripping his cock with the other.
"My beautiful maiden Janet," he whispered to her.
"A maiden no more, sir," she said, smiling up at him. "I am your whore now."
"Your maidenhead is still intact, my child," he whispered.
"Then you must take it from me. You must make me a whore."
He gripped his cock and pushed into her. She closed her eyes, squinting tight, and turned her head to the side. He pulled his cock back and pushed in again, hard against the tight resistance of her coy hymen. He gripped his cock even tighter and pushed in even harder and she let out a painful moan and the head of his cock tore her open.
He pulled his cock back and pushed in again and his head now entered her, sliding past the remains of her hymen and into her, back, and in, two or three more times, and he was all the way inside her. He lay down on her and grabbed her in his arms.
"Now, you are a whore," he whispered in her ear.
She turned her face to his. "I am your whore," she whispered back to him. "Do with me as you please."
And he began fucking her, long, powerful strokes, pulling back and slamming in, holding her tightly in place and kissing her and driving his cock in and out, over and over and over. She was hot and wet and tight and it was the most exquisite sexual experience of Tam Lin's life.
They simply lay there together, her legs wide open, her cunt soaking wet, him laying on top of her and driving himself in and out of her. He knew what he was doing, he was experienced, and he could keep this up for a very, very long time and he made love to her for at least ten minutes before he finally rewarded himself with an orgasm, driving his cock as deep as he could into her immature sex, and he exploded, semen filling her fertile little womb.
When he was finished, he kissed her on her hot, red cheek, then pulled himself out of her. He stood up and left the room, and as he left the attendants appeared again as if from nowhere. They cleaned Janet, then helped her to her feet and dressed her. As one attendant tied the bodice of her kirtle and another braided her hair again, the third cleared the bloody sheets from the bed. Then the attendant who had tied her bodice led her from the room, through the great hall, and to the courtyard.
There, Tan Lin was waiting for her, mounted on a large white steed. He took her hand and strongly, effortlessly, lifted her on to the horse behind him. Then they rode together to her father's house, Janet holding herself tightly to him, leaning her head against his back.
Janet sat up in her bed as her maid removed the chamber pot into which she had vomited. The surgeon had just completed his examination of her and was in the passageway consulting in hushed tones with her father. Her father then came into her room and dismissed her maid.
He put his hand gently on her forehead and wiped a few strands of damp hair from her eyes.
"My beautiful child," he said quietly. "My beautiful Janet."
She smiled up at him. "I feel better now, my father," she said.
"Alas, my daughter," he said, "I fear you go with child."
She nodded. "If it be so, the blame is mine."
"Tell me, my beautiful Janet, who has done this? Who is the father of this child?"
"There's not a knight in all your land shall have the baby's name."
Her father looked at her with concern and confusion in his eyes.
"For if my love is not an earthly knight, then he is a elfin grey."
"Take me to this faerie!"
"I cannot. But I will go to him and he will marry me."
"You cannot marry an faerie lord, my daughter. You cannot be an faerie's wife."
She looked at her father with pity in her eyes. "I will go to him nonetheless," she said.
Her father sighed. He knew he could not battle wits with his beautiful daughter. Go she will, because go she must.
He heard the flowers cry again.
"Stolen!" they shouted to him. "Stolen!"
He lept to his feet and ran to his balcony and saw the kirtle green again.
"Janet!" he shouted, his deep, resonate voice echoing through the hills.
The girl looked up at him, holding a rose stem with two dark red blossoms, and laughed.
He lept from the parapet and soared like some otherworldly creature down upon her.
Once he was in front of her, he made a leg, a deep, respectful bow. "Lovely Janet, I am at your service."
She reached her hand to him and he kissed it.
"My love!" he said, forgoing all remaining pretense and embracing her.
"My love!" she said back to him.
"Come and dine with me. I have been so lonely!"
The feast at the table was as wonderful as it had been the last time she dined with him. He took a cup and filled it with water from a goblet and set it in front of her. "For the roses," he said.
She laughed, then put the stem of roses in the cup.
