Tristran Thorn Character Analysis

Mr. Bromios had set up a wine-tent and was selling wines and pasties to the village folk, who were often tempted by the foods being sold by the folk from Beyond the Wall but had been told by their grandparents, who had got it from their grandparents, that it was deeply, utterly wrong to eat fairy food, to eat fairy fruit, to drink fairy water and sip fairy wine.

For every nine years, the folk from Beyond the Wall and over the hill set up the stalls, and for a day and a night the meadow played host to the Faerie market; and there was, for one day and one night in nine years, commerce between the nations.

“For a kiss, and the pledge of your hand,” said Tristran, grandiloquently, “I would bring you that fallen star.”

He shivered. His coat was thin, and it was obvious he would not get his kiss, which he found puzzling. The manly heroes of the penny dreadfuls and shilling novels never had these problems getting kissed.

He thought of Victoria’s lips, and her grey eyes, and the sound of her laughter. He straightened his shoulders, placed the crystal snowdrop in the top buttonhole of his coat, now undone. And, too ignorant to be scared, too young to be awed, Tristran Thorn passed beyond the fields we know...

...and into Faerie.

“So what damn-fool silly thing has this young lady got you a-doin’ of?”

Tristran put down his wooden cup of tea, and stood up, offended.

“What, he asked, in what he was certain were lofty and scornful tones, “would possibly make you imagine that my lady-love would have sent me on some foolish errand?”

The little man stared at up at him with eyes like beads of jet. “Because that’s the only reason a lad like you would be stupid enough to cross the border into Faerie. The only ones who ever come here from your lands are the minstrels, and the lovers, and the mad. And you don’t look like much of a minstrel, and you’re—pardon me saying so, lad, but it’s true—ordinary as cheese-crumbs. So it’s love, if you ask me.”

They certainly were fine new clothes. While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe. And Tristran Thorn in Crimson and canary was not the same man that Tristran Thorn in his overcoat and Sunday suit had been. There was a swagger to his steps, a jauntiness to his movements, that had not been there before. His chin went up instead of down, and there was a glint in his eye that he had not possessed when he had worn a bowler hat.

“And this wise, sweet creature sent you here to torture me?” she said.

“Well, not exactly. You see, she promised me anything I desired—be it her hand in marriage or her lips to kiss—were I to bring her the star that we saw fall the night before last. I had thought,” he confessed, “that a fallen star would probably look like a diamond or a rock. I certainly wasn’t expecting a lady.”

“So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?”

“Love,” he explained.

“Hullo,” said Tristran. There were burrs and leaves in the lion’s mane. He held the heavy crown out toward the great beast. “You won. let the unicorn go.” And he took a step closer. Then he reached out both trembling hands and placed the crown upon the lion’s head.

Inside, he felt numbed and foolish, stung by a pang of guilt and shame and regret. He should not have loosed her chain, he should have tied it to a tree; he should have forced the star to go with him into the village. This went through his head as he walked; but another voice spoke to him also, pointing out that if he had not unchained her then, he would have done it sometime soon, and she would have run from him then.

“But you were telling me that Pan owned the forest...”

“Of course he does,” said the voice. “It’s not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it’s yours and then be willing to let it go. Pan owns this forest, like that.”

“I am the most miserable person who ever lived,” he said to the Lord Primus, when they stopped to feed the horses feedbags of damp oats.

“You are young, and in love,” said Primus. “Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”

Tristran sat at the top of the spire of cloud and wondered why none of the heroes of the penny dreadfuls he used to read so avidly were ever hungry. His stomach rumbled, and his hand hurt him so.

Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there’s a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.

The exotic bird hopped up beside her and it chirruped, once, curiously.

“Of course I have kept my word—to the letter,” said the old woman, as if in reply. “He shall be transformed back at the market meadow, so shall regain his own form before he comes to Wall. [...] And I do believe that bumpkin’s flower was even finer than the one you lost to me, all those years ago.”

For he could no longer reconcile his old idea of giving the star to Victoria Forester with his current notion that the star was not a thing to be passed from hand to hand, but a true person in all respects and no kind of a thing at all.

And it came to Tristran then, in a wave of something that resembled homesickness, but a homesickness comprised in equal parts of longing and despair, that these might as well be his own people, for he felt he had more in common with them than with the pallid folk of Wall in their worsted jackets and their hobnailed boots.

“You said you would give me whatever I desire.”

“Yes.”

“Then...” He paused. “Then I desire that you should marry Mister Monday. I desire that you should be married as soon as possible—why, within this very week, if such a thing can be arranged. And I desire that you should be as happy together as ever a man and woman have ever been.”

She exhaled in one low shuddering breath of release. Then she looked at him. “Do you mean it?” she asked.

“Marry him with my blessing, and we’ll be quits and done,” said Tristran. “And the star will probably think so, too.”

“What have you done?” Spittle flecked the old woman’s lips.

“I have done nothing; nothing I did not do eighteen years ago. I was bound to you to be your slave until the day that the moon lost her daughter, if it occurred in a week when two Mondays came together. And my time with you is almost done.”

“And if it does not suit you, you may leave, you know. There is no silver chain that will be holding you to the throne of Stormhold.”

And Tristran found this quite reassuring. Yvaine was less impressed, for she knew that silver chains come in all shapes and sizes; but she also knew that it would not be wise to begin her life with Tristran by arguing with his mother.

Yvaine realized that she felt nothing but pity for the creature who had wanted her dead, so she said, “Could it be that the heart that you seek is no longer my own?”

The old woman coughed. Her whole frame shook and spasmed with the retching effort of it.

The star waited for her to be done, and then she said, “I have given my heart to another.”

“The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?”

“Yes.”

“You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do.”

They say that each night, when the duties of state permit, she climbs, on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds. She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.

