[Lawtan]

Wearing again her green mantle, Janet returned to the forest. She ran into the rose-clearing, and waited for the man. Spotting a pair of roses entwined, she plucked it for her love. With a rapid twist behind her came her darling Tamlane.

Janet, to him did say, "O, tell me, Tamlane, by the dying oak and holy cross, why wouds't thou not come with me?"

On a day, a cauld, cauld day,
I, a chile, circled the stones,
An from the stones I fell;
The Queen o Fairies she caught me,
In yon green hill to dwell as guardian-sidhe.

While pleasant is this fairy wood,
I've an eerie tale to tell,
Now, at the end of seven years
We pay a tithe - a fae - to hell;
I am fair and full o' flesh
And, bound, I'm feared it next be myself.

"Oh, dear Tamlane, what must I do, to avert your coming fate?"

"Tis the night of Halloween, my lady,
The morn is Hallowday;
To win me, win me, an ye will,
For weel I wat ye may.

At the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride,
And they that wad their true love win,
At Miles Cross their maun bide.

Let pass the steed of black, lady,
And syne let pass the brown,
But quickly run to the milk-white steed,
An pull his rider down.

For I ride the milk-white steed,
And ay nearest the town;
Because I was an earthly chile
They gift me that renown.

My right hand will be gold,
My left hand will be bare,
Cockt up shall my bonnet be,
And cambd down shall be my hair;

They'll turn me in your arms, lady,
Into an esk and adder; bear and hot coal,
But hold me fast, and fear me not,
I am your bairn's father.

And those the tokens I gift thee,
Nae doubt there I'll be."

And so Janet in her mantle green, waited by Miles Cross. A fog of shades rose from the dew. In the 11th hour, bridles in the distance rang. Lights from fires in hollowed-out turnips glowed through grinning cuts on the sides of four horses. Upon each horse was a figure of myth. The First, a black horse, it's rider headless and armed with a lash of human bone, lead the others. Next, on a brown horse a woman cloaked in grey tattered rags. In the rear rode two white horses. One carried a voluptuous fairy, wearing silver and white over her bosom, and a crown of gold. The other bore a knight with one hand golden, and the other bare.

As a protective snake, Janet snatched the knight down from his steed, and held him down as the other horsemen circled. With a crack of the whip - a spinal column - Tamlane grew cold in Janet's arms, before shifting into a venomless hissing adder. Janet held tighter to her love. With the earsplitting wail of the grey woman, Tamlane grew into a bear - almost too large to hold down. With a feat of great strength, Janet kept him down. With the jingle of the Fae Queen's jewelry, Tamlane became hot as a coal. Holding on, Janet pushed both of them into the dewy grass, and Tamlane cooled. He shifted into his normal form, as the Queen's silver bracelet cracked. The grey woman cried out, "He's won, he's won amongst us all!"

The Fae Queen grimly replied to both the exhausted form of Janet and Tamlane, and to her entourage;

She that has borrowed young Tamlane
Has gotten a stately groom,
She's taken away my bonniest knight,
Left nothing in his room.

But had I known, Tamlane, Tamlane,
A lady would borrow thee,
I'd have ta'en out thy two grey eyne,
Put in two eyes of wood.

Had I but known, Tamlane, Tamlane,
Before we came from home,
I'd have ta'en out thy heart o' flesh,
Put in a heart of stone.

Had I but had the wit yestreen
That I have got to-day,
I'd paid the Fiend seven times his tithe
Ere you'd been won away."

The three fae slipped away, and Janet returned home with her Tamlane.

The End

Notes: I apologize beforehand for any creative liberties taken. They were almost purely for the purpose of making sense of conflicting accounts about the folk tale, for the sake of including the parts of the ballad, Tamlane, or for better communicating the mythological world this is set in.