THE TALE OF TAM LINN

The captive knight’s rescuer comes off as particularly fierce and courageous in this retelling of the old Scottish border ballad.

She’s heard the warnings, but as “Janet didn’t believe in fairy stories and Janet didn’t like being told what to do,” off she goes one October day to Carterhaugh Woods to pluck a rose and meet the dashing Tam Linn by a well. And why would she help him escape? “Because I believe that the boy stolen by the fairies should be allowed to walk back out of the woods.” Scowling beneath a heavy mane of red hair, Janet shines with determination in Longson’s shadowed, misty Celtic scenes—returning on Halloween to seize Tam Linn and hold on stubbornly while the enraged, Maleficent-like fairy queen transforms him first into a succession of huge wild beasts, and then a burning branch that Janet casts into the well. Out comes Tam Linn, wet, laughing and free. The romance being relegated to a closing glimpse of the two young folk holding hands, Janet’s heroism is the rendition’s most visible theme. Don recasts the ballad into standard English, without dialect or regional idiom. In other additions to the Picture Kelpies series Theresa Breslin does likewise as she relates with a wink how Assipattle and Princess Gemdelovely defeat the “ginormous” Dragon Stoorworm (illustrated by Matthew Land), and so does Janis Mackay for a bland version of The Selkie Girl (illustrated by Ruchi Mhasane). Of the simultaneously publishing trio, only Tam Linn comes with a historical note.

A traditional Scots tale served up both fresh and freshly illustrated.