Tatterhood

Does that mean they're actually triplets?

Hello, reader! This week's tale comes to us from Europe, probably Norway or Iceland, and is called Tatterhood. This also happens to be the name of the main character. Hang onto your goats, folks. We're in for a ride on this one.

Right from the beginning, we have a comparison set up between Tatterhood and her sister, Betsy. Tatterhood is no doubt from the rare flower, while Betsy must be from the fair flower. The queen was warned not to eat the rare flower, and that must be how a hood, tattered or otherwise, a spoon, and a goat came out with the first twin. Modern science is drawing a blank on how else this could have happened.

This is one of the few folktales where two girls set out to find their fortune instead of the youngest son of either a peasant or king. And Tatterhood is a force to be reckoned with. When she was seven years old, she and her goat drove away marauding trolls that adults had learned to accept. When one of the trolls steals her sister's head, Tatterhood jumps on a sailboat and gets herself over to their home to steal back the head. I'm pretty impressed that a seven year old can sail by herself. I doubt the goat helped much.

On the other hand, we don't know very much about Betsy. We know that she loves Tatterhood, even though she is completely different, and that she's willing to marry a prince she just met without telling her parents. Perhaps we need to look at her condition that she will not marry until someone asks Tatterhood to marry him. It could be that she wanted to marry this love-struck prince, but it could be that she realized that, even though she loved Tatterhood, few people would love her twin when they first met her. Betsy might have been trying to buy some time to figure out whether or not she wanted to marry this guy. After all, since she and Tatterhood were setting out to seek their fortune alone, they had no pressure from someone else to marry the first set of princes they met. Either way, on their wedding day, we know both princes loved both twins, and we know the feeling was returned, or Tatterhood would have gotten them both out of there.

There are a few different versions of this tale. Some of them cast Tatterhood in a harsh light, making her flower ugly to begin with and having the prince who has to marry her scold her into changing her appearance into something dazzling. I prefer this version because a personality as wild as Tatterhood's would not let herself marry some guy who was going to take control of her life. And change is always easier when the one changing initiates it.

If we are looking for morals, I suppose the best one is this: "Respect the crazy ways of your twin sister because she will save your life and she'll change when she feels like it." Or perhaps it's just, "When someone is chasing trolls around the castle, don't look outside."

Have a folktale you want me to write about? Leave a comment below!