#tam lin month

[ladysparrow01]

Myself as Lady Janet from The Ballad of Tam Lin (some 10 years ago) for the Tam Lin Month prompt "Janet".

[lady-janet]

Happy Tam Lin Month!

This year to celebrate, I've put together a Creative Prompt List inspired by the Ballad of Tam Lin:

Carterhaugh

Roses

Love

Lady Janet

Tam Lin

Faeries

Transformation

To participate, simple use these prompts to make a creative work of some kind. Art, music, film, writing, poetry, costuming, etc. It can be anything you like! Just tag your creations tam lin month so they can be shared as part of the celebration. You can also submit your creations to this blog or send them in via an ask. I shall do my best to keep up with the tags so that I can regularly reblog your creations, as well. There's no set timeline for those interested in participating. And there's no need to do something for each prompt. Just work at your own pace and remember to tag it.

I'm looking forward to seeing all your wonderful Tam Lin inspired creative works!

[cryptic-corvids]

She holds him tight His body writhes like she is hurting him It shudders It prickles all over with fur Suddenly an armful of coarse hair and snarling teeth and scrabbling claws She fears him not He is making piteous whines like a creature in a trap Lungs heaving against her Muscles bunch and so She owes him so little Yet she hangs on Her fingers search for purchase as he Shifts He becomes huge, all encompassing Her encircling arms thrown wide She can scarcely cling Tossed in the waves The behemoth he has become She fears him not He is shrunken She is quick with her grasp Despite how her body flinches She fears him not He burns The pyre The sacrifice He scorches her arms She cannot breath in his smoke She bears it One second Two She fears him not His skin is warm They sweat They pant Human Together

[karinhart]

hold me fast and fear me not

[herbofgraceandpeace]

Finally starting my October reread of Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, and all I can say is thank goodness I didn’t read this book before going to college, not just cause I wouldn’t have understood it, but also because boy would I have had my expectations of college disappointed

[tam--lin]

Help men online are trying to explain to me how to do a chin up

[e-b-reads]

Books of the Month(s): Nov + Dec 2023

Books from the end of last year! Only one of these is from November, which is part of why I just waited to do one post for both months. Here are my books of the month(s):

Tam Lin (Pamela Dean): I liked this one a lot. It reminded me some of Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock, which, duh, they're both based on the ballad Tam Lin - but also because with both books, I only realized afterwards how well some of the images and themes from the works inspiring the books were incorporated. Also I kind of wish I read this book while I was in college, because despite being set in the 1970s and in the Midwest, it somehow still is a spot-on depiction of my experience of what it is to go to a little liberal arts school with kooky traditions that everyone knows by osmosis.

The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper): A classic and a reread. I have reread this one more often than the others in the series (it's technically #2, but it was the first one I ever read and I think it can stand alone). I guess the eternal struggle of Light vs. Dark isn't a particularly novel plot, but the specifics of this story, and especially the images and feelings of it, I think are strong. As I wrote elsewhere, I liked it when I was a kid in a simpler "fun adventure!" kind of way, but I still like it now.

A Killer in King's Cove (Iona Whishaw): This is first in a mystery series (I read 6 of them in December). Set in Canada post-WWII, main character is an ex-British spy woman who moved there to escape her post-war life. They aren't as ~fun~ as some cozy and/or historical mysteries, because they're a little darker and more thoughtful, but I have decided that I like that. I also decided that the reader is supposed to figure out the murderer before the characters do (via short chapters from varying POVs), so once I got used to that I didn't mind. And finally, the main character makes a habit of very competently saving herself from perilous situations shortly before her love interest detective shows up with the cavalry, so I like that part too.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Every otaku producer on any at least decently-sized project is chained to very BIG MONEY merch contracts. Merch sales are one of the biggest cogs making the anime industry run and because of that, merch manufacturers expect producers not to allow anything that would make their products fail to reflect the contents of the show.

