erm, because it's halloween?
O I forbid you, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tam Lin is there.
...........................
"And ance it fell upon a day
A cauld day and a snell,
When we were frae the hunting come,
That frae my horse I fell,
The Queen o' Fairies she caught me,
In yon green hill to dwell.
"And pleasant is the fairy land,
But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years,
We pay a tiend to hell,
I am sae fair and fu o flesh,
I'm feard it be mysel.
"But the night is Halloween, lady,
The morn is Hallowday,
Then win me, win me, an ye will,
For weel I wat ye may.
"Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride,
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide"...
--"Tam Lin" (#39a, Child's Ballads)
"Having herded both parents into her father's study and wept all over her mother, Janet managed to tell them that she was pregnant. Her father, shedding all modern and enlightened attitudes in about twenty seconds, was disposed to blame the young man, and intermittently during the ensuing discussion demanded to be told who he was.
"They both told her that money and support would be forthcoming for
whatever she might decide to do, and, like Thomas, infuriatingly left this entirely up to her. Her mother, pressed for advice, finally said, 'Do you want to go to graduate school??'
"'Yes. There's not much else I'm good for.'
"She noticed with interest, in the part of her mind that went on
operating despite all disaster, that they were sufficiently upset not to pursue this point, or even to mark the attitude as uncharacteristic."
--Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
(That is so me, but without the pregnancy bit.)
I woke up this morning, as I do pretty much every Halloween, thinking about this particular ballad. I feel as though we have a long history, though I suppose it's only been eight years; long enough, but nothing on, say, my history with Madeleine L'Engle. As with lots of people, the Fairport Convention version electrified me into seeking the story out, but it was probably only a matter of time even without Fairport, because it has all the things I love: fairies; transformation; sacrifice; a heroine who knows her own mind, and speaks it, despite everything. And since then it's followed me around, in plenty of different guises and retellings (my favorite? Probably Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard--Tam Lin *and* Tudors; it's like it was written just for me! Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock is pretty dear to my heart as well, though). I don't even have to seek them out; sooner or later, it seems like they find me. (With all the retellings I have, though, I still don't have a copy of Child's Ballads, because I am poor. Someday I will land the whale.)
I'm being especially fanciful today because it is Halloween (when better?), but also because...well, because I used to be. I used to be unapologetic about my love for all the things that the story of "Tam Lin" affords, and about the fact that I wanted to be a writer and write stories just like that. Secretive, of course, but unapologetic. And for the last few years, I haven't been that person. I haven't written a creative word in over two years--not just because I have no time (although I don't), but because of something I haven't figured out yet. Some embarrassed feeling that fantasy and "literature" don't go together, partly: stupid, and I thought I'd gotten over that particular problem in high school, but I suppose that was before I decided to make literature, for all intents and purposes, my job. (And all the reminders that A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest could be considered works of fantasy don't really help.) And partly it's this new sense I've picked up (and I'd really like to be able to drop it back wherever I did so) that writing, especially "frivolous" sorts like the stories I wrote before, just "isn't done"; that if I were to write, it would be because I'm not capable of really devoting myself to the study of English literature, which I'm afraid of every day around here, writing or not.
But I suppose that's a part of why, despite my rather...um, vexed relationship with Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (the first time I tried to read it, in college, I hated it; out of college, when I tried again, I felt nostalgic both for my alma mater and the kind of college experience I never managed to have), I also respect it, because it's as full of "literature" as it is of fantasy (more so, perhaps--which was part of my problem as an impatient first-time reader), and they coexist quite nicely. Even if I am secretly miffed with the novel because it did something that I felt special for thinking up and wanted to write myself.
I've been wanting to get back to writing, though I was never more than middling in the first place (and I'm sure that another part of the reason I stopped was that when I got to grad school, I could not have borne feeling like a failure at two things that were really important to me at once), but I don't know if I'm even capable of it anymore, anyway... I should be grading papers, but I've been thinking about this all day, and it was distracting.
