Little Princess Tuvstarr and the Forest Tarn
Many recognize the painting of Little Princess
Tuvstarr by the famous Swedish illustrator John Bauer, but the story behind the
painting is not as well known. The original story was written by Helge Kjellin
and published in 1913 together with Bauer's illustrations. A tragic tale, it
tells of Little Princess Tuvstarr’s first adventure in the woods and how she
lost her golden heart in the forest tarn. Obsessed with trying to find her lost
heart, she spent the rest of her days trapped under the enchantment of the
forest tarn, staring into the dark water for so long that she finally grew into
a white tuvstarr flower. So ends the
original story. However, there is another ending to Little Princess Tuvstarr’s
story that few have heard, and in order to tell it, we will have to go back to
the very beginning, when the princess was growing up at Dream Castle…
Here, you can listen to my own telling of the story,
inspired by my own personal journey into the deepest, darkest part of the wood.
This story is aimed for adults and adolescents (over the age of 10). The
Swedish word skogstjärn translates
directly into forest tarn. The word tarn, in English, is more commonly used to
describe a mountain lake; however, the word is etymologically rooted in the Old
Norse tjörn, a language rooted in a
land of deep forests and skogstjärnar,
forest tarns. Here, the word elk refers to the Eurasian elk (moose, in American
English).
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