Tatterhood

[janegray]

Hey, you. Yes, you! What are you doing right now? Are you reading Tatterhood? If the answer is "no," then there had better be a good reason for it, like "I've already read Tatterhood" or "my house is on fire."















You can read the rest of the story here:
http://www.shanahanigans.com/comic/tatterhood/tatterhood-001/

Ah, mods? Little help, please. I have absolutely no clue what tags to use. I mean, it's technically not a webcomic, but it's not a normal comic either. Suggestions?

Comments

[auggie18]

This is by the woman who does Shrub Monkeys, right? Love her stuff. Reading immediately.

[fungo_squiggly]

That was super cute.

I like how Tatterhood's family just accepts her unconditionally, even though her sister was born all "perfect" and whatever, while Tatter very much wasn't.

[crinos]

I like how after the trolls get away, Tatterhood calls out everyone in the castle for letting them do what they want.

"You guys suck!"

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

If you enjoyed that, you'll love Ursula Vernon's annotated version: http://ursulav.livejournal.com/1523770.html

[janegray]

At last the king and queen took into their palace an adopted girl to raise, that they might always have her with them, to love her if she did well, and scold her if she did wrong, like their own child.

Ironically, she will vanish without a trace one paragraph from now.

Ouch.

[donnblake]

Man, those trolls may be jerks, but they're kind of adorable.

[leoboiko]

Read the Norwegian tale where they invade some farmer's home every Christmas, until a traveller convince them that his tamed white bear is a kitty. From them on, at every Christmas, the poor trolls are like "say, farmer, do you still have that white kitty?…"

[dcbanacek]

kaja foglio did a comic version of it, which can be found here... http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/stories/dovrefjell/dovrefjell_01.php

[janegray]

The Troll party actually looked really, really fun. I mean, I know that in the original fairy tale they were most likely violent and dangerous and it was a good thing that they were driven away, but the way the party is portrayed in the comic makes me wonder why the farmer and his family didn't just join the party with the trolls as guests instead of invaders.

[lilacsigil]

That was terrific! I was unprepared for the headswapping, to say the least.

[crinos]

Yeah, most people think of Trolls as just big dumb bruisers, but in Norse Myth they also tended to be powerful sorcerers, or at least magical in nature. So Troll head swapping is not out of the question.

[donnblake]

Interesting that Tatterhood seems to have no difficulty swapping it back. Maybe she's magical herself in some way, instead of just generically kickass, or perhaps once the heads have been swapped, they can be swapped again fairly easily. Whether just back to the original, or any time the princess chooses to swap her head around must wait for the sequel.

[crinos]

Well she and her sister were born via magic flower fertility drugs.

That too is a common theme: In another story a witch tells a queen to peel and eat an onion to get pregnant. She doesn't peel one of the onions, so one of her sons is a giant snake until he gets married and the princess removes his scales to reveal the prince underneath.

Then there's Hans my Hedgehog, where a woman wishes for any child, even a Hedgehog, and so she gives birth to a Hedgehog man.

Also, looked up on Wikipedia the original ending to this: The two princesses marry a pair of princes, and Tatterhood's prince asks her about the rags, the spoon and the goat, and they turn into a crown, a fan, and a steed, and that she is in fact more beautiful than her sister, she just chooses to wear tatters and such.

Sorry, I did some research because I had never heard this fairy tale before, or the one about the bear for that matter.

[janegray]

In the last page of this comic, the author's notes talk about the original ending. She really hated it, and decided to change it completely.

The part I didn’t like, is at the end of the original story Tatterhood is rewarded for her bravery by magically becoming super beautiful (also her goat becomes a white horse and her spoon a blinged-out sceptre). She also gets to marry some random whiny prince who is at first mortified he has to marry her but as soon as her magical-beauty-transformation takes place, everything is aces! Womp womp. Even as a little kid I felt this ending pretty much ruined the whole spirit of the story. Which is why we chucked it in favour of sibling-adventures!

I agree, the new ending is much better :)

[captainbellman]

I do love that the two sisters are best of friends. So often fairy tales rely on the rather worrying trope of the ugly sister despising the fair one for being so beloved and actively trying to do her in. See also "Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast", "Little One-Eye, Little Two-Eyes, and Little Three-Eyes", "Frau Holle", etc.

[janegray]

Hear hear! I loved that part too :D

[kurenai_tenka]

Aww that was great! Thanks for recommending it. :)

[espanolbot]

Ooooh, yeah. A version of this was in an issue of Hellboy. 'Cept the uglier girl looked like an actual troll and her sister was turned into a cow after an evil troll stole her human head and glued a cow one on instead.

[apintrix]

Fantastic! Why can't we have more traditional tales like this :D

(Paging Disney...)

[sinesofinsanity]

EEE!!! This story was my favourite book as a kid. It's wonderful to see a new version of it :) Thank you