Know the Novel: a linkup | In which neighbors are weird, the forests are creepy, and Janet is annoyed

No, I have no idea if I’m going to do Nanowrimo or however you say it, but I still plan on writing this story sometime this year if college doesn’t eat me alive and this linkup looked like fun, so! Anyway.

[Edit: I realized I forgot to give the link to Christine’s linkup! It’s here if you want to do it. Anyway, thanks to Christine for the questions! I KNEW I had forgotten most of the intro. Oops.]

1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?

I’ve been wanting to write a Southern Gothic fantasy like Raven Boys for a while. I’m not technically sure if this is a Southern Gothic at all but hey! Who cares! I’ve loved Tam Lin since I was a kid, and I have a…complex relationship with the South that I hope I get to explore while I write? The story has a high chance of devolving into a dumb paranormal romance though lmaooo

Also, the only thing I’ve ever read in my genre are two short stories and Raven Boys. This has absolutely no chance of going wrong! (I’m not even sure if it’s going to end up a Southern Gothic.)

2. Share a blurb (or just an overall summary if you’d prefer)!

AHHHHHH

Let’s see if I can do this (I refuse to apologize for cringiness)…

Janet Harrow’s sister is dead. She’s dead, and she isn’t coming back. But Janet keeps seeing her anyway. Well, Janet has always suspected she was going insane.

But when her sister turns out to perhaps not be so dead after all, the only people who seem to hold any answers are the vaguely unsettling and–worse–annoying group of drifters she met in her woods. They are not safe people, but if the strange boy with them who speaks in riddles and half-truths is the only person who will tell her the things she needs to know, then so be it.

*points above* I spent way longer on that than was necessary. All of this is subject to change, of course. This entire post is subject to change. My life is subject to change.

3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?

In Texas! I like the creepy forests, and as I said above, I do hope I’ll be able to write in my weird feelings about the South.

4. Tell us about your protagonist(s).

I wish I had cool faceclaims for these guys or something. Usually I do, I just couldn’t find anyone who looked like these characters?

Wait I went looking last minute for a model and this person actually looks a lot like her? Yayyy

Janet | ISTJ | Suspicious of change | Imminently practical until she isn’t xoxo | Smart | straightforward | Makes good grades | Tries to be normal but fails actually | Has OCD and probably depression, too | She’s black and pansexual let’s just hope I don’t make a mess of representation ahhhh | Kind of tall | An actual mess | Extremely introverted, but has decent social skills | Look when I say she has decent social skills I mean she has Lan Zhan’s social skills which is to say that her social skills are horrible but everyone thinks of her as the soul of respectability for some reason | I’m sorry for sneaking in another Untamed joke

I tried looking up a picture for Tam Lin, but all I could find were Cole Sprouse knockoffs and thirst traps. Thanks, Pinterest.

Tam Lin | A bisexual idiot | That’s it that’s his only personality trait | A drama queen | ENFP | Very empathetic but not actually compassionate | He might end up being genderfluid | Musically gifted and WILL use it for evil | Very cheerful most of the time, even when the situation makes cheerfulness a wildly inappropriate reaction | He’s white and he has dark hair and…wow, I can’t write descriptions?? He, uh *gestures to face* good cheekbones! He has good cheekbones! And…clear skin! A jawline sharp as a knife?

(As a side note, why does literally every YA hero get described this way…Normal teenagers won’t kill you, authors.)

All of the side characters are completely underdeveloped except for Janet’s brother, so I’m glad no one asked about them! *shoves them under table*

5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?

Everyone is undeveloped! Yay!!

I mean, there’s going to be an evil fairy queen I guess. Except she’s more like an evil self-designated queen because she’s the head of a tiny community. That’s it.

6. What excites you the most about this novel?

Uh…everything? I kind of mentioned it up there when I talked about how I got the idea for it. But also, I have it in my head as a cross between a horror and a rom-com, and I don’t know if the finished product is going to turn out that way, but I love it.

