He cackled maniacally. "Perhaps. I will sing, then." He struck a couple of discordant chords that marked him either as a very bad musician or the song as a very bad song. "A local song." He laughed, before singing in a light tenor voice which strangely sounded young. "I met a maid in Connlaoth, her hair the wind, her eyes the stars, her lips as red as blood." He paused. "Bloodred! Blood-dread! Oh, the blood that is shed!" His voice lowered to a whisper, and, no longer singing, struck a few plaintive chords. "She left the world, you see. Bloodred the bloodshed in those last moments. No more blood now. No more life." The musician sounded almost normal.
He whined, "I provided for her all I could; I shielded her from the Mordecai. What more did she expect? And when I tried to fetch her, I could not." he laughed bitterly. "I am no Orfeus."
"Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,
Amang the groves sae green,
And a' to kill the bonie babe
That we gat us between?" 14. "O tell me, tell me, Tam Lin," she says,
"For's sake that died on tree,
If eer ye was in holy chapel,
Or christendom did see?" 15. "Roxbrugh he was my grandfather,
Took me with him to bide,
And ance it fell upon a day
That wae did me betide."
He sang again. "But there was no happy ending for us, not even a partial one." His mood changed quickly as he asked, "Would you like to hear another part?"
Without waiting for an answer, the old man sang,
"Out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
Out of a bush o broom:
"Them that has gotten young Tam Lin
Has gotten a stately groom." 34. Out then spak the Queen o Fairies,
And an angry woman was she;
"Shame betide her ill-far'd face,
And an ill death may she die,
For she's taen awa the bonniest knight
In a' my companie.
35. "But had I kend, Tam Lin," she says,
"What now this night I see,
I wad hae taen out thy twa grey e'en,
And put in twa een o tree."
He ended the song with a mad cackle.