A recent example that sparked controversy about this is the new Tokyo Mew Mew reboot anime. Mew Mew is a series where pretty much everyone important has food names, but the early scanlators failed to notice how far this motif extended and rendered Quiche's name as Kisshu. This is spread in the fandom enough to make merch makers assume that was the proper way to spell his name in English and produce pins with the name Kisshu written in Roman letters. Thanks to that, over a decade later, the Mew Mew translator on Crunchyroll subs is forced to use Kisshu on her script despite knowing it's wrong.

But this is a Type-Moon post, so let's talk about Type-Moon instead. On October 29th, 2010, Nasu released Fate/complete material III, containing profiles for all Servants featured in Fate/stay Night. In his lack of English knowledge, he most likely relied on Google to learn how to romanize all those names. This generated two curious results: Arthuria was rendered as Altria, as the first search result for アルトリア would be the cigarette corporation, and Rider favored the French spelling Medousa over the English Medusa.

Flash forward to May 25th, 2016. At this year, Fate/Grand Order had already been released and proved itself a commercial success against all odds. In celebration of that, FuRyu Corporation sculpted the source of all evil.

FuRyu's figure utilized the erroneous "Altria" from Complete Material III. Here is where I want you to notice that FuRyu did not release a Medusa figure alongside it. "Altria Pendragon" is the only character in this collection.

Our next chronological stop is August 14, 2016. Merely 3 months after the FuRyu Altria figure began to spread its corruption through all we know and love. That's the day Fate/Grand Order Material I came out, containing profiles for Saber Arthuria and Medusa.

As you can see in the right corner, Medousa is no more. Due to having 6 more years to learn things and no merch contract forever chaining him to his spelling mistake, Nasu had the opportunity to correct Medusa's name, which also settled it as the name FGO NA legally had to go with.

So when I say FGO NA translators went with Tam Lin because it's literally illegal not to do so, I am talking about

[aoi1dee]

OLNF Week Day 6: Different Seasons

@olnfweek2024 a short fic is below...

It’s April 8th, 2018 and Alex is graduating in a month. Alexander Morello, Qiu Lin, and Tamarack Baumann are graduating high school in a month. It’s unbelievable. It feels like yesterday when Alex had just moved into Golden Grove to begin his first day of 5th grade with his two new friends. But now here they are chilling in Tamarack's backyard watching petals fall down from the trees leaving green leaves for summer. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too cold, it’s Spring. The flowers will start blooming all over town bringing life and color to the once cold and dead winter. Spring is Alex’s second favorite season, his first being Autumn. Both of those seasons were so pretty, even if they were pretty in the opposite ways. 

“Alex?” Tamarack stands in front of him, “Are you spacing out again?” She smiles gently. When they first met, Tam was the most outgoing and all over the place girl he’d ever met. She was super overwhelming to him at first but she became such a comfort person to him when she stood up for him during roll call on their first day. He had always leaned on her when he needed comfort. She’s not as crazy as she was before though. When she got older, she started hiding herself more from people. Tam had become more insecure of herself because some kids at school believed that Tamarack needed to be. But Tamarack was the most beautiful girl he’d ever met… he couldn’t believe that she thought of herself like that. What’s funny is that Tamarack thought the same about Alex. But now, Tamarack has started to appreciate herself. Even though she isn’t sure what she wants to do, she still goes on with life. Alexander adores Tamarack so much, he loves her.

“Yeah, it's just very pretty out.” He smiles back at her.

“You’d always had a thing for pretty stuff huh?” Qiu teases. Yeah, they know that Alex thinks that Qiu is the prettiest person he has ever met. That’s what he believed when he first met them looking down at him in their hideout. He even accidentally blurted out that he thought they were pretty then. Qiu was always the sunshine in Alex’s life, even when they weren’t shining so bright themself. Qiu said they were friends not even a whole day after meeting for the first time and even they stood up for him during roll call as well. They were so important to him. Alex is just so grateful that he moved in next to Qiu, he couldn’t imagine a life without them. Even when they cut themself off from everyone during middle school, that didn’t matter. Alex loves them, he always had. 

