Thomas the Rhymer

Thomas the Rhymer is a Scottish ballad, derived from the Chivalric Romance Thomas of Ercildoune. It concerns the deeds of Thomas the Rhymer, or "True Thomas", a young Scottish nobleman who, while lying under a tree on a hillside, sees a beautiful woman approach him on horseback. Thomas is so stricken by her beauty that he believes her to be the Virgin Mary, but she rebukes him, telling him that she's actually the Queen of Elfland, and that he must come with her, to be her servant for seven years. She gifts him a green cloak, and a green pair of velvet shoes, and he rides off with her to Elfland, not to be seen again for seven years.

The ballad exists in ten different variants, one of which was collected by Walter Scott in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and three of which were collected by Frances James Child in his The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The figure of True Thomas is loosely based on a real person, Thomas of Ercildoune, a Scottish lord who lived during the 1200's, and who is widely speculated to be the author of the Prose Tristan, one of the more famous versions of the Tristan legend.


 * Alliterative Nickname: Thomas's nickname, "True Thomas".
 * Colour Coded for Your Convenience: The Queen of Elfland's horse is "milk-white". Both her dress, and the cloak and shoes which she gives Thomas, are green.
 * Cool Horse: The Queen of Elfland's horse. It's "milk-white", fifty-nine silver bells hang from each lock of its mane, and it has Super Speed.
 * Land of Faerie: Elfland, where Thomas goes to at the end of the ballad.
 * Super Speed: An ability of the Queen of Elfland's horse. "And aye whene'er her bridle rang, / The steed flew swifter than the wind."
 * World's Most Beautiful Woman: The Queen of Elfland. She is so beautiful that Thomas mistakes her at first for the Virgin Mary.