7. Is this going to be a series? standalone? something else?

Definitely a standalone. God help me if I write more than one of these.

8. Are you plotting? pantsing? plansting?

Pantsing! I have a few scenes I want to incorporate but I am making it ALL up as I go along. It’s kind of a more relaxed, character-driven story (read: it has no plot) so I think pantsing will work for this one. Hopefully!

9. Name a few unique elements about this story.

I haven’t read a story like it before? So there’s that? It does share a lot in common with my other stories, though. I insert weird horror elements, I write two faux-sexy protagonists, and I call it a day.

I guess I haven’t seen many people give their take on redneck fairies, which is a crying shame. More people should do this. Tbh, a lot of books I’ve read about fairies are kind of boring, and I want more original ideas? Anyway, I’m not saying that making fairies into gay rednecks will save the fairy genre, or that my story is in anyway good or tasteful, but I am saying that I think gay redneck fairies are interesting and I would like to see that more than…whatever authors were doing when I was a teen. *side-eyes*

(I read great books when I was a teen, but I also read some really weird ones, and I want to know what was up with all the sexual harassment in bad fairy books. Will I do this? Is it simply the plight of any author who writes about fairies? Were the authors required by law to put in at least one pervy and unnecessary scene? Is there a curse??)

10. Share some fun “extras” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

Oh gosh. I made a Pinterest board somewhere but I put it on private? It’s somewhere I guess?

Okay here we go. I love making Pinterest boards it’s so relaxing.

I was going to make a joke about how obvious it is I wrote this at three in the morning, but I write all of my posts at three in the morning and I think the joke is getting a bit old. But, uh…Wow, you can tell I wrote this at three in the morning.

Fairy Tale OTP Challenge Tag

Arielle made a blog tag! And it’s all about fairy tale OTPs, and there’s also a version for your writing! It’s beautiful!

Not all of the fairy tale couples I answer are ones I hardcore ship, although some of them certainly are. A few of the couples are ones I barely ship but I answered them anyway because they were the only ones I could think of for the category ^.^

(And yes, I know I’ve talked about this topic of ships before, but I hope you’ll be forbearing and allow me to talk about it again. :- D Some of them will probably be ones I’ve talked about many times before, and some of them are new ones.)

1. The first fairy tale OTP you shipped

Beauty and the Beast, of course! Say what you will about Stockholm Syndrome, but I love this story. It’s about loving someone for their personality, which can be kind of a rare message in fairy tales (people fall in love at first sight a LOT and I’m not complaining but it’s still nice to see the other kind of love every now and then).

The Beast is monstrous and inhuman. He truly is frightening at first. But Belle is very good at seeing past appearances. She spends time with him and gets to know him. He isn’t handsome, and he’s not even necessarily as intelligent as everyone else–at least not in the traditional way (I fully believe that there’s more than one way to be intelligent). But Belle falls in love with him anyway, because Belle can see that he is kind and good. Belle loves him for who he is. Belle is human enough to love a monster, and I love that element of the story.

2. The cliché fairy tale OTP that everyone ships but you still love

See above! Beauty and the Beast is probably one of the most popular fairy tales. 😉

3. Your favorite hate-to-love fairy tale OTP

Probably either Prunella or Ivan and the Princess Blue-Eyes. This will come as a shock to no one, of course. 😉 Prunella and Bensiabel are both very sweet characters, and Ivan and the Princess Blue-Eyes is just… a perfect fairy tale. You really have to read it for yourselves. The princess is very murderous. She’s one of my favorite characters of anything ever.

I also like Hades and Persephone so much–though it can probably be argued that it’s not exactly an enemies-to-lovers relationship, because did she actually fall in love with him? Ovid focuses more on Demeter’s thoughts and feelings rather than Persephone, from what I can remember. But I prefer to think that Persephone did love Hades, eventually. (I also prefer to think that Persephone knew exactly what she was doing when she ate that pomegranate, even though I’m not sure if that’s backed up by mythology at all.) Either way, though, Persephone is a deadly, powerful woman, and I love her a lot.

