A Kiss and a Candle–a Snow Queen short story

So, I love The Snow Queen. I love it I love it. The only reason why I haven’t covered the fairy tale here on this blog yet is because the story is looong (seriously, I’m pretty sure it’s told in five parts), but it’s a wonderful fairy tale and you should read it if you haven’t already.

So, what’s this all about? Well, the blog Fairy Tale Central is recapping the fairy tale this month, and so Arielle has posted a Snow Queen-related prompt on her personal blog.

Isn’t the prompt wonderful? Of course I had to write something for it. I love the characters in The Snow Queen so much, from lonely, bitter Kay to bright and resourceful Gerda to the mysterious and enigmatic Snow Queen. (and the Snow Queen is not necessarily evil I will fight you on this. You may ask me more on this point, but be prepared for a fifty page essay if you do). (Kidding I can’t even write a fifty page story without collapsing. It’ll probably be like three sentences that barely explain my point.)

Anyway. I wrote a story and will proceed to unleash the monster I created onto the world, along with the pinterest board

I made Kay, the main character, non-binary, which is why I refer to them with the singular ‘they’. The character didn’t really come into my head with a specific gender, so then I decided that I might as well keep them that way? I also got to make Kay Orthodox Christian, since the setting is vaguely Russian-inspired! Orthodoxy, if you don’t know, is the denomination of Christianity that I belong to. This may be the very first time I’ve had an Orthodox character?

Btw, the story is kind of a metaphor for death and depression and suicidal ideation. It’s not a direct metaphor, obviously, but it’s still very much there, and while I don’t know if reading the story would trigger anyone, I feel like I should mention it just in case.

A million stars speckled the night sky. Kay sunk to the ground, their knees hitting the freezing stone of the palace courtyard. It was Nativity, and surely Grandmother must be praying in the small stone church at home, the oil lamps lit in front of the icons. Kay would never pray there anymore. Kay had left their home long ago to follow some elusive woman from the forest with hair white as snow and a crown made of bone, and they would never see the old church again.

Kay did not weep. They did not even feel anything particularly heartwrenching. They never had, since the Snow Queen had taken them away.

Kay’s umber brown hand clenched in their lap. They could barely remember the past. Those memories had faded, along with everything else, as soon as they kissed the cold lips of the Queen that one night long ago. But they had not forgotten everything. Kay did not know who, exactly, the clear brown eyes and sharp-lined face in their memory belonged to, but they remembered the sense of place and steadiness the person brought. They had not forgotten their grandmother’s soft voice singing the prayers, nor the smell of the candles in church. The ice could not quite take everything from them.

The words tumbled out of Kay’s mouth without them being quite aware what they were singing. “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable…The Unapproachable One…” Kay’s voice faltered, and the rest of the tune slipped from their memory. They stared at the snow as the sheer overwhelming futility of it all overcame them.

“Kay,” a clear voice said. Kay nearly jumped out of their skin.

They stood and turned to see a woman in a tattered white robe and a crown made of bone and antler. A soft smile hung on her lips, but it did not reach her eyes. There was not a trace of humanity in her eyes, and though Kay had searched for it over the many years they had been here, they had never found anything in her eyes except the cold echoey expanses of a snow-capped mountain.

Her eyes were such a soft shade of green, though.

“You are frightened of me,” she said. “You did not used to be.”

Kay let out a breath, the mist trailing upwards to the sky. “Only a fool would not be frightened of you, my lady,” they said. “I was a fool when I first met you, and I am still a fool now.” Kay’s hand slipped into hers.

The queen took their hand with a satisfied smile and pulled Kay closer. “If you are a fool,” the Snow Queen asked, “then will you kiss me?”

Kay nearly jerked their hand out of her grip.

The queen’s eyes were horribly earnest. “I cannot and will not make you,” she said. She paused, waiting for an answer. “Well? Will you kiss me, or will you not?”

Kay might have agreed, when they first met her that night on their eighteenth birthday. “Your Majesty,” they said. “You said that kissing me would kill me.” They swallowed. “I happen to value my life right now.” That was a lie. They did not value anything much, anymore.

But something bitter and stubborn inside them would not agree to it. Kay had lost so much with the first kiss they had given her. They’d lost half of themself. Why should they lose the rest?

The queen breathed out. “It would not be truly dying,” she whispered. “You would simply become like me. Am I alive?”

Kay looked down. A dust of snow began to coat the courtyard. “You say you used to be human,” they said. They could never bring themself to believe it.

