Queen of Elphame

In the folklore of Lowland Scotland and Northern England, the Queen of Elphame, Elphen, Elfen or Elfan (and also Elfin Queen, Fairy Queen or Faery Queen)^[1][2] is the elfin ruler of Elphame (Elf-home; compare Norse Álfheimr), the usually subterranean Anglo-Scottish fairyland. She appears in a number of traditional supernatural ballads, including Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin. She also appears in a number of accounts from witchcraft trials and confessions, including the confession of Isobel Gowdie. A similar concept in Border folklore is that of Gyre-Carling or Nicnevin.

Appearance, character, and abilities

The Queen of Elphame is variously depicted as attractive and demonic. In Thomas the Rhymer, she is initially mistaken for the Virgin Mary by the protagonist:

Thomas the Rhymer meets the Queen of Elphame in an illustration by Kate Greenaway.

True Thomas lay oer yond grassy bank,
  And he beheld a ladie gay,
A ladie that was brisk and bold,
  Come riding oer the fernie brae.
...

True Thomas he took off his hat,
  And bowed him low down till his knee:
“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
  For your peer on earth I never did see.”

“O no, O no, True Thomas,” she says,
  “That name does not belong to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
  And I’m come here for to visit thee.^{UNIQ34bfc2143e6adc2a-nowiki-00000009-QINU3UNIQ34bfc2143e6adc2a-nowiki-0000000A-QINU}

A similar picture is painted by the 1591 witchcraft confession of Andro Mann of Aberdeen. Mann confessed that he saw "the Devil" his "master in the likeness and shape of a woman, whom thou callest the Queen of Elphen."^[4] Mann further confessed that the Queen of Elphen rode white horses, and that she and her companions had human shapes, "yet were as shadows", and that they were "playing and dancing whenever they pleased."^[5] Isobel Gowdie's confession also noted that the Queen of Elphame was "brawlie" clothed in white linen, and that she got more food from the Queen than she could eat.^[6]

But, in Tam Lin the Queen of Elphame is a more sinister figure. She captures mortal men, and entertains them in her subterranean home; but then uses them to pay a "teind to Hell":

When we were frae the hunting come,
   That frae my horse I fell,
The Queen o' Fairies she caught me,
   In yon green hill do dwell.

"And pleasant is the fairy land,
   But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years,
   We pay a tiend to hell,
I am sae fair and fu o flesh,
   I'm feard it be mysel.^{UNIQ34bfc2143e6adc2a-nowiki-00000017-QINU7UNIQ34bfc2143e6adc2a-nowiki-00000018-QINU}

This ballad tells of the struggle of its heroine Janet, who must overcome the Queen's shape shifting magic to rescue a would-be victim from the Fairy Ride on Halloween.

The Queen's shape-shifting magic extends to her own person. Mann's confession also noted that "she can be old or young as she pleases".^[8]

References

1. ^ The Poetical Works of the Ettrick Shepherd: Including the Queen's Wake, Pilgrims of the Sun, Mador of the Moor, Mountain Bard, Etc., Etc. With an Autobiography, and Illustrative Engravings, from Original Drawings by James Hogg, David Octavius Hill, Blackie and son, 1840
2. ^ Metrical legends of Northumberland: containing the traditions of Dunstanborough Castle, and other poetical romances. With notes and illustrations, James Service, W. Davison, 1834
3. ^ Anonymous, Thomas the Rymer
4. ^ Margaret Murray, "Organizations of Witches in Great Britain", Folklore, March 1917
5. ^ "Did Shakespeare Visit Scotland", in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, Apr. 27, 1844
6. ^ Thomas Wright, Narratives of sorcery and magic, from the most authentic sources (Redfield, 1852), p. 350, 352
7. ^ Anonymous, Tam Lin
8. ^ Robert Graves, English and Scottish Ballads (Heinemann, 1963), p. 157.

See also

• Border ballads
• Elf
• Fairy Queen
• Fairy
• Nicnevin