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11 Sept 1997 The original single page, comparing Tam Lin to Beauty and the Beast, Thomas the Rhymer, and The Faerie Oak of CorrieWater, had grown ridiculously bulky. I split it into three separate pages, and considered adding pages for different versions of the ballad of Tam Lin. Since I did not yet have any other versions, I made a page for comparing versions of Tam Lin based purely on my own recollection of the ballad.
15 Sept 1997 Tracked down versions of the ballad by Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, the version Chris had on his pages, and another on the pages of Jennifer Holm. I found another version at an arch ice for SCA songs. I wrote to the maintainers of these pages to request permission to copy their version onto my pages. I started building pages comparing variations among the versions. At this point I had six version at my site.
20 Sept 1997 One of the people I wrote to regarding their version of Tam Lin suggested I perform some usenet searches, as some of the folk music groups had regular discussions on who had recorded version. I also found a lot of information on the written versions. Decided I might as well start keeping track of that as well. Built pages to record both scholarly books (much of the list originating from a search in granger's poetry index) and works of fiction, known recordings, and web pages on the ballad.
28 Sept 1997 Chris founded the Tam Lin Web Ring. I was second to join. While waiting to have time to go to the library again I started putting together a dictionary of sorts to keep track of both words and symbols in the tale.
5 Oct 1997 Spent some time at a library photocopying the Child versions, the notes, and then started the long dull process of scanning them in, translating them into text, and fixing the errors. The HTML is an entirely different kettle of fish.
6 Oct 1997 Added Child versions 39B-I but the rest was unusable. Had to return to the library to get better copies. Nine versions so far. My page of resources was up to 16 listings of recordings. Adding the version from Child's main text takes me up to 14 versions.
10 Oct 1997 Rescanned the Child Notes, yielding versions 39J and K. 39L,M, and N weren't terribly attractive for different reasons, so I put them aside for the moment. Current total is 16 versions.
22 Oct 1998 Added a few more related books and recordings. Supposedly there's versions of the ballad from *Bulgaria* out there, but I haven't seen anything of it yet. After a bit of fiddling I decided to mash Child versions 39L, M and N into one version.
18 Dec 1997 Allen, who also supplied me with "The Fairie Oak of Corriewater" passed along a version of Tam Lin titled "Lord Robinson's Only Child" from a book by B.H. Bronsons. The version is in a very different format than the others. This takes me up to 18 versions
20 Dec 1997 A reader of the pages sent the URL for a ballad resource. No new versions there but it did list a few more books with information on the ballad, which I added to the pages.
31 Dec 1997 I found another version at digital traditions, after following up leads from a few usenet discussions. They also had a similar tale called "The King's Daughter Jane". It seems too similar to be a comparison tale like B&tB, but not alike enough to be a true version of Tam Lin. This brings my site up to 19 versions of Tam Lin.
21 Jan 1998 Decided to add King's Daughter Jane and Alice Brand (had it for a while and didn't know what to do with it either) as comparisons but not as in depth as the other pages.
Feb 1998 Haven't added anything to the site, but I've put some effort into making the site better to browse. Added navigation tables, made introduction pages for the main Tam Lin page, split off the versions onto their own page apart from translations, made sure the pages should all load quickly, which means a lot of splitting into new pages. Lots and lots of little things.
12 March 1998 found another version on the web after some searching. It's from a book by R.J. Stewart about Robert Walker. It's fairly close to several other versions but I guess I've got so many versions that any new ones will look a little like others. This brings me up to 20 versions.
2 April 1998 Finally got to *hear* the song. I'm adding the versions from the Watersons and Frankie Armstrong. These will make versions 21 and 22. I also created a page for the Child notes, which has versions 39L, M, and N, so readers can see what they looked like before I started fiddling with them, as well as other variant verses scattered in there. I can't work up the energy to make the notes look any 'prettier' than they do, not very.
13 April 1998 Drat, found that the Watersons version is more or less identical to the digital tradition version. There's a few small differences so I think I leave it be. I got another version from a performer I ran into on usenet. I re-did the background image for the pages. I need to add the new versions and get a few more from the cds I have listed on my pages.
30 April 1998 After some thought, I removed the digital tradition version, added a few more notes to the Watersons version, and added the Kesselman version. Joseph Kesselman is a performer I ran into in a usenet discussion, he's offered more information.
