Troublesome Tommy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 13

Troublesome Tommy

rspeciall-j written for "The Press- by

DERRICK ROONEY)

r „, the linn had nae breeks' to near, y- -,:-ek him a sheep-skin to make him a pair, T <l.'shy Side out, the fleecy side in, , s-.r tummer rtothtnp," says Tam the linn. The hero of this doggerel .r. a 19th-century nursery rhyme collection may be, t-aced through out-of-the-way, I'terature of the last four centuries, not to mention! dozens of folk-song variants! in four countries. Tommy O'Lynn, also known i Tom Bolynn, Bryan-a-Lynn,. Brian O'Lynn, Tam o’ the linn and so on, is the original fall guy, the stock figure In the racial joke. His model, a fairy in 16th-i century Scottish legend, won the hand of his mortal bride by falling off his horse at the right moment: ever since his position tn folk-song has been the happy bumbler, the man who always sees the bright side of tragedy. * rtr Brian O’Lunn for his house had no door, l-h the sky for a roof and the bog for a floor. Ef 1 a way to jump out and a way to swim in, *Tis a fine habitation, said Brian O'Lynn. For summer clothing he makes himself sheep-skin breeches: in the winter he wears two calf-skins with the hair all gone, split at the side so the water runs in: ‘ There'll be fine ventilation,” says Brian O’Lynn. Half a century ago a scholar put forward the theory that the song began as a satire by the English on the rough attire and habits of the Scots and Irish: “Tom Bolynn was a Scotsman bom. his shoes worn out and his stockings torn; the calf of his leg hung down to his shin,” says an English version. In the Appalachian mountain version from America he is a Dutchman: in an Irish version he is English. The Scots, probably content to have introduced him to the world as the fairy who lived happily never after (Thom of Lyn in the “Complaynt of Scotland,” published in 1548), have done little since then to claim him as their own: indeed, in one of the few Scottish versions Tommy O'Lynn is consigned to what

might be considered an appropriate resting place: Tommy O’Lynn, his wife and* wife’s mother. They all fell into the fire tof g ether .- O. said the uppermost. Fee got i , a hot skin. I It’s hotter below, quoth Tommy O’Lynn.