He filled her goblet with wine, and then filled his, and they began to eat. The beef roast was fine, the partridge beautiful, the bread thick, the wine cool.
"Tell me now, my elfin knight," Janet said when she had finished eating, "how came you to Carterhaugh? How came you here to dwell?"
He dropped his eyes, then looked up at her again, his eyes filled with merriment. "I will tell you that sad story tonight, but not now. Now you must come with me."
"To your bed?" she asked, looking at him with bold blue eyes.
"Yes!"
He left her alone in his bedchamber again, and again the strange attendants appeared. As they undressed her, one put her hands on Janet's belly. Her eyes went wide and she smiled and turned to the other women and spoke in hushed tones in an unknown, ancient-sounding language. The other women came and felt her belly as well, smiling and chattering in their ancient language. Then they wrapped her in a sheet and left her.
Tam Lin came in the room and walked up to her and hugged her then they kissed, a long and passionate kiss. He slid the sheet off of her and she was naked. He moved his hands down, to her swollen little breasts, then down even further to her belly.
"You are with child," he said.
"Yes," she beamed at him. "And you are the baby's father."
He smiled at her and kissed her and laid her on his bed. She lifted her arms above her head and lifted her legs in the air, spreading them open wide.
"Take me again, Tam Lin," she said. "I am your whore. Do with me as you please."
He mounted her. Tam Lin mounted his little love, holding onto her small but swollen breasts, squeezing them together underneath him. He lay down on her as he fucked her, his stomach sliding over her little swollen belly. He imagined the little child inside her, how strange and wonderful it was to know that he was so near his child now, the three of them, father, mother, and child, so close now, so intimately connected inside young Janet's fertile, motherly body. He held himself inside her, not even moving now, just wanting to experience that magical, spiritual connection with his two new loves.
As he held himself inside her he whispered in her ear, "I love you Janet."
She smiled at him, a gentle, sweet smile. "I love you, Tam Lin."
"You are the mother of my child, beautiful Janet, now be my wife!"
"I will be your wife. I will never leave you again."
With those words he began fucking his wife, feeling the baby in her womb, feeling the love flow from her sex.
As he fucked her, she looked up at him. "Mother, wife, and now your whore! Do to me as you wish!"
And Tam Lin fucked her warm, womanly cunt for as long as he could until he finally finished inside her, his love pouring out of him and into her. When he was done orgasming he held himself inside her, so that he could be as close as possible to their child and show his love for the child as well.
Eventually he pulled out of her and lay next to her and held her tightly.
"My grandfather was Lord Roxbrugh," he said softly to her, and then he began to sing in a very quiet, somber tone,
"Lord Roxbrugh took me, when I was just a boy of nine, to hunt and hawk and ride.
And when he loosed upon the hart, my horse was at his side.
I strove to calm her in her start, but she dashed to the Etrrick,
And there a drowse o'ertook my soul. I fell from her broad back.
I was surrounded suddenly by strange folk mounted all,
And then the faerie Queen a'rode and took me for her thrall.
The Queen herself it was that gave me right to Carterhaugh
But at the end of seven years, the Queen must pay a tithe to Hell.
And I that tithe will surely be for I am of human blood,
And the Lord of Hell himself commands this for his board.
But tonight is Hallowe'en and the court of Faeries ride;
Those that would let true love win, at Mile's Cross they must bide.
There they must await the faerie folk and let pass the horses black and brown,
For I will be on the white steed that my true love has already known.
Then my true love must run to the white steed and take me in her arms,
Oh and hold me tight and fear not!
For I am your baby's father!"
His voice had risen in crescendo to be quite loud for the final couplet, and then he rose from the bed and clapt his hands and the attendants appeared and he left the room.
Tam Lin had left her alone with his strange attendants, who dressed her--touching her belly and smiling again--and led her to the courtyard.
"I must go to Mile's Cross, will you show me the way?" she asked the attendant who dressed her.
The attendant nodded.