20 May 1998 I bought the domain name tam-lin.org, planning to move all of the pages there once I had them ready for the move. This was at least partially motived by the fact that I was changing jobs and probably couldn't rely on work-provided space to continue to house the pages.
23 July 1998 Worked up an entrance page, changed a few graphics, reorganized the directories, and altered general layout of the pages and finally chose a hosting service for the pages. The great move began. Need to start soliciting information on the musical aspects of the ballad and I want to put up a bulletin board for discussion eventually.
28 July 1998 I've got the guest book and the discussion board working, and I'll have to make some usenet posts to start gathering information on the areas I've neglected thus far. I might as well exploit the increased amount of space and capabilities as long as I'm paying for all of them.
19 Aug 1998 I've been bogged down in trying to fix small errors in the site and get the guestbook and discussion board working. I haven't had time to do much more. I sent out a request for suggestions on the story as a ballad to a few usenet groups, but I barely had time to do more than read the responses. Joseph Kessleman, same person who supplied one version of Tam Lin, offered some great information, and I haven't used it yet. I should also order some more recording of the ballad to get those versions in as well. My parents will be vacationing in Scotland this year, one of their trips together since all of us kids got out on our own, and I've begged them to stop by Selkirk for me and get a few pictures of the actual Carterhaugh woods. The major delay is a new job on my part, with a long commute. It may be September (when we move) before I'll have time to do any of the things I've been planning.
2 Nov 1998 Well it only took twice as long as I expected, but I've finally finished the changes I wanted to make. There's a new section with links to sound clips on the web, and music notation generously provided by Henrik Norbeck. I redid the graphics for the front page, made it a little nicer to look at. Pity I couldn't get it done for Halloween. Now I just need to track down a new version I heard about this morning. In the meantime I have some very important non Tam Lin stuff to get up on the web.
10 June 1999 After months of doing practically nothing, I've finally added another two versions of Tam Lin to the website (from the Greig-Duncan folksong collection and the oxford book of ballads), and created a great big ugly table to organize the possible story lines. I need to remove the musical notation Henrik gave to me as it's for the reel, not the ballad (the two aren't actually related), but fortunately another book I found has the score for the ballad, assuming I can get the graphic cleaned up well enough to post it. I'm also thinking of redesigning the first page, as it's sort of ugly and doesn't look right on IE. I might not like IE myself, but I suppose some folks out there do. I'll accept suggestions. Oh yeah, I got married last November, so I should also change my name on my website, replace Acland with Acland.
14 June 1999 I've finally removed the incorrect musical notation from the music page, and have replaced it with the musical notation from the scots musical museum. I also know of two more musical notations out there on the web, and I'm trying to track them down. I'm also conducting some slow research on another area of the ballad, hampered slightly by the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing. Spent a little bit of time trying to reply to all the questions on the discussion board, and I'm still considering changing the front page to something a little more useful.
17 June 1999 I added the four versions of the musical notation that are in Bronsons's book, as well as one version I found on another website. This takes me up to six versions of the musical notation. I also found a website with a bunch of sound files, but the organization isn't so great. Now I'm working on some new graphics for the website. I'll probably also re-scan and edit the versions of the musical notations I have, since I'd like to make the files a little smaller (plus the current ones have a tenancy to lean to one side.). What I'd really love is for someone to make me some wonderful midi or wav files from the musical notation.
20 October 1999 Has it really been that long since I've done updates? Sheesh! Well I have two more versions of Tam Lin to add, the Dave and Toni Arthur version and the Anne Briggs version. I love Anne Brigg's voice, by the way, so I'm adding her version even though it's fairly close to the Frankie Armstrong version. I also have another version at home I haven't listened to yet. There are all sorts of little things I need to do for the website, but everything keeps getting put off or forgotten. My folks traveled to Scotland again this summer, and even got some pictures of Tam Lin's well while they were in Selkirk. Must post the photos. Also, I dug versions 39L, 39M, and 39N out of Child's notes and gave them each their own mini-page, just for the sake of making them more easily available.
24 Oct 199 I added versions by Rick Lee and Pete Morton. The Pete Morton version is so close to the Waterson's version that I don't think it needs its own page, and I've been thinking about how to handle such situations. I'm now listing them differently in the list of versions, I've changed the listing of the Anne Briggs version as well. I'll have to reread all of the versions to figure out how to incorporate this change. This means changing just about everything else at this website that references the listing numbers. This will keep me busy for a while. I still need to fix the musical notations but all of our graphics programs are dead.
