Thomas the Rhymer

• Main
• Source
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

From Thomas the Rhymer (retold by Mary MacGregor, 1908) "Under the Eildon tree Thomas met the lady," illustration by Katherine Cameron

Thomas the Rhymer (also seen as Thomas 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 (#37, variations A, B and C, with further variants added in later editions). The figure of True Thomas is loosely based on a real person, Thomas of Ercildoune, a Scottish lord who lived during the 1200s, and who is widely speculated to be the author of the Prose Tristan, one of the more famous versions of the Tristan legend.

Tropes used in Thomas the Rhymer include:

• Alliterative Nickname: Thomas's nickname, "True Thomas".
• Changeling Tale: Of the "abduction only" sort; unusual in that it is an adult and not a child.
• Color-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.
• Easy Road to Hell/Evil Is Easy: Invoked:

O see ye not that narrow road, So thick beset with thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness, Tho after it but few enquires. And see not ye that braid braid road, That lies across that lily leven? That is the path to wickedness, Tho some call it the road to heaven.

• The Fair Folk: The Queen, of course.
• 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.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: Thomas must serve in the Fairy Queen's realm for seven years. In at least one version, when he comes back out to his side of the veil, everyone he ever knew is long dead.