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For young Tam Lin is there.
...........................
"And ance it fell upon a day
A cauld day and a snell,
When we were frae the hunting come,
That frae my horse I fell,
The Queen o' Fairies she caught me,
In yon green hill to dwell.
"And pleasant is the fairy land,
But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years,
We pay a tiend to hell,
I am sae fair and fu o flesh,
I'm feard it be mysel.
"But the night is Halloween, lady,
The morn is Hallowday,
Then win me, win me, an ye will,
For weel I wat ye may.
"Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride,
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide"...
--"Tam Lin" (#39a, Child's Ballads)
"Having herded both parents into her father's study and wept all over her mother, Janet managed to tell them that she was pregnant. Her father, shedding all modern and enlightened attitudes in about twenty seconds, was disposed to blame the young man, and intermittently during the ensuing discussion demanded to be told who he was.
"They both told her that money and support would be forthcoming for
whatever she might decide to do, and, like Thomas, infuriatingly left this entirely up to her. Her mother, pressed for advice, finally said, 'Do you want to go to graduate school??'
"'Yes. There's not much else I'm good for.'
"She noticed with interest, in the part of her mind that went on
operating despite all disaster, that they were sufficiently upset not to pursue this point, or even to mark the attitude as uncharacteristic."
--Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
(That is so me, but without the pregnancy bit.)
I woke up this morning, as I do pretty much every Halloween, thinking about this particular ballad. I feel as though we have a long history, though I suppose it's only been eight years; long enough, but nothing on, say, my history with Madeleine L'Engle. As with lots of people, the Fairport Convention version electrified me into seeking the story out, but it was probably only a matter of time even without Fairport, because it has all the things I love: fairies; transformation; sacrifice; a heroine who knows her own mind, and speaks it, despite everything. And since then it's followed me around, in plenty of different guises and retellings (my favorite? Probably Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard--Tam Lin *and* Tudors; it's like it was written just for me! Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock is pretty dear to my heart as well, though). I don't even have to seek them out; sooner or later, it seems like they find me. (With all the retellings I have, though, I still don't have a copy of Child's Ballads, because I am poor. Someday I will land the whale.)
I'm being especially fanciful today because it is Halloween (when better?), but also because...well, because I used to be. I used to be unapologetic about my love for all the things that the story of "Tam Lin" affords, and about the fact that I wanted to be a writer and write stories just like that. Secretive, of course, but unapologetic. And for the last few years, I haven't been that person. I haven't written a creative word in over two years--not just because I have no time (although I don't), but because of something I haven't figured out yet. Some embarrassed feeling that fantasy and "literature" don't go together, partly: stupid, and I thought I'd gotten over that particular problem in high school, but I suppose that was before I decided to make literature, for all intents and purposes, my job. (And all the reminders that A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest could be considered works of fantasy don't really help.) And partly it's this new sense I've picked up (and I'd really like to be able to drop it back wherever I did so) that writing, especially "frivolous" sorts like the stories I wrote before, just "isn't done"; that if I were to write, it would be because I'm not capable of really devoting myself to the study of English literature, which I'm afraid of every day around here, writing or not.
But I suppose that's a part of why, despite my rather...um, vexed relationship with Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (the first time I tried to read it, in college, I hated it; out of college, when I tried again, I felt nostalgic both for my alma mater and the kind of college experience I never managed to have), I also respect it, because it's as full of "literature" as it is of fantasy (more so, perhaps--which was part of my problem as an impatient first-time reader), and they coexist quite nicely. Even if I am secretly miffed with the novel because it did something that I felt special for thinking up and wanted to write myself.
I've been wanting to get back to writing, though I was never more than middling in the first place (and I'm sure that another part of the reason I stopped was that when I got to grad school, I could not have borne feeling like a failure at two things that were really important to me at once), but I don't know if I'm even capable of it anymore, anyway... I should be grading papers, but I've been thinking about this all day, and it was distracting.