Some old notes on Tam Lin

[alanajoli]

I kept a blog before this one, which devolved into mostly memes (with the occasional urging my readers to support the Save Tara movement, etc.). But I also had notes in that blog about Tam Lin, and since I'm working on the Tam Lin story (finally!) that has been kicking around in my head for years now, I thought I'd repost.

Part I:

Comments

[sartorias]

There've been several versions of this, as you point out. What do you think is the attraction of this storyline, that so many want to retell it?

[alanajoli]

If you trace it back far enough, the concept is much, much older, back to the story of Thetis and Peleus has the same trope, only this time, it's the man who has to hold onto the woman as she's changing shape, and rather than freeing her, he binds her to marriage by completing the task. What the Tam Lin story does is changes the traditional male/female roles. Rather than oppressing the female and her position (condemning a nereid who was arguably once a goddess to her place as a mortal wife), in Tam Lin, the hero is a woman who is responsible for setting the captured male character free. He is the dude in distress, and she's no damsel. So I suspect, given that most of the versions I've seen have been written by women, the appeal here is the strong figure of the feminine

[sartorias]

The female strength and the holding on...yes, that makes sense.

[alanajoli]

How funny! I was almost sure it was the other way around... you saw the post and said, hey, she's supposed to have given me a synopsis by now! ;)