“I was once as you are,” she agreed. “Though no one ever had to convince me to make any rash decisions. I have always been very good at doing that by myself.” She laughed a little. “The people of my village were never kind to me, to say the least. So I went on a journey to meet the fabled queen in the north, and I kissed her on the agreement that I would never hurt again.” A twisted smile made its way across her face, and something almost like sorrow shone in her eyes. It was not quite sorrow. “She told me the truth. I do not hurt anymore. I am not quite sure it was worth it.”

The queen had never told them before why she had chosen this. Kay very easily could have done the same as she did at several points in their life, and that knowledge felt a little strange.

“What will happen to you?” Kay asked. “If I should take your place?” That was what stopped them, always. Sometimes Kay forgot themself. Sometimes the thought of kissing her ice-cold lips and losing everything was the most tempting prospect imaginable. But what would truly happen?

“Me?” A laugh tumbled from her lips. “You would think about me. I will pass on, into the wind and snow. But when have I truly been here?”

The resolution came back into Kay’s voice. “Then I will not. I will never kiss you.”

The laugh shook her slight frame, and her eyes shone with something like admiration. “You are truly a fool,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I have not loved anyone in a thousand years, but I half love you.”

“But I feel the same,” Kay whispered, as if they could ever have had the same experiences. “I will not let you go away from me.” So they did not quite feel the same.

The queen pulled them into a hug. “You are truly a delight, Kay,” she said. “But you cannot save the both of us from ourselves. We were not the sort of people destined to live.”

Kay had often found themself thinking the same. But it was not true. Who knew how they were both destined to die? “I will make you live,” they said. “As much as I am able.”

She sighed and leaned her head into their shoulder. “Kay,” she said. They thought she would say more. She did not. She just said their name.

Kay had been walking the cliff’s edge for a very long time, and they got closer and closer to falling over the edge each day. But they had not fallen yet. They would not. They made a conscious choice to keep living each day, even when living felt futile. They would not kiss the queen, they would not give themself over to the snow, and they would not let her die.

Kay was not sure if they would hold out forever. But right now, they felt a burning determination course through their bones, something that they had not felt for a very long time. They could almost feel…hopeful. Kay would not kiss her. Neither of them were destined to die that way.

I feel like the story wasn’t very good, but I’ll still post it. I honestly might do something more with this story, or else I’ll just let it rot in the vaults of my memory for eternity. We’ll see. 😉

Tam Lin

Yes, I drew this, and I hope you admire those Celtic knots because THEY TOOK ME HOURS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THEM.

A bunch of different versions of this ballad can be found here. My favorite is this one.

I first came across this story when I was eleven, when I read a retelling called The Perilous Gard. It was a great book, although I probably appreciate it more now that I’m older. I realized it was based off of an actual ballad when I was about fourteen, so of course I had to look it up. And wow is it a strange story. Tam Lin is…Well. I’ll admit I mostly love this poem for Janet, who is very lovable. But anyway. The story.

Tam Lin is some loser fairy who is just living in Carterhaugh woods and creepily hitting on all the maidens who pass through there, because it’s not like fairies have anything better to do with their time. Whenever a woman passes through there, he demands they either leave him a gold ring, a green mantle, or their maidenhead.

…OKAY, YOU CREEP.

Janet, our heroine, just happens to own Carterhaugh, and decides to give this loser fairy a talk. Or perhaps she’s looking for an easy way to get a one-night stand. The story isn’t really clear, and knowing Janet, it really could be either one. But either way, she goes there and come to a well, where she sees his horse standing there, but Tam Lin is nowhere to be seen. She plucks a rose for…some reason, whereupon Tam Lin shows up and asks her why she has come to Carterhaugh without asking leave of him. She points out that she owns the place, which is reasonable enough.

There are kind of Beauty and the Beast parallels in that moment.

And then they start making out and end up sleeping together (there is also a version where he rapes her but WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT ONE). I am still not exactly sure how they got from having a property dispute to hardcore making out. That is worse than some YA.

The poem shifts scenes to Janet at home, wan and pale, who has just realized she is pregnant. One of her father’s knights accuses her of this, telling her she has shamed them, and Janet replies,

” Now hand your tongue, ye auld grey knight,
And an ill deid may ye die !
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I’ll father nane on thee.’ “

Can we all take a moment to admire Janet’s awesomeness.

Her father also asks her about it, much more politely, and she tells him that she didn’t sleep with any of his knights, but a fairy, and she calls Tam Lin her true love, which aww. I’m not sure how exactly she knew him long enough to make that statement, but whatever.

