Picture Book Monday: Tam Lin

[osprey_archer]

As you know, I enjoy a retelling of Tam Lin, so when I saw that Susan Cooper did a picture book version I was on that like white on rice even though the illustrator is the uninspiring Warwick Hutton.

Cooper’s Tam Lin is a 1990s girl power! version of the tale. We begin with the princess Margaret, forced to sew with other demure young noblewomen as they dutifully recite their lessons about how to be a proper young lady. Sew your stitches, behave yourself, and whatever you do, don’t pick the roses at Carterhays, or else you’ll get picked up by the Elfin knight and no one will marry you!

Who cares if no one marries you! Margaret cries. The roses at Carterhays are the most beautiful in the kingdom! And she tosses aside her sewing, walks out of the castle, and goes down to pick a rose in Canterhays, where a voice asks, “Why pick you the rose, Margaret, without asking leave of me?”

The voice belongs to a beautiful young man, who offers Margaret an apple from a tree. It’s only June, so the apples shouldn’t be ripe, but Margaret doesn’t think of that.. She eats the apple, spends a day with the young man, and goes back to the castle - to find a week has passed! “No man will wed you now,” wails the nurse, but that’s fine, because Margaret doesn’t want to marry anyone but the beautiful young man ANYWAY.

And now we segue into the classic Tam Lin story: the beautiful young man is a mortal captive of the fairy court, about to be sacrificed, and the only one who can save him is a woman who loves him and holds onto him even as the fairy queen changes his shape, etc. etc.

I am not entirely convinced that Tam Lin needed a 1990s girl power! retelling, given that Janet/Margaret/Kate/etc is already a brave and forthright heroine who (in some versions) gets pregnant outside of wedlock and is positively rewarded for it. Does it really add anything to make her hate sewing, too? But on the other hand: more Tam Lin! Hard to go wrong with more Tam Lin.

Comments

[asakiyume]

When you post about picture books, I always want to see the pictures, which is how I discovered there's also a Jane Yolen retelling (or maybe it's just a re-presentation) in picture book form, as well as this other illustrated retelling.

And yeah, the heroine of Tam Lin is already opinionated, independent, and determined--but also yeah, hard to go wrong with more Tam Lin ^_^

[osprey_archer]

Alas that I missed the Jane Yolen retelling as a child! (I missed this one too; they both came out around the same time.) Oh, well, when you're young you just don't know to keep your eyes out for Tam Lins.

[asakiyume]

Maybe it's one of the joys of youth that one doesn't think about the possibility of many Tam Lins. ... And then as an adult, when you realize, you have the wherewithal to chase them down.

[osprey_archer]

As a child one has one's own formative Tam Lin (The Perilous Gard, for me) and that is enough!

[sovay]

there's also a Jane Yolen retelling (or maybe it's just a re-presentation) in picture book form

The Yolen is a retelling; I remember a wonderful line in it about his face cast in silver by the moon. I haven't read it since elementary school.

[asakiyume]

Ooh! I might like to find that!

[oracne]

Have you read Greg Frost's RHYMER yet? It's pretty new.

[osprey_archer]

I have not!

[sovay]

As you know, I enjoy a retelling of Tam Lin, so when I saw that Susan Cooper did a picture book version I was on that like white on rice even though the illustrator is the uninspiring Warwick Hutton.

Jane Yolen's Tam Lin (1990) has superb illustrations by Charles Mikolaycak.

[osprey_archer]

I love Mikolaycak's work. He illustrated Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Changing Maze, which I read earlier this year, and I was so struck by his illustrations, even more than by the story itself.