So she tells him the story of Tamlin, which as she was told it goes something like this:
In a forest in Scotland there lived a fairy with a claim to the woods. If young girls walked through and picked a flower there, he would demand their virginity before letting them leave, and so no one was to wander there. But one day, a woman wandered through and picked a rose. When the fairy appeared to her and asked why she came and took what was his, she said that she had a right to it, for her father, who owned the forest, had died and left it to her.
When the woman returned to her people, she was soon found to be pregnant. When asked who the father was, she said that he was a fairy, and that she would not forsake him. So the woman returned to the forest, and picked another rose, and in doing so summoned the fairy, who again asked why she had taken what was his, now that she knew his claim to it. She asked him what his name was, and was told that it was Tamlin. She asked him whether he might become a human, and be with her and raise their child.
So Tamlin told her that he had been a human knight, very long ago, and was captured by the fairies when he fell from his horse, and had in time become one of them. He did not very well remember what it was to be a human, but thought that he might be able to become one again, if the woman truly wanted him. He was very worried, as it happened, that the next night he was to be made a tithe to hell, as was the custom of the fairies every seventh year. He told her that he would ride the next night with the other fairy knights, on a spotless white horse all in gleaming golden armor. If she pulled him down from his horse, and held on, no matter what happened, then he would be free of the fairies, and go to be a mortal with her.
So the woman came back, the following night, and when Tamlin and the other knights charged across the field, she pulled him down from his horse. And he became a bear, but she held tight, and did not let go. And he became a boar, and then a snake, and then a bird, and then a lion, and still the woman did not let go, but held him tight. And finally he became a burning hot coal, and she did not let go, though her hands were burning. Instead she leapt into a lake, and when she surfaced she was holding Tamlin, naked and whole and human. And so he was free of the fairies, and they lived together for the rest of their days.
"Can't say whether there's anything to it, though."
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