lizblackdog (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lizblackdog) wrote2009-06-04 09:00 pm
lizblackdog) wrote2009-06-04 09:00 pm
Entry tags:
Writer's Block: Grimm Question
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As a child? I don't even remember having a favourite fairy tale, let alone what it was. I read every printed word that was within my reach, whether I understood it or not, and I was putting far too much effort into trying to read everything in the whole world all at once as fast as I could to stop and think which bit of it I liked best.
The one that's stuck with me longest and most vividly, though, the only one I've written my own version of and the one I knew instantly I would use for the answer to this question, is Tam Lin.
There are many surface reasons why; the girl gets to do the rescuing, no one gets deus-ex-machina'd to the happy ever after by good fairies or the disembodied head of their favourite horse or their dead mother or three drops of blood. It's Scottish and there are roses in it, too.
But mainly, it's this: the leap of blind faith, and the hard road to redemption. That you can fall by the wayside, and still be saved. That when you're neck-deep in thorns and serpents and red-hot iron, the only thing to do is keep on keeping on; stick by those that love you and you can pull each other through.
"Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look."
- Fire & Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
As a child? I don't even remember having a favourite fairy tale, let alone what it was. I read every printed word that was within my reach, whether I understood it or not, and I was putting far too much effort into trying to read everything in the whole world all at once as fast as I could to stop and think which bit of it I liked best.
The one that's stuck with me longest and most vividly, though, the only one I've written my own version of and the one I knew instantly I would use for the answer to this question, is Tam Lin.
There are many surface reasons why; the girl gets to do the rescuing, no one gets deus-ex-machina'd to the happy ever after by good fairies or the disembodied head of their favourite horse or their dead mother or three drops of blood. It's Scottish and there are roses in it, too.
But mainly, it's this: the leap of blind faith, and the hard road to redemption. That you can fall by the wayside, and still be saved. That when you're neck-deep in thorns and serpents and red-hot iron, the only thing to do is keep on keeping on; stick by those that love you and you can pull each other through.
"Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look."
- Fire & Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
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Two of my other favorites are Peter Pan and The Pied Piper.
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and YAY. I'm actually not surprised to hear you love it too.
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