4 Nov 1999 I made a bunch of alterations to the big story line table. I reduce the padding so it shouldn't be quite as wide, and I double-checked all of the marks, fixing quite a few errors. I added one or two more rows and removed one as well, but most of the work involved adding more footnotes. This should give a better representation of the complexity of the story. I'm still working on rearranging the listings of the versions, but that is a pretty big project.
19 Aug 2000 I hadn't done anything in months, but I've been working on a bunch of little projects. I've opened a new section, exploring the ties between Tam Lin and the areas of Scotland it is from. Not much there yet, but I'm working on it. The reorganization of the verses is coming along too, hopefully I'll have that up and running soon as well. I added a bunch of new pages and work to the section about me, if you're interested, including some Tam Lin related stuff that I felt was too peripheral for the main pages.
25 Aug 2000 After spending some quality time geeking over the software, I ran a basic phylogenetic analysis on the versions of Tam Lin, and now they're listed in a different order on the website. I'm working on changing the order of the 'tour' of the versions, and I also new to update the minor and major variations pages as I only have them up to version number 22 and I now have 28 versions. I'm thinking of starting to add short parodies of Tam Lin to the website, since I've seen a few that I like. Still working on the graphics and the research to expand the new section on Scotland, and hopefully will be making more changes there soon too.
26 January 2001 Well I have added a few new areas. I added two new versions of Tam Lin some months back, one from the 1968 movie and one from a nice fellow name Milan Jovanovich. I haven't analyzed them yet. I'd just added a new section called "oddities" for unsubstantiated theories, short parodies, and other stuff that doesn't fit in anywhere else. I need to do major housecleaning on the site as well, get my spelling in order and all of the nav boxes updated. I have another map I'm working on for the Scotland section, but it may be months before it's done. As always, I have more ideas than I have time. Anyone out there willing contribute a few spare million ($US) to the cause will be made the saint of the site.
3 February 2001 I added a small search form to the site so folks can look things up. I may try to find a better one soon though. Now I have two new menu items to add to all of the nav menus around the site. This may take a while. Still have more info for the Scotland section I need to add.
20 February 2001 Added three new tales to the comparison area. One is a full comparison, that of Tam Lin and Childe Rowland. Two others are simply included for reference, "Burd Ellen and Tamlane" and "The Quiet Mists of Morning". I'm looking for a version of "Cupid and Psyche" as well, as well as a few other projects.
7 March 2001 Created a new page in the Scotland section, tracking information on the families listed in Tam Lin, their locations and family history. I also split the section on Carterhaugh off on to its own page, so the Scotland section isn't as much of a bear to load. Working on tightening up the website in general, as it had gotten a little messy and mistakes were made. Hopefully this new information will be useful.
11 March 2001 Added four new tales to the comparison section, "Cupid and Psyche", "Allison Gross", "The Wee Wee Man", and "The Broomfield Wager". Updating links and cleaning up HTML all over the place. Now I just need to update all of the rest of the site too.
14 March 2001 Updated the page of minor variations, major variations, and the big story line table to cover all 30 versions currently on the site. With the new versions integrated I also reran the phylogenetic analysis to get a new browsing order for the version. Generally tweaked and tightened the translation and interpretation pages. This brings me up to date, everything I've put off for a while is now done.
27 March 2001 I've added a new tale to the comparison area. The brother's Grimm had a tale called Fudevogel, and it deals with transformation. It's a sweet story in many respects, so I'm adding it in.
31 May 2001Added a new parody, Batya Wittenburg's "The Faerie Queen Went Down To Georgia", and a link to one more, "Tam Lin (for my sister)" in the oddities section.
08 July 2001Added two new versions of Tam Lin, the Pyewackett version and the Broadside Electric version. Added another small theory to the oddities page, and decided to split that section in to two parts so that it would load faster. There are now separate sections for theories and for parodies. Will have to spend the next little while updating other areas of the website as well. A reader sent me some new genealogical information on a Tam Lin family months ago and I haven't added it yet, and I need to integrate the new versions into the site.