4. The fairy tale OTP with the craziest relationship

Can I answer Ivan and the Princess Blue-Eyes again? There are so many crazy relationships though! How am I supposed to choose!

Oh! And I almost forgot Tam Lin! Janet and Tam Lin are insane but they love each other, so it’s okay. (We only ship them from the version where everything is consensual though, of course. The Tam Lin from the other version can go die.)

Oh, and of course Scheherazade and her husband. That was…something else. Stop murdering people, hero!

Literally no one in Arthuriana has a normal relationship, so I would like to enter all Arthurian ships ever for this category. But more seriously, from everything I remember about Tristram and Iseult, they are…insane. TRISTRAM HAS NO CHILL, PEOPLE. I don’t hardcore ship Tristram and Iseult (I’ll gladly ship Iseult with…literally anyone else, actually. Brangienne. Guinevere. Palomides. Anyone), but they’re crazy enough where I feel obligated to put them here anyway.

5. The best-dressed fairy tale OTP

Probably from…Allerleirauh. I can not spell that. The heroine has a dress as golden as the sun, a dress as silver as the moon, and a dress as shining as the stars. I’d say you can’t get much more best-dressed than that!

I will give East of the Sun, West of the Moon an honorable mention though, just because I had a picture book of that fairy tale when I was young and the heroine’s clothes in that were SO BEAUTIFUL. I think the drawings were Persian-influenced, from what I remember.

(I’m not willing to die for Allerleirauh. I am willing to die for East of the Sun, West of the Moon.)

6. Star-crossed love: the forbidden love fairy tale OTP

I’ll go with the obvious one and answer Rapunzel! It’s not necessarily my favorite fairy tale, but I think it has the potential to be very cute, and I think it deserves more retellings 🙂 The themes in this fairy tale are very interesting as well, and I do like this fairy tale, even if it isn’t my favorite.

The hero and heroine certainly go through a lot for each other, and they definitely deserve their happy ending.

7. The funniest fairy tale OTP

I’m going to have to go with the couple from My Candlestick here. The heroine is hilarious, and I happen to love the pairing of ‘chaotic and slightly bad girl and a guy who barely talks (but both are equally losers).’* Just a weird thing I noticed about my ships.

*NOT AT ALL to be confused with a manic pixie dream girl/stuffed shirt. Those relationships are boring, imo. Or at the very least, most of them are.

Actually…I just realized that Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan (not from a fairy tale, from a TV show called The Untamed) have that exact same relationship, so apparently it doesn’t even have to be a girl and a guy.

8. The fairy tale OTP with the most growth in their relationship

See Scheherazade. The husband going from ‘serial killer’ to ‘not a serial killer’ was some pretty good character growth.

But more seriously, Ywain and Laudine! From what I remember, Ywain’s whole character arc is about learning to prioritize his wife over tournaments and being a knight and hanging out with his bros, and I think that’s a nice lesson. (I’ll admit I can’t really remember if the lesson is as emphasized in the actual story, or if it was more in a retelling I read when I was little. I’ll also admit that I just found out that I have switched between spelling the name ‘Yvain’ and ‘Ywain’ on this blog and I’m mildly embarrassed. But I’ll probably switch again.)

9. The sweetest, most adorable fairy tale OTP

Kate Crackernuts and her hero? ADORABLE. I loves them. They’re just…so sweet.

The couple from a Chinese fairy tale called The Red Pearls is so CUTE and I love them very much. Liu Hai is such a good husband.

This isn’t a fairy tale (the story is apparently from a very long Indian epic called the Mahabharata that I have not read yet even though I probably should eventually), but I read about Savitri and Satyavan, and Savitri saves her husband and outwits the god of Death and it’s just…They’re so cute! There’s a holiday centered around this story in some parts of India, apparently. This couple just seems…so pure. So unproblematic. Unlike other characters I’ve given love and attention to on this cursed site. So, yeah, it’s not a fairy tale–I think it’s a story from Hindu religion, from what I can tell–but it’s still a very cool story.

