In Blue Thread, Miriam tells us:
I opened the window and leaned out, wishing Serakh might come flying in like Peter Pan.
Peter Pan was a fairly new character in 1912 Portland. Scottish writer J. M. Barrie featured him in the 1906 book, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and later in Peter and Wendy (1911). Peter Pan had first appeared in a 1902 novel, The Little White Bird, which Barrie wrote for adults, and was featured in a highly successful stage play in 1904.
Barrie likely drew the name from Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the boys he had unofficially adopted, and Pan, the mythic Greek god of nature, often pictured as part goat, part man. The Roman counterpart of Pan was Faunus. Barrie’s original Peter Pan played the “pipes of Pan.”
Walt Disney’s cartoon version of Peter Pan ditched the pipes, but kept many of the Barrie characters, including the fairy Tinker Bell. In Barrie’s original play and books, Tinker Bell mended kettles and pots, the way a real tinker would.
My name is Ruth. I write books and articles for children and young adults. Blue Thread is my eleventh book, and the first one in which I have knowingly stretched the truth.