21 September 2001 Happy Autumnal Equinox. I've redesigned the front page to take up less room, moving most of the text to an introduction page instead. I changed the icons to be of uniform size and faster loading. I hope it looks good. I've also finally integrated the two most recent versions of Tam Lin into the site. I'm thinking of redoing the graphics some more. In a few weeks I hope to add the text from some old books on Tam Lin into the site for reference, but it requires some time with a scanner and a good translation program.
23 September 2001 Lots of little fiddling around on the site. I've moved links to the ballads to the main page and move the pages examining the difference between versions to a library section rather than under the versions. I've put little icons on the top of (almost) every page to make it clearer what section the user is in. I updated the page on Scotland to include another family. I've got one or two more updates to make and the website should be in shape for fall.
13 January 2002 I was sent another version of Tam Lin in November, and only just put it up. Thank you to Tyra Twomey for her thoughtfulness. Go read the MacMath version! It will take me a little while to figure out all of the neat little nuances to it. Also, on the reason for my slowness on updating the site, I'm also getting divorced (yippee!) so the other change is putting everything back in my old name.
19 September 2002 I was contacted by Tyra Twomey, who had written her thesis on the topic of Tam Lin. She wanted to know if I was interested in an annotated bibliography. Tyra is a brilliant and generous person, and I was humbled by the scope of the work she offered so tentatively. Wow. I've added a link to the home page and the library page, but we're discussing rearranging the site to give her an area of her own. Go see. Now.
28 January 2003 Added a new version (Electric Scotland) to the collection. Added a new site to the map in the Carterhaugh section. Checked links, and tweaked guestbook to be less attractive to spammers. Working on scanning some docs and reworking graphics. Haven't changed the look here in years. Also learning a little XML so may upgrade web pages for compliance.
6 February 2003 Spent some quality time with a scanner to obtain e-versions of Child's text on Tam Lin and Scott's chapter on Faeries for the website. Also snagged Lang's book from gutenberg.org. Yay, I'm building an on-site reference library. Seriously, this is a good resource for the website and I'm very proud to be able to present it. Sooner or later I'll scan in the rest of the notes and items I have. Much tweaking in the planning.
1 May 2003 Joyous Beltane. Have redone the graphics and cleaned up the website and generally reorganized. Lots of tweaking. Most of the tables and borders are gone, and the graphics are spiffier. Will be beating the bugs out of the system for a while yet, but it's go for now. Yay! Also, changed the name to "Tam Lin Balladry" as I think it just sounds better than Tam Lin Pages.
14 July 2003 Some minor tweaking of the coding for the guestbook and the discussion board to prevent robots from making such a mess. Moved copyright statement to main page after some of my work walked off to another site.
Not Site News But Tam Lin News: Neil Gaiman has worked up a script for an animated version of Tam Lin. I can't think of a better choice. Now I just have to wait to see what he does. It should be wonderful, symbolic, and textured. It should be impressive, as he's not one to water it down or take out the adult elements. If only I could get him to write to me. *sigh*.
17 July 2003 Have been doing more tweaking. Cleaned up and updated references on the bibliography page. Added mouseovers to home page. Updated and corrected listing on music page. Trying to eliminate use of backgrounds that aren't good for the visually impaired. Hopefully will be putting up a few pages on Thomas Rhymer soon as I've finally found the files again. Thinking of fishing for help on livejournal. Getting a bad case of pathetic worrying now that the initial thrill of hearing about Neil Gaiman's project has worn off. Am now sorrowfully terrified of what will happen when someone else does all of this much better than I do.
18 July 2003 Added Child's text on Thomas Rhymer to the website. This adds a good deal of information on a very closely related tale. The text isn't perfect (I mean, I learned about new letters of the alphabet putting this beast in) but I will continue to tweak it for a while. Hopefully this additional reference material will be of use. I'll try to update the commentary on Thomas Rhymer sometime soon as well. Also, I've talked another artist into letting me reproduce her work on the website. Gwen Knighton, a harpist, has supplied the words to her Tam Lin inspired song, "Discovery", now available on the Tam Lin Oddities section on parody and filk.
30 July 2003 Have finally added versions 33 and 34 into the big storyline table. Reran the phylogenetic analysis and then decided it was too much of a mess (12 tables) so I reorganized the listings to go in order acquired as it is less confusing. Ran a much simpler analysis to see what events occur most often, and wrote up a version of Tam Lin in modern English to convey those events, a sort of meta-ballad. I'm calling it Tam Lin X and hope to use it as the basis for translations. Still hunting down bugs.
