Lilla Rosa


 The fourth story from Ruth Manning-Sanders children's anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974) is 'Lilla Rosa', a Swedish tale about a princess with the inevitable wicked stepmother who falls victim to various magical shenanigans. Not sure if the linden tree in this story is the original Singing-Ringing Tree of awful, badly dubbed 1970s children's TV fame.

It's a frothy piece and I don't want to start reading too much symbolism into it, but the shapeshifting struggle near the end (a common theme in many legends, folk-songs and the like) ca be understood as reflective of the ways people change in response to grief and being caught up in treacherous family dynamics - and how difficult it is for those who love them to hold on to the essence of who that person is amidst the dark times when they seem to have become something alien and frightening.



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