I do love this scene. Janet isn’t demonized for premarital sex, and the knight who tries to call her out is in fact criticized. Her father is understandably upset, considering the social repercussions of the time period, but he doesn’t blame Janet for it. Janet and her father obviously both love each other a lot. And good parental relationships can be hard to find in fairy tales, especially when they’re about topics like this.

Janet is considering aborting the baby, and she goes back to Carterhaugh to talk to Tam Lin about it. She picks another rose–Is that her way of summoning him or something?–and Tam Lin asks her not to kill the baby. He then regales her with his life story, telling her about how he was some random nobleman’s son, and he went out riding, and the fairy queen kidnapped him when he fell off his horse. So…I guess he’s human? But he literally says in the next stanza, ‘I am a fairy, lyth and limb.’ I am confused.

He tells her that he has been living there for seven years, and that he basically loves it. He wouldn’t mind staying there his whole life, except for the human sacrifice bit.

Yes, there’s a human sacrifice bit. Every seven years, the fairies have to pay a teind to hell on All Hallow’s Eve, and Tam Lin tells Janet he thinks he will be the sacrifice this year. Honestly, I kind of wonder if Tam Lin would want to leave if it had been some other poor bloke getting sacrificed. He doesn’t really seem to have as much a problem with the human sacrifice except insofar as it affects him. My impression of Tam Lin is that, whether he’s a fairy or not, he’s definitely operating on their same sense of ethics?

He tells her to be there at Miles Cross, and Janet asks how she will recognize him. He says that two companies will pass by, and he will be in the third one; and that she is to let the black horse and the brown horse pass by, and he will be on the milk-white steed. Because he is a christened knight, they will give him the honor of riding on the side nearest to town, which…Does this make sense in context of the time period, or…

Anyway, he tells her that she has to pull him down from the horse and warns her that the fairies will change him into various different dangerous animals and objects, but that she has to hold onto him if she wants to save him.

The scene shifts again, to Miles Cross. It is a gloomy and eerie night, basically a Gothic romance’s paradise. Janet is there, late at night, and she hears the horses’ bridles ringing. She waits until she sees Tam Lin, and she pulls him off his horse. He turns into a snake, a lump of red-hot coal (OW), and an eel, until finally he turns back into a man, and the fairies’ power over him is broken. The fairy queen threatens him, telling him that she would have turned his eyes into wood and his heart into stone if she’d known what he’d do. There is also a version where the fairy queen tells Janet, ‘ O wae worth ye ill woman & an ill dead may ye die, For ye had plenty of lovers at hame & I had nane but he.’ Interesting.

I am sorry the lighting on this photo is kind of bad. I swear some pictures are just cursed where you cannot take good photos of them. But I love the antlered fairy queen, though, so I couldn’t not post this.

And that’s the end of the poem, and presumably they both got married and lived happily ever after. I think their life after the story would be kind of interesting to explore. Does Janet regret jumping into a relationship that quickly? Is Tam Lin happy in the human world, or can he not get used to the change? As a side note, I would love that plot line for a retelling in general, where the changeling is ‘rescued’ and they want nothing more than to go back to Fairyland. Fairyland is often portrayed in YA as being a horrible, dark place, but HELLO HAVE YOU SEEN THE HUMAN WORLD LATELY. In folktales, I’ve never interpreted Fairyland as being inherently awful, just different. Probably inherently an unfriendly place for humans to live in, yes, but see my above point about the human world. And frankly, Fairyland sounds kind of fun? Just my opinion?

I love Janet. She’s an active heroine who stands up for herself and saves her own boyfriend. A lot of times people think fairy tale heroines are all weak, and I’m just…Well, we clearly haven’t been reading the same fairy tales. Janet is amazing. Tam Lin is…Well, Tam Lin is a little strange, but I can see how he could be written so I like him.

This is such a bizarre story. I love it.

Do you love Scottish Ballads as much as I do? Does Tam Lin strike you as weird or do you like him? Is Janet the most amazing heroine of ever? (hint: the answer is yes.)

Thomas the Rhymer

Thomas the Rhymer is one of my favorite Scottish ballads. It has a lot of things going for it: Thomas is a fairly nice man who is not squatting on other people’s property; no one has sacrificed seven princesses; and there are no crows who discuss pecking out a dead person’s eyes. (I fully admit I love those ballads. But sometimes it’s nice for a break?) Instead, we have an excellent fairy queen and a fully consensual relationship. And do you know how rare it is in a fairy tale for a relationship between a fey and a human to work out? It’s kind of rare.

