Not the only ballad

[shewhomust]

There is a whole sub-genre of Tam Lin fanfic, so to speak: Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock (the first I read and still my favourite, Elizabeth Bear's splendid Blood and Iron, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (which I have only just read and enjoyed)...

But the sound of durham_rambler's newest CD (Liege and Lief) thundering through the house prompts the question, why has no-one written a novel based on Mattie Groves? I'd pay good money for a book that made sense of the behaviour of the lady in that tale!

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Ellen Kushner's first novel was Thomas the Rhymer.

Hmmm. Matty Groves.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Her second novel. Some of us workshopped it for her.

Fire and Hemlock is marvellous. I love the way she interweaves the ballads in it.

As for "Matty Groves," an English friend of mine once heard an old woman tell that story and the stories round it. They were local families, long remembered.

Nine

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Local to where?
Matty Groves and Little Musgrave are clearly very closely related. And Little Musgrave was entangled with Lady Barnard.

The present Lord Barnard lives in Raby Castle, about 20 miles south-west of us here in Durham. So I have wondered if it was from around these parts.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't remember now. North, certainly, somewhere on her travels. I could ask.

Nine

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

There is a notorious talkin' blues filksong based on Matty Groves - all forty-seven verses of it! :)

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Big Musgrave by the Kipper Family.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I'm not susprised; but I'd guess that, like Big Musgrave, it derives more from the ways in which the original Does Not Make Sense than from any attempt to make it do so?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I told you not to mention...

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

I need to look up Big Musgrave. The filksong does make sense of a sort, once all the unnecessary parts are edited out. And it has three morals.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

And it has three morals

Few of us can claim as much...