Mr. Bromios had set up a wine-tent and was selling wines and pasties to the village folk, who were often tempted by the foods being sold by the folk from Beyond the Wall but had been told by their grandparents, who had got it from their grandparents, that it was deeply, utterly wrong to eat fairy food, to eat fairy fruit, to drink fairy water and sip fairy wine.

For every nine years, the folk from Beyond the Wall and over the hill set up the stalls, and for a day and a night the meadow played host to the Faerie market; and there was, for one day and one night in nine years, commerce between the nations.

“For a kiss, and the pledge of your hand,” said Tristran, grandiloquently, “I would bring you that fallen star.”

He shivered. His coat was thin, and it was obvious he would not get his kiss, which he found puzzling. The manly heroes of the penny dreadfuls and shilling novels never had these problems getting kissed.

He thought of Victoria’s lips, and her grey eyes, and the sound of her laughter. He straightened his shoulders, placed the crystal snowdrop in the top buttonhole of his coat, now undone. And, too ignorant to be scared, too young to be awed, Tristran Thorn passed beyond the fields we know...

...and into Faerie.

“So what damn-fool silly thing has this young lady got you a-doin’ of?”

Tristran put down his wooden cup of tea, and stood up, offended.

“What, he asked, in what he was certain were lofty and scornful tones, “would possibly make you imagine that my lady-love would have sent me on some foolish errand?”

The little man stared at up at him with eyes like beads of jet. “Because that’s the only reason a lad like you would be stupid enough to cross the border into Faerie. The only ones who ever come here from your lands are the minstrels, and the lovers, and the mad. And you don’t look like much of a minstrel, and you’re—pardon me saying so, lad, but it’s true—ordinary as cheese-crumbs. So it’s love, if you ask me.”

They certainly were fine new clothes. While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe. And Tristran Thorn in Crimson and canary was not the same man that Tristran Thorn in his overcoat and Sunday suit had been. There was a swagger to his steps, a jauntiness to his movements, that had not been there before. His chin went up instead of down, and there was a glint in his eye that he had not possessed when he had worn a bowler hat.

“And this wise, sweet creature sent you here to torture me?” she said.

“Well, not exactly. You see, she promised me anything I desired—be it her hand in marriage or her lips to kiss—were I to bring her the star that we saw fall the night before last. I had thought,” he confessed, “that a fallen star would probably look like a diamond or a rock. I certainly wasn’t expecting a lady.”

“So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?”

“Love,” he explained.

“Hullo,” said Tristran. There were burrs and leaves in the lion’s mane. He held the heavy crown out toward the great beast. “You won. let the unicorn go.” And he took a step closer. Then he reached out both trembling hands and placed the crown upon the lion’s head.

Inside, he felt numbed and foolish, stung by a pang of guilt and shame and regret. He should not have loosed her chain, he should have tied it to a tree; he should have forced the star to go with him into the village. This went through his head as he walked; but another voice spoke to him also, pointing out that if he had not unchained her then, he would have done it sometime soon, and she would have run from him then.

“But you were telling me that Pan owned the forest...”

“Of course he does,” said the voice. “It’s not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it’s yours and then be willing to let it go. Pan owns this forest, like that.”

“I am the most miserable person who ever lived,” he said to the Lord Primus, when they stopped to feed the horses feedbags of damp oats.

“You are young, and in love,” said Primus. “Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”

Tristran sat at the top of the spire of cloud and wondered why none of the heroes of the penny dreadfuls he used to read so avidly were ever hungry. His stomach rumbled, and his hand hurt him so.

Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there’s a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.

The exotic bird hopped up beside her and it chirruped, once, curiously.

“Of course I have kept my word—to the letter,” said the old woman, as if in reply. “He shall be transformed back at the market meadow, so shall regain his own form before he comes to Wall. [...] And I do believe that bumpkin’s flower was even finer than the one you lost to me, all those years ago.”

For he could no longer reconcile his old idea of giving the star to Victoria Forester with his current notion that the star was not a thing to be passed from hand to hand, but a true person in all respects and no kind of a thing at all.

And it came to Tristran then, in a wave of something that resembled homesickness, but a homesickness comprised in equal parts of longing and despair, that these might as well be his own people, for he felt he had more in common with them than with the pallid folk of Wall in their worsted jackets and their hobnailed boots.

“You said you would give me whatever I desire.”

“Yes.”

“Then...” He paused. “Then I desire that you should marry Mister Monday. I desire that you should be married as soon as possible—why, within this very week, if such a thing can be arranged. And I desire that you should be as happy together as ever a man and woman have ever been.”

She exhaled in one low shuddering breath of release. Then she looked at him. “Do you mean it?” she asked.

“Marry him with my blessing, and we’ll be quits and done,” said Tristran. “And the star will probably think so, too.”

“What have you done?” Spittle flecked the old woman’s lips.

“I have done nothing; nothing I did not do eighteen years ago. I was bound to you to be your slave until the day that the moon lost her daughter, if it occurred in a week when two Mondays came together. And my time with you is almost done.”

“And if it does not suit you, you may leave, you know. There is no silver chain that will be holding you to the throne of Stormhold.”

And Tristran found this quite reassuring. Yvaine was less impressed, for she knew that silver chains come in all shapes and sizes; but she also knew that it would not be wise to begin her life with Tristran by arguing with his mother.

Yvaine realized that she felt nothing but pity for the creature who had wanted her dead, so she said, “Could it be that the heart that you seek is no longer my own?”

The old woman coughed. Her whole frame shook and spasmed with the retching effort of it.

The star waited for her to be done, and then she said, “I have given my heart to another.”

“The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?”

“Yes.”

“You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do.”

They say that each night, when the duties of state permit, she climbs, on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds. She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.