What mortal could rescue Tam Lin from that shadow life but Janet who loved him? She told him she would save him isf she could, and Tam Li described how the mortal must challenge the power of the Fairy Queen. Then he faded into the sun-speckled forest.
From Time-Life Books’s Fairies and Elves, part of The Enchanted World Series, 1984. Illustration by Jill Karla Schwarz
Confession: This is the first place I encountered the story of Tam Lin, and where I fell in love with it. I will freely admit it was largely because of the beautiful illustrations, particularly the last one.
The bare-chested, disheveled Tam Lin resting under Janet’s mantle just caught my attention. I was ten, maybe eleven years old at the time. Thirty years later, seventeen years of running a website, forty four versions of the ballad, more than a dozen related stories, a couple of citations in articles and theses, pages of analysis, maps, well over a hundred books, plays, articles… and here’s the images that kicked that off for me. Enjoy.
DANICA SHARDAE IS an avian shapeshifter, and the golden hawk’s form in which she takes to the sky is as natural to her as the human one that graces her on land. The only thing more familiar to her is war: It has raged between her people and the serpiente for so long, no one can remember how the fighting began. As heir to the avian throne, she’ll do anything in her power to stop this war—even accept Zane Cobriana, the terrifying leader of her kind’s greatest enemy, as her pair bond and make the two royal families one.
Trust. It is all Zane asks of Danica—and all they ask of their people—but it may be more than she can give.
Hello! It is true, the heroine of The Lady and the Bandit is overweight. But, to be honest, it wasn’t my intention to convey a message about body-positivity –not explicitly, at least.
It came out naturally. I only wanted a protagonist that didn’t look exactly like the hundreds I’ve found in the romance novels I’ve read; one with a different kind of beauty, but who wasn’t conventionally attractive. (I’d disagree, for her facial features are, to me, timeless and pretty. But that’s the mystery of beauty; everyone has their own tastes).
So I turned to classical statues from Ancient Greece and Rome and got her facial features from there. Old paintings from 2-3 centuries ago –specifically Ruben’s– were a great source of inspiration, if not for the period the novel’s set in, at least for Pepita’s aesthetics. She has black, curly hair, though, inherited from her Spanish mother, unlike Ruben’s golden-haired ladies.
I mean, these women must have been deemed desirable enough to be immortalized in works of art! 😀
(I think Pepita is a bit chubbier than these ladies, though)
Does this have effect on her personality? Well, she doesn’t consider herself very pretty. She knows that she’s overweight, perhaps a bit more than she’d like, but that doesn’t make her lose sleep. She has a group of close friends who support each other and tell her that her extra pounds make her look “healthy and classical”, so that’s fine by her.
Now, Rafael, the dashing hero of the story, finds her attractive for many reasons, and one of them is her body type. He doesn’t care much for girls’ sizes, but something about Pepita’s chubbyness just “clicks” with her overall look, and he likes her whole: the combination of her eyes, her hair, her skin, body and personality; and the sudden changes she brings into his life.
Some nasty people, of course, make jokes about her fatness, and that hurts her. Not because of the content of their words, but because they’re aimed to hurt and undermine her self-esteem, and Pepita can’t stand such vileness.
So, Pepita is overweight, indeed, but it’s not really a problem for her. She gets tired faster when running up a hill (who doesn’t?), feels the weather’s heat a wee bit more, and doesn’t really believe people when they tell her she’s beautiful, though she appreciates their well-meaning intentions.
I don’t know if this is the answer you were looking for, but thank you
so much for asking! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask 😀
Thank you for this great and detailed answer! That was exactly what I wanted to know. 😀 She sounds like a great character. Can’t wait to read the book!
Idea: Lesbian Hades and Persephone where Hades is a really awkward Nerdy Goth who falls in love with Butch Outdoorswoman Persephone, but she can’t work up the nerve to actually ask Persephone out, so instead she just kind of summons a portal to the Underworld and pretends like it was an accident for several months while she and Persephone flirt like mad but also keep assuming that it’s totally one-sided.
Until Demeter shows up and accuses Hades of stealing her daughter, at which point Hades tearfully confesses her crime and Persephone is just like ‘wait you like me?! Like romantically? This was a romantic kidnapping?!’ and when Hades manages a nod she just starts scarfing pomegranate seeds in front of her horrified mother so that she won’t have to leave.
Monsters and Villains 