Down into the Underworld
Jun. 19th, 2011 02:58 pmAs people can quickly figure out from glancing at this journal, I really like retellings. Especially ones that twist things a bit, turn some of the reader's expectations on their heads. Retellings that claim or reclaim something for people they didn't originally have space for.
So a friend poked me one day and asked if I could think of any women -- goddess or mortal, it didn't matter too much -- who would be down in the Underworld at the time of the Rape of Persephone. I had a think about it -- Pandora, perhaps? I thought -- and then remembered Hecate, who I knew helped Persephone in the Underworld...
And then the friend suggested I write a story for them, a lesbian twist on it. And here is that story. Details are drawn from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, The Aeneid (trans. W.F. Jackson Knight), and the twisty paths of memory and imagination. The idea of Hecate making the journey into the Underworld in this way is mine, her payment to Charon is mine, the tears and the laughter of Persephone are mine... yet hopefully I've made something that could almost fit in the repertoire of a Greek storyteller.
This is a commission, under my model of 'pay what you think it deserves' (and remember, payment is not always money). If you ever feel like commissioning something from me, PM me and we'll have a chat about it. Everything that I post here is free, at least for the moment, but I do need to eat, so if you come across my work and think, hey, I wish I could buy her dinner sometime... Well, there's a donate button on my profile, a Flattr button on all my story posts, and a meal and a drink at my favourite cafe costs me around £8.
For
sweet_sparrow, with lots of love, and many thanks for the seed of an idea.
( The Voice of Persephone )


The Voice of Persephone by Rhian Crockett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
So a friend poked me one day and asked if I could think of any women -- goddess or mortal, it didn't matter too much -- who would be down in the Underworld at the time of the Rape of Persephone. I had a think about it -- Pandora, perhaps? I thought -- and then remembered Hecate, who I knew helped Persephone in the Underworld...
And then the friend suggested I write a story for them, a lesbian twist on it. And here is that story. Details are drawn from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, The Aeneid (trans. W.F. Jackson Knight), and the twisty paths of memory and imagination. The idea of Hecate making the journey into the Underworld in this way is mine, her payment to Charon is mine, the tears and the laughter of Persephone are mine... yet hopefully I've made something that could almost fit in the repertoire of a Greek storyteller.
This is a commission, under my model of 'pay what you think it deserves' (and remember, payment is not always money). If you ever feel like commissioning something from me, PM me and we'll have a chat about it. Everything that I post here is free, at least for the moment, but I do need to eat, so if you come across my work and think, hey, I wish I could buy her dinner sometime... Well, there's a donate button on my profile, a Flattr button on all my story posts, and a meal and a drink at my favourite cafe costs me around £8.
For
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
( The Voice of Persephone )


The Voice of Persephone by Rhian Crockett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.