Stories of Love

Collage of paper, re-arranged words from an old "Mythology" book by Hamilton, and red thread.

And the story is:

There was a maiden with her sweetest words and looks, fine and familiar, then pure white. Within the hall were suitors, dull and dense, idly loafing and in a mood to make cruel fun. She was frightened and went down from her room to drive the suitors away by force, but how could she? One and another the wicked suitors, roistering, impudent, arose hard as iron and attacked her in their frenzy. She shouted with grief and dismay and screamed in terror but could not fly from them or push them away. It was a frightful ordeal. But strangely enough when the great heroes and fair women heard of the outrage they declared that she was strange and repellent to these men and was the cause of the trouble. It was only to be expected. She fled in a fit of furious anger, but of course she never forgot the truth of what had happened. Then years passed. In some way, we are not told how, she came back, hacking and destroying everything that came within her reach. She took deadly aim and slaughtered all of the sons and daughters of the wicked suitors. It was not frightening, it was butchery and the floor flowed with blood. She saw them die with a hard heart. Daylight was dawning, there was no sound on earth but hopeless weeping and the dreadful sound of cracking flames on the funeral pyre. She whispered those buried words –– “It is a great story now of beautiful fresh blood flowing, implacable vengeance and inevitable doom. The long story is ended. Only the red flame now lives.”