Hag

ISBN: 979-8-3507-4800-0
By: Lethe, Stuart

ABOUT THE BOOK

HAG is a novel sung, not spoken. A horror opera written in verse. Each page moves with the cadence of a funeral hymn and the weight of an ancient epic, closer to Beowulf or The Divine Comedy, than to anything on modern shelves. Every stanza is sharpened, every line built to be felt in the mouth as much as in the mind. The story rises through rhythm and descends through silence and madness. This is horror at its finest, sculpted through song. A work of language, furious, lyrical, and unrelenting. Once did she bow to the many-faced thrones, With blood on her hands and her knees to the stones. She scattered the seeds, she burned the leaves, She wept in the shade of a thousand eaves. The gods were cold, and crowned with lies! They feasted on famine, they silenced cries. When death took root in her cradle bed, They turned their backs, and left her dead. So rose she then, from ash and mud, With hate for hymns and thirst for blood. Her prayers grew claws, her songs grew teeth, She wore the woods like funeral wreath. She danced where once the sacred stood, And made her veil from hungering wood. The idols cracked, their gold went green, Their temples fell to moss and spleen. She struck their names from bark and bone, She crowned herself, she walked alone. But in the rot, beneath the curse, She found a voice not clad in verse. Not god of fang, nor flame, nor flood, But one who weeps in ash and mud. A whisper low, not carved nor crowned, That blooms where all the rest have drowned. So though she walks through blood and briar, A secret ember stirs the mire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stuart Lethe