Anyway, the story opens with Thomas the Rhymer lounging on ‘Huntlie bank’, wherever that is, presumably enjoying his day and not expecting to get accosted by random fairy queens. Of course he does, because this is a ballad. The fairy queen comes riding up to him on a white horse, with fifty-nine silver bells hanging from each lock of its mane. That is a blinged-out horse.

Thomas mistakes her for the Virgin Mary, because he knows she’s at least not earthly, and greets her as such. She explains that she is the queen of the fairies, not the Virgin Mary, and that she has come to visit him. Thomas is remarkably chill about this.

She asks him to kiss her, and I love this part of the poem so much I’m quoting it:

‘Harp and carp, Thomas,’ she said, ‘Harp and carp along wi me, And if ye dare to kiss my lips, Sure of your bodie I will be.’

Thomas, who at this point I’m pretty sure is crushing hard, does so, and she tells him that he must go with her to fairyland for seven years. Um…maybe going from ‘we just met’ to ‘let’s elope together’ is moving kind of fast? But it’s a fairy tale, what do I expect. She pulls him up onto her horse and gallops off with him, until they come to a desert. She stops there to rest and gets down from her horse, and points out three roads to Thomas. One of these roads is narrow and thorny, and is the path of righteousness, though not many choose it; one of the roads is broad and is the path of wickedness, though some call it the road to heaven; and one of them is a bonny road that winds across a woody hillside, and that is the road to fairyland, where they are going.

After she explains this to him, she tells him that he must not speak a word while in fairyland, or else he’ll never be able to get back to his own country. So, it’s like reverse-gender Ariel, except without the chronic pain! (And yes, Ariel had chronic pain after she was turned into a human, in the Hans Christian Anderson story. I’m a little annoyed at Disney for not including that.) Also, I don’t remember seeing this rule about not speaking in any other fairy tale? As far as I remember, it’s an anomaly to this one. But I could be wrong, of course.

And then they ride on, riding through blood-filled rivers, and no that is not a typo. And I’m quoting this, too:

“O they rade on, and farther on,

And they waded thro rivers aboon the knee,

And they saw neither sun nor moon,

But they heard the roaring of the sea.

It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae stern light,

And they waded thro red blude to the knee;

For a’ the blude that’s shed on earth

Rins thro the springs o that countrie.”

And finally they come to a garden, where an apple tree grows. She picks an apple and gives it to Thomas, explaining that it will give him a tongue that cannot lie, which sounds like a curse as well as a gift, honestly. Interestingly, in other versions she explicitly tells him not to pick the apple, because apparently the tree is the tree of knowledge? I have no idea which version is older. Anyway, Thomas demurs for a little bit, I think because it’s too great of a gift, but I’m not sure because Scottish English is hard. But she insists, and of course she has her way. And the poem ends with,

“He has gotten a coat of the even cloth, And a pair of shoes of velvet green, And till seven years were gane and past True Thomas on earth was never seen.“

Green is a color traditionally associated with fairies, and the ‘being kidnapped for seven years’ thing is also fairly common in these folktales, according to Lady Wilde. (I love Lady Wilde’s book. It’s a great resource on Irish folklore. Seriously, go check it out if you haven’t already.) According to Wikipedia, there is also a version where the fairy queen tells Thomas that she can’t keep him for longer than seven years or else she’ll be forced to sacrifice him in the teind to hell, but I can’t find that one. I feel kind of cheated.

Interestingly enough, Thomas was based on a real person, named Sir Thomas de Ercildoun (no telling if he ever eloped with the fairy queen, though). He was a Scottish laird and prophet from Earlston, living in the thirteenth century. There was a romance written about him in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, which this ballad comes from. There isn’t really any telling as to how old this poem is, as the earliest one they’ve found has been from the eighteenth century, but ballads and folktales are often much older than when they were first written down, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it dated back at least to the renaissance.

There are plenty of folktales about kidnapped brides, but it’s far rarer to find a folktale about a kidnapped bridegroom (the only one I can think of right off the bat is Tam Lin), and rarer still where it is actually totally consensual? I am loving this. I mean, I don’t mind Beauty and the Beast type stories, or stories where the fairy king decides to kidnap yet another pretty human girl and is certain that this time nothing will go wrong (spoiler: something always goes wrong). But an actually healthy relationship between a fairy and a human that is 100% consensual and doesn’t end tragically? Sign me up.

Sources: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch037.htm (This has four different versions of the poem, and my favorite is the last one)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Rhymer

https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ali/index.htm

Did you like this story? What’s your favorite folktale involving a romance (one-sided or no) between a fairy and a human? Heck, what’s your favorite folktale involving fairies?