About two weeks ago, Venecia asked her friendslist to write about favorite fairy tales. Not surprisingly, since the retelling of which is the basis for my in-progress novel, my favorite fairy tale is Tam Lin. It was initially Scottish ballad, but has been used in several novels and novellas, as well as set to music-- Pamela Dean set it in a liberal arts college, with Tam Lin as a classics major. Holly Black wove the tale (among others) into her novel, Tithe. Bits and pieces of the tale filter into Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love. Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock and Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard (which I have still yet to read!) also tell the tale. In addition, the Mediaeval Baebes recorded a haunting, atmospheric telling.

( The Ballad of Tam Lin.Collapse )

The version I remember was the first version that I read, from a Childcraft book of collected myths and legends. I think, at one point years ago, I typed up the Childcraft version and sent it in, but never head back from the webmaster. Actually, I can't remember if that version acknowledged Tam and Janet had slept together or that she was pregnant, but it's such an intrinsic part of the story that I couldn't leave it out of the overview. My young adult novel also omits this part, as it is an adapted retelling.

Now I know that there are more versions of the ballad than I can count, as is common with orally-transmitted ballads. If you're curious, TamLin.Org has the most extensive collection of versions. At any rate, there are versions that are much, much darker-- versions in which Tam Lin and Janet have nonconsensual sex as a penalty for stealing the rose, versions in which Janet returns to Carterhaugh not to find Tam, but to find yarrow with which to abort her child. In some versions, Janet is specifically warned not to go to Carterhaugh because Tam Lin exacts the maidenhead from all maids who pass through the wood.

Regardless, I think the thing that attracts me so much to this tale, and has attracted me since I was young, is that here, the hero does not save a damsel in distress. The damsel saves the hero. Also, Janet is very headstrong, determined, and she will not let any man tell her what to do. She will similarly not settle to appear 'proper' in society when it is not what is in her heart. Of course, there are all sorts of literary metaphors and symbols that make my English Major heart go pitter-pat, but that's mostly just an added bonus.