Phantasmagoria ii

Tam O' Shanter and the Witches

In Tam O' Shanter (1790), Robert Burns tells the tale of the eponymous character as he begins his night at the local public house in Auld Ayr (Scotland), and eventually goes over to the dark side...

Tam drinks and regales with friends at what might be considered the equivalent of the modern-day happy hour (have fun looking up all the Scots colloquialisms).

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy

He stays too late, gets too drunk, flirts with the landlady of the pub and offends his wife. Eventually leaving alone, he makes his way through the countryside, which seems especially eerie on that night. Ultimately he comes upon a raucous scene ablaze in light- a danse macabre with witches and warlocks, open coffins, and the Devil himself, carousing and whirling in decadent abandon.

He dances with a pretty young witch, wearing a too-short nightshirt (cutty-sark). Tam, overcome, can't help but exclaim in lecherous glee:

Weel done, Cutty-sark!

Suddenly, the lights go off and Tam is pursued by the witches and warlocks, who have flown into a rage. Escaping on his horse, he makes it over the bridge to safety (the witches and warlocks can't cross running water) (1), but not without the young witch grabbing his horse's tail and pulling it off.

I first came upon an illustration of the Tam O' Shanter dance scene on a trip to Seattle during college. It was on a promo postcard for a show at a downtown bar. I had no idea of the artist, and was so intrigued by the debauched imagery that I simply had to know the tale behind it. It took about 12 years (and Google) before I could search to find it's inspiration.

Tam O' Shanter and the Witches by John Faed, 1892
Illustration to the poem of Robert Burns

(1) Lindsay, Maurice (1996), "Tam O'Shanter", The Burns Encyclopedia (3 ed.), Robert Hale, ISBN 978-0709057192, http://www.robertburns.org/encyclopedia/TamOShanter.23.shtml, retrieved on 31 October 2008