“Yeah” Alex nudges Qiu in the arm. They laugh back at him. The three of them had grown together in this small cul-de-sac. And even if Qiu and Tam don’t get along much, they’ve always been there for each other. He should honestly thank his Ma for moving to Golden Grove because his life just got so much better after moving here. He wouldn’t want anything else. 

But now Alex is going off to film school three hours away in August. Sure he’s so happy to be following his dreams of going into the film industry but shit… he’s going to miss everything. But he shouldn’t worry about such things right now. Maybe in a couple of months but… not right now. 

The only thing he should be focused on is watching petals fall down from the trees leaving green leaves for summer in Tamarack backyard with the loves of his life. Even if he is going to be three hours away for college, the only thing on his mind is what’s going to happen after college. Maybe the three of them can get an apartment together? Live the domestic life. Maybe the three of them will be dating by then (well Tam and Qiu won't be dating each other that's for sure). Maybe they can get married. Hopefully being able to marry more than 1 person will be legal soon. He really hopes. 

The wind blows through all three of them, Qiu and Tamarack look at Alex. He looks at them. They look at each other.

(super short this time but everything that was needed to be said was said in this :D)

[chernabogs]

ERLKÖNIG

Inc: Malleus (/Reader later on), Reader/Prefect, Lilia, Silver, Sebek, Ace, Deuce, Grim, and a lot of fae who should not be in this dimension yet somehow are. Wc: Roughly 9k (Currently sitting at chapter 2/23). Warnings: Violence, reference to war, kidnapping, rituals that fae allegedly did in mythology (wild), psychological horror, body horror (not until much later), and the boys are fighting... a lot. Relies heavily on ancient Celtic and Welsh lore (Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer, and Oisin I owe u my life) Summary: Your first encounter with the fae was not in Twisted Wonderland, but rather on the coast of a village your grandmother once lived in—where stones bit into your bare feet and the water poured into your lungs as you were pulled to a world so different from your own. It was by cunning alone that you managed to escape, having since pushed those memories aside. But the fae do not forget—not even when you cross dimensions once more—and as Beltane looms, the time for collecting is near.

Chapter 1 (Prologue) below the cut. Check out the work up to chapter 2 here!

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill's side.

-  La Belle Dame sans Merci, Keats

19??, Dunhill, Ireland. October.

There is an unsettling truth behind the superstitions we hold. After all, why else do we face horseshoes upright, or close our blinds when the sun begins to set? We did not learn to play mute when we hear our names get called at night for no reason, nor did we discover on a whim that blackbirds circling are harbingers of ill outcomes.  

Your grandmother was a woman of superstition. Because she lived in Dunhill, Ireland, you very rarely had the opportunity to see her growing up. This didn’t mean that you weren’t occasionally shipped out to arrive at her doorstep for a few weeks at a time over the summer months.

Your memories of her appearance are mostly flashes of the few moments you saw her. Knotted joints on her body, silver hair hidden behind a headscarf she always wore, and the way her shoulders would stoop with each shuffling step she took. What you remember more vividly was the way she acted when the two of you went out. Her trembling hands—Parkinson’s, you think your parent may have mentioned—would always press an iron nail into yours to put in your pocket before you departed.

“They like to wait on the coastlines,” she had murmured when you asked why she gave this to you. “And they’ll like you the most.”

She would not offer any further information, nor would she let you out until the nail was securely tucked away. Despite how slowly she would move on your many walks along Benvoy Beach, you never once failed to miss the way her sharp gaze would always be fixated on the unruly seas beyond.

She dies when you’re ten years old. Her funeral is a vivid affair. Your grandmother’s humble home has been transformed into a centre of traffic within a matter of hours since her passing, barely giving your family a moment to breathe despite catching the red-eye flight earlier that day. People you have never seen before shaking your small hand and offering their condolences. The strong fragrance of unknown flowers and cheap perfume fills each room, suffocating out any last semblance of your grandmother that may have still lingered. It feels more like they’re spitting on her memory than honouring it. You know your grandmother—she is, was, a quiet woman, and not one for all this pomp and circumstance.