14 August 2003 I've opened up two new projects on the website. One is a request for participation from the folks out there who love the tale of Tam Lin and have something to say about it. The other is an area to house translations of Tam Lin into other languages. I know a lot of folks out there have a great deal more knowledge and skills than I do when it comes to this story, and I'm inviting them to participate in making this website stronger and more diverse. Let me know if you're interested in joining in. Also, have added "Fair and Balanced" to the website front page in opposition to Fox's protest of Al Fraken's book title.
12 September 2003 While there are several projects brewing, I'd like to take a moment to point out that the writer/producer of a Tam Lin play has made the generous offer of discount tickets available online. If you're going to be in New York in late October, plan on seeing the Tam Lin play by Nancy McClernan. In the meantime, swing by the website and pick up your discount tickets. Tell them I sent you, and feel free to send me a report!
12 October 2003 The front page has been changed for this week to reflect your webmistress's views on the topic of marriage equality and marriage protection. We hope that visitors to this site will take a moment to reflect on this issue. In other news, I also have an Italian version of Tam Lin to put up and some Italian references, hopefully will be able to do that soon.
The new Translation has been added. Tam Lin can now be read in Italian
21 October 2003 The standard front page appearance has returned. Marriage equality week information has been preserved in the filk area.
16 December 2003 Added Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight to the comparison area, a link to a sound file in the music area, and a few more books in the reference area. Enjoy.
26 June 2004 I've added two more parodies to the oddities section; one is a Tam Lin spoof of the Nigerian email spam, and the other the somewhat eye-hurtful result of running Tam Lin through an online t33n translator. Links to a few interesting images from Scotland have been added to the Scotland section, so you can now see one or two of the castles that are traditional candidates for 'her father's hall'.
30 July 2004 I've added a new section on artwork related to the ballad. So far it's mostly links, but I have a wonderful original piece to display as well, and hopefully more to come soon. Added a few more references to the reference page. I'm receiving email again, though response time is slow owing to my schedule. Most of the scripts are working again, though I've added a new guestbook to spiff things up a bit. I added a few more entries to the language section (external links to prose versions for the most part) and listing of another movie to the resources page.
Oh, and the BBC piece airs in a littleunder 48 hours. If you're coming here after hearing it, Hi, welcome to the site. Please ignore the webmistress, gibbering in terror over the public exposure.
7 March 2005: Added four new images to that Artwork section. These were sent to me by Dan Dutton and are part of a larger project to combine painting and performance. Dan has some lovely and detailed work on his site, and I'm thrilled to be able to present some of it on mine.
2 September 2005: Added a new version of the ballad, this one by Medaeval Baebes, to the website. Added several more books to the Reference Section. Considering more work on the website, merely lacking time, money, energy, and an army of trained monkeys.
24 October 2005: Added Ewan MacColl's version of the ballad, from the album Cold Snap. This version can be heard for free from the Smithsonian Global Archive until November 23rd. It has some new versions and a lot of Scottish language
1 November 2005: Old host deleted entire website. This is a lesson in the importance of having one's own (and current) backups. Rebuilding.
4 December 2005: Added two new poems to the Oddities section, another link in the reference section (a spoken version at archive.org, performed by Maureen S. O'Brien), and will need to transcribe it in the next few days.
28 April 2006: Added link to the front page for the Elizabeth Bear's latest book, Blood and Iron. The author s providing the first three chapters online for free, the book itself is due out on June 2006. Added info to bibliography page. Added links to the website of Bob Hay and the Jolly Beggars, who have a recording of Tam Lin on their latest album and available on their website.
30 October 2006: Added versions by Geordie McIntyre and an Unidentified Version. Added midi files to the music page. Added links to the reference section.
15 January 2007: The unidentified version has been identified! It's by Alastair McDonald, from the album Heroes & Legends of Scotland. Updated website with the new information, updated several of the reference pages. Added a few more links to web fiction to the reference section.
24 October 2004: Two new listings of records. One is from a prog-metal group called Thumpermonkey Lives! (great name, AND they recorded it while wearing goblin masks. I adore them for this) and another an older version by Dave Nipperess. The former is based on Fairport Convention's version and is available as an mp3 from the band's website, though they're also going to let me host it here. The latter is an unknown version I'll have to transcribe and add to the site. It's almost Halloween, time and past I made some updates.
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