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The Gallows Curse QUOTES

The Gallows Curse QUOTES

21 " The priest had begun to anoint her son, but would God bless such a sacrament when it had been forced from his servant by threats? Raffe could not be sure that extreme unction had even been completed, for the priest could hardly have been trusted to continue after Raffe had been forced to slam down the lid of the pit. Even if he hadn't fainted straight away, he was more likely to have cursed Gerard than blessed him.
Raffe silently cursed himself. What had he been thinking of? The priest was right, what good would it do anointing a corpse so much decayed? And yet, the bones of the saints still had power to heal, didn't they? Even though the bones were dry and crumbling to dust, people still kissed them and begged them for a blessing.
But Gerard was no saint. No perfume of sanctity wafted from his tomb. A priest would no doubt tell him that the unnaturally rapid decay was proof that he had died in mortal sin. And the rotting remains that lay in that box, the putrid liquid, the foul stench, that was not Gerard; it was not the man he loved and called friend. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

22 " For the fact is when men are hanged, innocent or guilty, their semen, that salty white milk, falls onto the Earth and there on that very spot we spring up... Why men should ejaculate in the throes of death is a mystery even to me. Perhaps death really is the consummation of life, or maybe it's the last act of the body desperate to bequeath a life that will go on even as its own is obliterated. But I like to believe it is a final one-fingered gesture of defiance at their executioners, the only obscene gesture they can make since their hands are tightly bound behind them. Whatever the reason, felons with their dying gasp impregnate our mother and so we, the mandrakes, are conceived. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

23 " Most spells only have power in this life, but a mandrake's born at the same instant a man dies. That means its curse can follow you through the gates of death itself and into the life beyond. I'd not go against it, not for a whole kingdom and and every lusty man in it. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

24 " No sense fretting over a fox among the lambs, when there's a wolf on the prowl. And this wolf is a savage one. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

25 " The old woman cocked her head on one side. 'You wouldn't let me starve.'

'Wouldn't I?'

'I could put a hex on you that you'd never undo,' the old woman raged. I could bring a cooked fish alive in your throat even as you swallow it to choke you to death. You still don't know the half of what I know, girl, and you never will. You don't have the skill or patience to master it. Haven't had to learn it to survive, not like me, and that's your trouble. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

26 " [The] chanting died away and silence flooded back the moonlit grove, a silence as solid and lucent as glass. A cloud drew across the moon, plunging the clearing into into darkness. The forest held its breath.

Then the ground around them began to tremble, shaking as if a thousand horses were charging by. As the cloud peeled back from the moon, Gytha could see something rising in front of them just beyond the circle. A wisp of mist was uncurling from the ground, pushing up the earth around it, like the first shoot of a plant. Then the column of mist burst out of the black earth with a thin wail like a newborn baby's cry. It whirled around and around, and as it turned there came a low moaning in the forest as if an icy winter wind was wandering among the branches of the trees, but the trees were quite still. The moaning grew into a shriek, rising higher and higher till the very darkness was vibrating with the pain of it. Then, just as suddenly, the shrieking stopped.

A naked infant stood in front of them, its body so thin the ribs stood out like the timbers of a wrecked ship. The lips were drawn back to reveal the toothless bones of its jaws, its empty eye sockets were as dark as black fire.

Madron turned her sightless eyes towards her daughter. 'Has he come? Do you see him?'

Gytha could not wrench her gaze from the little corpse in front of her. 'He is here, Madron, the babe is here,' she whispered. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

27 " ...the howling began as first one starving dog threw back its head, then another and an other until the whole valley was echoing with the raw, wretched grief of them. It was as if every poor beast in the world was screaming out against what they had witnessed that day. "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

28 " mortals who wish to gather it must first release a black hen which the Devil will not be able to resist chasing, "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse

29 " Some call its twins berries the testicles of Uranus "

― Karen Maitland , The Gallows Curse