Perhaps this is why no one notices when you sneak out and down the rocky hills.

You slip on several rocks and scrape up your hands really good by the time your feet hit the familiar sandy beach below. With the way the sun is beginning to set, the waters seem to be a wine-red color, swirling in their chaotic fervour to reach the earth you stand on. You pause to take several breaths before kicking your shoes off and stepping forward into that hungry sea.

Your parent will be furious at you for dirtying up your formal garb, but this isn’t at the forefront of your mind right now as your eyes slide shut and you stretch your arms wide. You feel the wind rush along your body and the fragrance of salt overtake you as you spill your grief into the vast waters, letting it mix and swirl into that abyss for a moment of catharsis.

It’s when the wind carries the scent of something pungent that your eyes snap open again. The foulness is brief, and for a moment you write it off as simply a byproduct of the ocean, until it returns again stronger than before. It smothers the brine and has your head turning to look around for the source. You look over your left shoulder at the empty beach around you. The sun continues to set, and your gaze tracks the path of a gull flying overhead before you look over your shoulder once more.

This time, someone is waiting.  

There is an unsettling truth behind the superstitions we hold. The reason why we are scared of things that try to look like us, why we try so hard to ward them off, is because we know that anything that wants to be like a human certainly has no good intent in their heart. This is the case for the figure you see standing on the beach.

They’re wearing the same dark funeral garb you had seen the others in your grandmother’s home wearing. A wide-brimmed hat sits upon their head to conceal most of their features, although you can see scarlet hairs peeking out, and their hands appear to be clasped behind their back as they stand stoically ahead. Despite the winds that bite at your cheeks, not a single scrap of fabric on the figure’s body moves. It’s as though they’re cut from a painting and placed in real life.

You both observe each other in silence. You can feel your body locking up as your mind chants to you wrong, wrong, wrong, over and over again like a mantra. Your right hand drifts down to your pant pocket—you did not take a nail with you before you left the home.

They like to wait on the coastlines, and they’ll like you the most.

Your breath catches in your throat.

The figure smiles—black, sharp, and not quite human. 

Something in your gut tells you to run and you, even as a rebellious child, do as you’re told. Your body twists around to scramble towards the rocks as your feet slip in the wet sand. You completely discard grabbing your shoes in your haste to get away, fully accepting the agony that the stones ripping into your soles will bring as consequence.

You don’t get very far. Whatever is on the beach with you is far quicker than you will ever be. Within moments of you turning, its cold fingers dig into your shoulders. You scream—cry—as the figure leans down and the pungent aroma of rotting fish emanates with each breath it exhales. You thrash and twist in its grip until you face each other, and you lock eyes with her.  

She looks exactly as she did the last time you saw each other. Same knotted limbs, same silvery hairs, same stoop of her shoulders.

She stares down at you. The wind whips the loose strands of her hair around her face, and her eyes are the cloudy blue of the dead as something begins to claw in your mind. You watch as her thin and cracking lips form the syllables to your name—but it’s lost to the roar of an ever-cacophonous sea. The ground surges up around you, wrapping thorns—thorns? —around your legs. They bite into your skin, draw ruby gems from beneath your frigid flesh, and when you lift your head again, your grandmother merely continues to wear her blackened smile at the sight.

You cry out once more, but just like your name, your pleas are stolen away by the winds.

Everything lasts all but a few moments before the sea finally reaches what it has been clawing for. 

[ladysparrow01]

'Away to Carterhaugh', an assemblage work (I made many years ago) based on The Ballad of Tam Lin for the Tam Lin Month prompt "transformation".

[lady-janet]

How are everyone's Creative Projects for Tam Lin Month coming along?

[lilydalexf]

🌲👽 X-Files Survival/Wilderness Fic Recs

Here are some very good X-Files survival or wilderness fics. Because @thatsaprettycoolposter and @pookie-mulder asked! This list does not include post-colonization fics, which are also all survival fics of a sort. Enjoy!