Also, can we talk about how cool Savitri’s name is

Also, may we have a very respectful, very artistic, very wonderful Disney movie that doesn’t ruin any part of this

OH, and we can’t forget Lancelot/Galehaut. Lancelot and Galehaut are just…💙💙💙 Galehaut is the lord of the Distant Isles, and he’s the son of a giantess and a knight named Brunor–and apparently, according to Wikipedia, Tristram killed his parents?! Tristram, you small disaster child. Anyway, Galehaut waged a war against Arthur until he realized that Arthur had a knight named Lancelot who just so happened to be extremely cute. Lancelot and Galehaut become best friends and possibly more than friends. 😉 From my understanding, there is much mutual pining between the two. OTP material. (Also, they–*sobs*–ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA THEY GET BURIED NEXT TO EACH OTHER)

This story is in the Vulgate Cycle, I think. Galehaut barely shows up in Le Morte D’Arthur, which is probably why we don’t have tons of angsty retellings. But we need some!

Again, we need our Disney movie but we aren’t going to get one for obvious reasons (Disney is a COWARD afraid of true love and also parts of Arthuriana are probably too weird for Disney to attempt anyway, so I doubt we’re likely to get an in-depth retelling outside of cute Sword and the Stone antics)

10. The OTP who snuck up on you, the one you didn’t expect to love

Robin Hood and Maid Marian. While I like Robin Hood, I’ve never gotten too deeply into the legends. But I read a story about Marian here and I love the idea of Marian fighting Robin Hood and falling in love with him. I think it’s based on an actual legend, from what I know? Which is very cool. I henceforth command that every Robin Hood retelling feature Robin Hood and Marian getting into a duel.

Anyway, I like couples who get into sword fights, so I’ll admit I lowkey ship it now. It’s not a ship I’ll die for, but I still like it!

11. The moodiest fairy tale OTP

The fairy tale definitely isn’t perfect, but I love Michael and Lina from a version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses collected by Andrew Lang. I honestly like this version more than the Grimm version, and I’d be very interested in reading a retelling of this one!

Anyway, it is very moody and dramatic. The princesses keep cursing young men to dance in their enchanted castle forevermore. Lina almost puts a curse on Michael. These two have no chill, and I like it.

12. The class-crossed fairy tale OTP

The Laird’s Lass and the Gobha’s Son, a Scottish fairy tale about a girl who falls in love with a blacksmith and then turns herself into a dog in order to force her stubborn father’s hand. This story is so WHOLESOME, and I love it.

13. The obscure fairy tale OTP who isn’t shipped by many people (or anyone)

I’ll probably have to go with one of my Arthurian ships for this one. Although it might be argued that most of the OTPs I’ve mentioned here are at least somewhat obscure?

I don’t think Lancelot/Gawain is very widely shipped, from what I know, but if you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you’ll know I kind of ship it. They’re both characters I like a lot.

14. Your very favorite fairy tale OTP you’ll love for the rest of your days

Heh. Probably Mordred/Guinevere. (I could have put this one for the obscure category, because the fics on AO3 are shamefully few, but I decided not to.) I genuinely love them a lot. I like the idea of Guinevere actively assisting in the fall of Camelot rather than just ending up with a lot of survivor’s guilt and blamed by scholars everywhere (not that I mind Guinevere in those versions, not at all, but PEOPLE NEED TO STOP BLAMING HER FOR THIS and also it’s kind of depressing). I think I’m also attracted to the idea of Mordred attempting the whole courtly love roleplay thing and failing miserably because mate you weren’t supposed to take over the kingdom that’s taking things a little too far. I also just love the inherent drama this ship entails–I love sexy dramatic ships where one or both halves of the couple are perpetually covered in artistic, aesthetic blood.

