“The Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton – the big fat blade bone – and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the first Singing Magic in the world.”

“When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.”

“He had the prettiest hair she had ever seen on a man: dark brown, almost black, and soft like sable, it fell down to his shoulders. She wondered what he'd do if she threw some mud in it. Probably kill her.”

“Beware of her fair hair, for she excelsAll women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man's neck, She will not ever set him free again.”

“…she looked like Vivien, the Lady of the Lake, only she was fat and her lake was dust, sand and dust, bones and dust and sand.”

“He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.”