The question of the day:

[conuly]

Tam Lin: was it rape?

Sometimes I go either way.

Comments

[larryhammer]

At best dubcon.

[melannen]

I mean. Hard to say.

The version of the song I've seen most often goes "Everyone told me that if I went there and picked a rose, a handsome knight would appear and ravish me, so I straightway did it and it worked" which honestly seemeď pretty consensual!

There is a strong implication that consent could not have been withdrawn once she picked the rose, though, so it probably is at least mildly dubcon.

[conuly]

On the other hand, speaking realistically, if you told me that going down to the store and buying a bag of chips would get me raped by a dude, handsome or otherwise, I probably wouldn't take it so seriously. I'm just saying. My then proceeding to hie myself to the store should not imply consent dubious or otherwise.

(Note: I'm arguing to argue, not because I care intensely!)

[gingicat]

Very unclear in the original ballad.

[melannen]

No thaţ is fair enough.

But I do feel like if several different people told you that if you went to the creepy part of the park and found the weird guy who is always sleeping in the bushes, and gave him a red rose, he will make wild and irresistible love to you, you are at least somewhat complicit in what happens next.

I guess at least partly you have to judge based on how much extra effort you think Janet had to go to!

But also the rest of the ballad doesn't seem to make a case; even in that situation I outlined, if a teenage girl did that and cried rape it would still be rape, but Janet doesn't seem upset to be pregnant or ashamed or upset about what happened, and she's claiming him as a lover, so she's at least choosing to present what happened as her choice. Although there are some versions of the ballad where that's a lot less clear.

[siderea]

I think that ambiguity is baked into the song.

On the one hand, I am reminded of a talk about Renaissance marital abductions I heard once a long time ago, that explained that a bunch of events that were described as abductions were not what we would consider abductions, because it wasn't that the bride was unconsenting: designating them "abductions" solved certain sociopolitical obstacles to a love match, such as a lack of a dowry. I don't remember if the talk covered this, but when women are considered chattels and not able to legally give consent, a woman who runs away to marry someone she was not "given away" to, that can be socially and legally be considered the husband stealing/abducting some other man's property. I am also thinking about the idea, common in the middle of the 20th century, that women ("nice girls") are socially forbidden to verbally express consent to sex they actually consent to, so being forcible is what women actually want, because it gives them plausible deniability – a terrible doctrine that leads to rape.

Anyways, point being, it might be necessary to the narrative, for it to be acceptable in the time and place it was from, for the out-of-wedlock sex Janet has to be – weirdly, given how enthusiastically she participates in everything else – couched as not her "fault", because it was "forced" on her. That might be necessary for her remaining a sympathetic protagonist in a society that judges women's sexual continence harshly.

OTOH, I think you get a very interesting reading of the song if you take the rape hypothesis seriously: Janet has gotten herself raped and knocked up in a society in which being a single mother with a bastard child is an unforgivable sin, so she moves heaven and earth – or at least the Queen of Fairy – to make her rapist into her husband, because that is literally her only option in what has been in many societies an utterly desperate situation. Abruptly, all that stuff about holding on to him, no matter what he's turned into, except molten metal itself, until he's turned into a man, becomes an richly metaphoric Beauty and the Beast story, where she's turning a monster into a man, a rapist into a husband.

[calimac]

It's rape. It may be consensual rape, if that's a thing at all, but it's rape.

Look, he's going to ravish her whether she wants or expects it or not. That's clear. What's ambiguous is whether she wants it to happen, though she seems pretty happy afterwards that it's happened. I'm not going to opine further on its improbability: this is fiction, and not a piece being currently submitted for publication.

[smokingboot]

The Ballad does not specify, but it seems unlikely that someone as brave and forthright as Janet would go through so much to hold onto a rapist. She ignores warnings to meet him before their meeting and she braves great dangers to keep him after. Again, not what I would expect from the victim of such a violence.

[varidog]

In that Venn diagram of human interaction, exactly how you draw your circle around rape will give you vastly different answers. Drawn too small, you explain away violence, but drawn too large, oversimplifies more nuanced situations. I prefer leaving room for nuance because unhappiness and dissatisfaction are a part of the human experience.

In this case, this story relies upon the nuances of the situation. Our character made an arguably bad decision, perhaps even ignorant of its real outcome, and so must live with her choices. As a result, she works to restore herself. That's good story stuff and really grabs the listener. Treating her bad decision as rape infantilizes our main character, vastly reduces her agency, and pretty much guts the story.

[greenwoodside]

Surely depends a lot on which version of the ballad you're going by. Child 39a says that if you go to Carterhaugh you can leave your green kirtle, or your ring, or your maidenhead. Janet wears her green kirtle to and from her excursion, and could presumably have left it if she wanted to. I mean, the walk back would have been embarrassing, but still preferable to unwanted sex.

I remember the version Anne Briggs sang (Young Tambling) being a bit sinister and ambiguous.

[jack]

Oh gosh, that's an interesting but depressing question.

It did get me to go check some wikipedia and lyrics, and I learned some elements I hadn't realised that made some of the smaller parts of DWJ's Fire and Hemlock make more sense...

I feel like the story is coming from a set of assumptions that don't map onto modern assumptions in a way that gives a clear answer. Like, that the problem is that the story thinks it's more important whether they get together than whether she was an enthusiastic participant in their encounter, so it doesn't specify either way whether she was. I think it *implies* she enthusiastic, since she falls for him. But it has a tone like "beware of attractive intriguing rakes" without distinguishing between "and you might get seduced" and "and you might get raped", which we would consider a big big difference.

[melannen]

Also, Doylistically speaking, it would have been easy enough to write a ballad where she blithely ignores everybody's warnings, gets raped, knocked up, and disgraced, and suffers for it, and it really sort of stands out that (most versions of) Tam Lin *don't* choose to tell that story, and I think that's significant.

[conuly]

Oh, if she was disgraced she'd have been bound to end up as a ghost.

That'd be a bit weird if she still tried to save her (boyfriend? rapist? boyfriend/rapist?) as a ghost.

[conuly]

Well, depends on which version you consider most original!

[conuly]

I think moving the Faerie Queen is a harder task than taking on God and/or the Devil.

Abruptly, all that stuff about holding on to him, no matter what he's turned into, except molten metal itself, until he's turned into a man, becomes an richly metaphoric Beauty and the Beast story, where she's turning a monster into a man, a rapist into a husband.

That *is* a different take than I've heard before.

[conuly]

Look, he's going to ravish her whether she wants or expects it or not.

Well, he might have robbed her. Did she forget to bring her gay gold ring along on this little jaunt to the woods?

[conuly]

People do, sometimes (often?), go through great effort to stay with the people who hurt them.

I don't understand it either, but it happens even to those people we all would think would never do something like that.

[conuly]

What parts of Fire and Hemlock weren't making sense to you before?

[spikethemuffin]

Late to the party, but I can't wrap my head around "She's held him fast and feared him not," if it was rape... but now I kind of want to see a short story where she goes through all the challenges, wins him, locks eyes with the Faerie Queen, and says, "Take your tithe, I didn't want him then and I don't want him now," and the Queen takes a new rider to ride upon the milk-white steed...

[spikethemuffin]

It could be a political metaphor. "For Carterhaugh is my father's/ and he gave it to me." So, she allies with those who actually live on the land she's trying to hold, then plays court games with a tyrant who views them as expendable until she wins them free... basically, Pratchett's Nation.