Also, this ship is actually canon in some versions of the legends, in case you didn’t know. The relationship was by all accounts consensual, she ends up surviving and going to a convent because to hell with these weirdos, she’s getting out, and then Mordred and Arthur, of course, end up killing each other in the pointless battle of the century. But then there’s also the other version where Guinevere goes, “no thank you, I am not, in fact, interested in bigamy. Now if you excuse me, I am off to the Tower of London. Goodbye.”

Anyways, this is a disaster ship on so many levels, but it’s my problematic fave, as they say.

*Chants* D i s n e y m o v i e no I’m kidding it’s probably darker than Disney is willing to go, unfortunately

There weren’t any instructions for tagging, so I won’t do it, but certainly feel free to grab the tag if you wish! Talk to me about fairy tale and Arthuriana related ships in the comments!

So, About Celtic Fairies (part 1)

So! IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THERE IS MISINFORMATION ON THE INTERNET. Like, seriously. Some of those little infographics about fairies that I’ve seen on Pinterest get over half their information wrong. It’s just…if you’re going to make a worldbuilding post, make a worldbuilding post! Don’t say that this is what whatever century Irish peasants believed! For heaven’s sake. So I am here, set to clear up misinformation about fairies and possibly accidentally spread it anyway! But let’s hope for the best.

Disclaimer: This post deals with Celtic fairies, and, more specifically, Irish fairies; much of this information applies to British folklore too, I think, but Irish fairies are what I studied obsessively during my teen years. Also, it’s certainly possible that I may be a massive hypocrite and get over half my information wrong, but if I do, please correct me. I try to fact-check as carefully as I can, but I’m only human (or am I ooh)

So! Let’s have a little Q & A! We’ll call this imaginary questioner ‘Person 1’, P1 for short. ‘M’ is for ‘Mothling’.

P1: Oh! Fairies! Those cute little winged things in gardens, right? Tinkerbell!!!

M: …No. That’s a Victorian trope. I’m honestly not sure if there are any fairies of the sort I speak of that have wings, and not all fairies are little. Some are. Definitely not all. Some have very…changeable size; in their true form they’re probably smallish, but try getting them to tell you that. Let’s not generalize here!

And we do not talk about Tinkerbell. She has her merits, but she’s not the topic of this conversation.

You know, I’ve somehow lived my life without reading Peter Pan? I’ve read Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio. Pinocchio was a bizarre book, frankly speaking, although I still liked it. But I’m not letting this turn into a review of Pinocchio.

P1: Alright, so by fairies you mean those wicked and dark creatures in YA, treating mortals as their playthings and without a care in the world for any creature but themselves. They’re so scary and immoral, aren’t they?

M: …

…

Sort of? I guess? Not really? I’m talking about folklore fairies. They’re…kind of like that? (Not in the same way, though.)

OKAY, FINE, I’VE HAD ENOUGH. THE WORD IS AMORAL. NOT IMMORAL. I’ve just always interpreted the fey morality structure as being outside of a human construct, and I mean, I guess you can just make them like especially wicked humans if you want to, with the same motivations and the same impulses?? But I mean, why would you want to. (This has been a callout post to The Cruel Prince. Sorry not sorry. It’s just not how I like my fairies.)

Also, fairies do good things as well. They do. Sometimes they help humans. Sometimes they don’t. They aren’t all bad all the time, and it’s a little ridiculous to write them that way.

So no, we’re not really talking about those, either. As a side note, I’d prefer it if YA would stop talking about how their darker takes on fairies are closer to how original fairies were portrayed. No you’re not closer. You are certainly not.

P1: [grabs my arms (wings?)] TELL ME ABOUT CHANGELINGS.