Alligator Moon by jordan big monster in swamp attacks FBI agents

Antidote by Rachel Howard and Karen Rasch Strange doings in a tiny western town bring Mulder and Scully out to investigate. Once there, they uncover a deadly experiment that may cost both of them their lives.

Backtracking by Kel and Scetti What do Charlie Scully, the Alien Bounty Hunter, and Jesse "the Body" Ventura all have in common? Last April you could have found all three of them in Minnesota.

By the Wind Grieved by Karen Rasch Months have passed and Mulder is back. But things are not as they once were. He doesn’t know who he is or what Scully and he are to each other. Together they must reclaim the past before their enemies take away their future.

A Cabin in the Woods by @leiascully Mulder and Scully, on the run, stay for a while in a cabin in the mountains in Montana. A series of interlacing vignettes.

a cabin in the woods by @monikafilefan Being stuck in this rustic cabin, clearly left to age among the wilderness had Scully feeling wild herself, and it felt as if their bodies danced to an ancient song among the elements.

Camping by Amperage and Livengoo Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have survived abductions, serial killers, mutants and aliens but the Partner Cooperation Program Wilderness Encounter may finally do them in. After poison ivy and catfish, who wouldn’t long for a nice, safe killer mutant?

A Change of Seasons by Jo-Ann Lassiter A search for a mythical beast in the woods of Pennsylvania takes an alarming turn for the worse when Mulder's minor in ury escalates into a life-threatening disease.

Changing Tides by QofMush Who says change is all bad?

Circumnavigation by Suzanne Schramm Sometimes you don't know where you're going until you get there.

Coming Back by Karen Rasch Mulder gets a call from Mrs. Scully, who fears for Dana's safety. Following her instructions, he tracks his partner to a cabin in the mountains where he finds that she does indeed need his help. Memories of her time away have come back with a vengeance. (Sequel: The Calm After The Storm)

Dark Water by Suzanne Schramm Prehistoric insects. Mothmen. Now it’s a publicity-shy tribe of murderers. Just another nice trip to the forest with Mulder.

Falling Snow by Snark Mulder, Scully and a mysterious woman from Mulder's past crash in the snowy landscape of the Colorado winter.

Frozen by @dashakay The end of a case, and a stay in a log cabin during a blizzard, lead Scully to take the biggest risk of her life.

Last Chance Falls by @slippinmickeys A man. A women. A forest. A hit squad. An adventure.

The Lost by Wintersong Mulder and Scully are trapped in the remote wilderness and the art of surviving was not what they expected.

Old Growth Forest by Andrea Mulder and Scully investigate the disappearances of homeless people in Madison, Wisconsin and seemingly end up suffering the same fate.

A Path of Salt by Analise Mulder ditches Scully yet again to help an old friend in the Park Service. But Scully has never been one to sit and wait.

Tam Lin by Pequod When your local young men disappear, only to turn up dead a year later, sometimes it helps to have friends in high places. Myth and murder combine in a remote Scottish village, and Mulder and Scully investigate. The Fairy Queen is out to revenge the loss of her most prized knight, Tam Lin. Mulder believes but Scully’s not so sure, until Mulder takes a walk in the woods.

Tempest by Missy Pennington Mulder and Scully survive a plane crash to find themselves injured and stranded in the Appalachian wilderness. (Sequels: Distance, Wild Places, and Escape Me Never)

Untitled by @o6666666 Prompt: Mulder takes Scully camping and they make love for the second time ever under the stars.

Waiting in Motion by mountainphile After leaving the hot spring (in "Miraculous Manifestation"), Scully and Mulder take an unexpected detour on the way home. Dark secrets emerge when they seek shelter in a raging storm...and an intriguing X-file rears its head... (Sequel: Signs of Life)

Way Through the Woods by Pellinor and Rebecca Rusnak Three months ago, someone noticed something unusual about Scully. Now, in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable, Mulder has disappeared, and Scully’s only chance of finding him include an unlikely ally and an untrustworthy informant. As they make their way through the woods, can Mulder and Scully find each other, or is the future lost?