Janet and the attendant waited in the shadows of the trees by Mile's Cross until she heard the ringing of bridal bells and the trotting of horses hooves, and then she crouched, ready to pounce. Green faerie folk rode by, horses black and brown, and then she saw the Faerie Queen riding next to a faerie cloaked in grey, a broad, shining sword at his side, and riding a white horse.
And young Janet dashed then from her hiding place and grabbed the elfin grey and pulled him from the white steed and held him, sitting on the ground, in her arms.
The Faerie Queen shrieked in rage and Tam Lin changed, over and over, in Janet's arms; the Faerie Queen changed him into a snake, a newt, and then a fox and a hart, and then a lion, huge and angry and savage and roaring with violence.
And yet Janet held onto him, not willing to let him go, and then he changed again, into a naked man. Janet stood then, and took his sword, and threw her mantel green over him. She lifted his sword and stood and faced the terrible queen.
The queen dismounted and pointed a finger at the girl and laughed.
"Tam Lin is mine!" she shouted. "Are you so foolish as to think that you can stand between the Faerie Queen and her will?"
"He is my baby's father," Janet said in a calm, strong voice. "You may not have him."
"I may not have him, the child says," the Faerie Queen said to her court. "Shall I kill her now, or make her a slave?"
"Spare her baby's life," a faerie said. "Spare the baby!" fairies shouted all around.
The Faerie Queen laughed. "You are all so foolish, my fairies." Then she turned to young Janet. "I shall kill you, child, with a blink of my eye."
"You shall not," said Janet, holding the sword upright in both hands in front of her.
The Faerie Queen lifted her arms into the air. "Die, child!"
At that moment Janet swung the sword. The Faerie Queen looked surprised, for just a moment, before collapsing to the ground in a pool of dark red blood.
At the death of the Faerie Queen, Tam Lin awoke and stood, a tall, handsome knight. Young Janet had never seen so beautiful a man before.
As he reached his arms out to her, around them danced the faerie folk in joy at the defeat of the terrible queen. And then Tam Lin led her, and the faerie folk followed them, to Carterhaugh, where there was a great feast and music and dancing and tales told by the fire, and then Tam Lin led his young bride to his chambers, the faerie folk cheering as they passed and Janet smiling and blushing.
And in his chamber he lifted her and set her on the bed on her hands and knees and he lifted her kirtle up and pulled her undergarments down.
And then he fucked her like a man fucks his whore, long and hard and powerful, aggressive and dominating, his cock sliding in and out of her sweet womanly little cunt.
And as he finished he grabbed her hips and held himself inside her and shouted, "This is for you, my little whore! Take my seed!"
"Give me your seed my lord! Give me your seed!"
When the lovers emerged from the bed chamber, the faerie folk clapped with merriment and cheered and laughed.
We see, by way of epilogue, young Janet propped up on pillows in a bedchamber in her father's manor; she is red faced and sweating and so very tired, and yet she has a radiant smile on her face.
Beside her a midwife wraps a tiny pink baby in swaddling clothes; nearby a maid holds another baby, wrapped already, mewing sweetly in her newborn cry.
Outside, in her father' hall, her father raises a goblet in the air. "To Tam Lin!" he shouts. "The father of my kin!"
Cheers erupt from the company, knights and faerie folk alike. "To Tam Lin!" the company shouts.
Tam Lin lifts his goblet wearily. It has been a long, frightening night for a first father.
"To twins!" Janet's father shouts. "To healthy daughters and sons and healthy babies! To the lord and lady of Carterhaugh!"
"To the lord and lady of Carterhaugh!" the company shouts in echo. Then cheers and drinking and music and merriment.
Some notes on this story:
| Nickname | Feedback |
|---|---|
| Anonymous | I liked it; good characters plot and pacing |
| Anonymous | I always liked the Steeleye Span version. I was going to name my first boy Tam or Thomas and call him Tam. :) But...I had three daughters instead. Good story. |
| Andy | Chris, Superb. I've been reading your output for a while now as it has genuine quality - please continue to fire at will! My only criticism is that you could do with the odd (very minor) bit of editing here and there. Tam Lin - an old yarn, well worked. Now try "Crazy Man Michael". Best regards,#Andy |
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