M: Okay! Ease up there! That’s when a fairy steals a human child from the cradle and leaves a fairy child in its place, which is called a changeling. The fairy child is usually ill-tempered, cries a lot, and remains scrawny despite guzzling much more milk than a normal child. The fairy child is not always an actual child! There is one fairy tale where the changeling admitted to being thousands of years old. Why you’d be thousands of years old and masquerade as a baby, which is one of the most boring creatures in existence, God only knows. Some of them really are fairy children, though! Like a lot of things in folklore, it seems to vary.

Oh. And also, the fairy child usually met a horrific death at the hands of their human parents. And the ‘fairy child’ was probably a sick baby, a disabled child, or simply an abuse victim with unloving parents (look, you can’t tell me awful parents didn’t take advantage of that superstition). Man, I’ve just made myself depressed. I remember searching and searching for a story about a changeling with a happy ending for the fairy, and I found maybe a couple? A couple in a whole sea of stories about murdered babies. People really believed this stuff. They really murdered their children because of a superstition.

As for why the fairies were supposed to do this? I honestly don’t know if there was much of an explanation. I remember reading something about ‘human babies are prettier and they like that better’, but first of all, let’s be real. That makes literally no sense. Can we all just agree that newborn babies are ugly? And also, I’m sure humans feel that their children are worth exchanging the literal world for, but…that seems like quite a bit of inconvenience to go through for one baby. Yeah! I just don’t get it! If you do know of an in-folklore explanation, please do tell me, because I have been wondering about this for quite a while. It seems to be one of those things that just happens, with no reasonable explanation.

P1: So, is anyone else at risk of getting kidnapped?

M: Oh, yeah. Women get kidnapped as brides or nursemaids all the time. I’m also pretty sure that Lady Wilde spoke of human men getting kidnapped and forced into marriage, too, but I can’t find the link right now. Darn it.

Also, from what I can tell, children usually get replaced with an actual fairy; adults usually get replaced with a stick or other small object that has been enchanted to look like them, or else they’ll just disappear suddenly. That’s what I remember, anyway. Allow me to go off and read through all those changeling stories before I commit to this, though. I know I have never read a story where a fairy lives in the place of an adult human, but that certainly doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Honestly, that sounds like it’d make a cool YA book.

Oh, and the illusion ‘dies’ shortly after it’s left there. Changelings get killed or forcibly removed, or else they’ll just stay with the family.

I certainly have read tales of male and female artisans getting captured. There was one cute one about how the fairies kidnapped a woman who was an especially good baker (unsure how old it is though, sorry), and I’ve read another about the fairies kidnapping a blacksmith. Also, apparently, some of the kidnapped people end up as enchanted slaves. How decent of fairies. I am disgusted. (This has also been a fairy callout post and I’m not sure if I’m going to make it to the end of this oh no)

Anyway, kidnapping seems to be kind of their thing.

Basically, if this blog ever goes defunct for no apparent reason, you know what got me!

College. College got me.

Oh! And there are also stories about how the fairies teach the kidnapped girls magic before they send them home. Which is nice, I guess! Not sure if it really makes up for the kidnapping, though. But thanks for trying!

There are also stories about human men kidnapping fairy brides and forcing them into marriage, as you do. (For instance, selkie brides.) Those stories tend to end horribly. As they should! Don’t be a terrible person.

Oh, and by the way, my source for a lot of this section is this. If you’re interested.

P1: There aren’t any stories about human sacrifice, are there?

M: Yes! There are indeed one or two. The most famous one is Tam Lin, of course, where the fairy queen has to pay a teind to hell once every seven years. Lady Wilde also briefly mentions a tradition about human sacrifice. I’m not sure who else talks about it, but do tell me if you know of anything.

P1: …

TELL ME HOW I MAY BE SAFE FROM THEM.

M: Salt! Lots of salt. Salt is good for more than just flavoring. In fact, it’s excellent.