[fatedtime]

Baobhan Sith, or Tam Lin Tristan! The requester in this one wanted a Tamtris Ascension Page to parallel the Tamwain I'd drawn earlier, and I turned them into a spread. Seeing how much my art had grown in a month was awesome! I hope to get these printed someday.

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[tamlinweek]

Happy New Year from Tamlin Week!!

We hope everybody had a wonderful holiday and New Year!! As we enter 2024, we'll be ramping up our activities and posts for Tamlin Week, which is now only 4 months away. Here's a little preview of what we have planned:

We will begin posting the creators who have been submitted in our Tamlin Creator Appreciation form! The form will remain open, so please click HERE to submit your own favorite Tamlin creators! The form is anonymous, so you are welcome (and encouraged) to submit as many people as you want, including yourselves!

Inspiration/ideas/questions for each of the prompts, to help you all come up with content to create! The prompts are listed HERE, along with the rules and FAQ for the event.

Posts with a little bit of history, such as the original Tam Lin story, and more information about flower languages.

A list of some of the submitted prompts that we loved but didn't chose, to help creators who want some guidance for the Free Day

Some fun activities, including one using the information from this poll here.

If you have questions or ideas, feel free to message us! We'll see you in April!

[random-ask-anon]

sO

Tam Lin is the story of a noblewoman named Janet. She goes to a forest her father gave to her, Carterhaugh (sounds like carterhaw), and plucks a rose, and then appears the faerie knight Tam Lin.

So the legend goes, he takes a price from every maid to pass through Carterhaugh.

(he and Janet umm do the do)

She winds up pregnant, and in my favorite so far version of the song, her father goes "alas my daughter I fear you are with child. And is it to a man of might, or to a man of means? For who among my gentlemen shall give the babe his name?"

Janet goes "There's none among your gentlemen that I would treat so well" and then off to Carterhaugh she goes again, to pick a "poison rose" to induce abortion, because she is not gonna have a kid when the father isn't in the picture. She says as much when Tam Lin asks what tf she's doing, she tells him that if the baby's father were a gentleman and not a "wild shade" she'd be happy to have and care for the little one. But not as things stand.

So Tam Lin tells her that he wasn't born an elf, the faerie queen stole him away. And Fairyland's magic comes with a price: at the end of each seventh year they must pay a tithe to Hell. This year, Tam Lin is the sacrifice.

Tam Lin does not want to be the sacrifice.

So he tells Janet how to free him from the queen. She has to come when the elves ride to sacrifice him, pull him off his horse, then hold him fast no matter what the queen changes him into. (I've seen wolf, lion, bear, eagle, snake, and red-hot iron.) After all the shapes run their course, he turns back into a man and gets to stay with Janet. Yay!

Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight is less well known but still gorgeous. Lady Isabel is sewing one day when she hears/sees an elf knight blowing his horn nearby. She thinks aloud about how hot she thinks he is and how she'd like for him to love her, and next thing she knows he's broken in her window and gone "hey" [weird waggly eyebrow thing] "want to go ride down to the greenwood together?"

She says yes, so they go riding, and then deep in the woods he tells her it's time to get off her horse because he is going to kill her now (and he's killed seven other princesses here already).

She says "hae mercy please" and suggests that he lay his head on her knee and rest awhile. He does this.

Then she says "you murderer, hold still if you know what's good for you" and kills him. With his own blade. Or his hair, in one version.

(There's a slightly different version where he comes courting her and when he gets her to ride off with him he's going to drown her except he tells her to undress so he can save her pretty clothes and sell them. She says "turn around, it's not right for you to look at me naked" and then when he does she throws him into the ocean!)

Also, there's Merida. Conclusion: Scottish women are awesome and very good at dealing with the fae. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

HI do you know the song Tam Lin at all? (related: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight. my friend sent me a link to a Lady Isabel cover and now I'm deep down the Scottish women triumphing over faeries rabbit hole) -Random @random-ask-anon

I do not, tell me more