People talk about iron as protection, but one person in a forum somewhere asked where, exactly, people were getting that, and that made me realize that…they’re right? I don’t remember a lot of 19th century collectors of folktales talking about that? Definitely one 17th century guy did. Something something iron is bad because…something something hellfire?! I don’t get it either. I’m sure it makes sense if you’re from the 17th century. (And if you can actually understand the words; I never claimed to be educated) Anyway, if you know of anyone else who speaks about cold iron in relation to fairies, again, do tell me!

Church bells are also excellent, and bread is one we nowadays wouldn’t think of, but Wikipedia says it works! I feel like I might have also read about fire being a source of protection? Idk, man. I’ll try and find it for you. I’m sure there’s other stuff you can do. But, as always, the best protection you can have is being the main character of a fairy tale. Particularly if you’re a bright, clever maiden with a good sense of humor. Those seem to do the best in these types of tales. More seriously, civility and cleverness are the best protection you can have in any situation, and that holds true with fairies, too.

Oh, hey, look at that! I was right about the fire. From Lady Wilde:

Fire is a great preventative against fairy magic, for fire is the most sacred of all created things, and man alone has power over it. No animal has ever yet attained the knowledge of how to draw out the spirit of fire from the stone or the wood, where it has found a dwelling-place. If a ring of fire is made round cattle or a child’s cradle, or if fire is placed under the churn, the fairies have no power to harm. And the spirit of the fire is certain to destroy all fairy magic, if it exist.

I love it when I’m right. Also, quite a few of the changeling stories involve burning the changeling, so maybe I don’t love it when I’m right.

P1: Okay, so where do fairies live?

M: Most of them live in caves and in raths! OH ALSO. I almost forgot to tell you. Do not do not do not mess with fairy ground. Do not build something on it. Do not cut shrubbery on it. Do not even do something seemingly small like plucking a few blades of grass. YOU WILL DIE AND YOUR FARMS WILL BE CURSED. Just don’t do it. I don’t care what you want to do, it’s not worth it. Build somewhere else.

Also, why are you thinking about building on ancient sites anyway? My history-loving heart is angry. Leave the raths alone.

Although, where fairies live depends on the type of fairy, of course! It’s variable. Some live underwater. Some even live in your house!

They’re there. You just can’t see them. >:-)

P1: Dancing?

M: WHY YES INDEED.

Dancing and music is very important. In fact, fairy rings are left there when the fairies dance! And sometimes humans try and join in the dance, which can end badly for the human. Sometimes you’ll be alright. Sometimes you dance to your death. 😉

Not fairy music, but certainly Irish! Also why won’t WordPress center my captions
This has been bothering me

P1: Can they go to heaven?

M: That would depend on who you ask! Usually, the story goes that a group of fairies come up to a traveling priest and ask him if it is possible for them to achieve salvation. The priest always answers no. In some stories, that’s the end of it, and the fairies let out a great cry and sometimes burn down their home.

But there’s also another version, although I’m not sure where I found it. A priest says that the chances of a fairy getting into heaven is as likely as his staff going into bloom. As soon as he leaves, his staff immediately sprouts flowers, and he has to go back and apologize. I don’t remember where I read that, though, so take it with a grain of salt I guess >_<

Okay! I finally found it. It was Swedish, but I’ll leave it here because it’s a cool story.

But my favorite answer from a priest is this: “I will give you a favorable answer, if you can make me a hopeful one. Do you adore and love the Son of God?”

They have no answer.

You can find the stories mentioned here, by the way.

Uh…There’s definitely more to say, but I have realized that this is getting really, really long. I might split this up into two parts? Also, most of my information is from Lady Wilde’s Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, and if it’s not from there than it’s probably either from Wikipedia or else I found it once upon a researching session. If you have any more questions, ask them in the comments!

Also, I’m sorry if there are any weird typos. It’s a long article and WordPress kept having bugs. I hope I caught everything. >_<

So, in conclusion, fairies are our amazing problematic faves, and I hope you learned something new! I love fairies. A lot. (So please don’t kill me for any of the rude things I said about you, any fairies who might be reading this blog. I don’t mean it, much.)

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.)