A Woman Scorned

Long ago, when most gentlemen were still expected to also be gallant and brave, a young rogue accidentally won the heart of a naive maiden. But when she revealed her love to the young knight, he refused to court her. Humiliated, the young girl shut herself away in a tower, and swore she would not be seen again.

For weeks, she did not speak to anyone or eat a single morsel. She only cried and tore at her hair.  After a while her grief consumed her. Some say she starved, others say she spun her own hair into a hangman's noose and flung herself from the tower, but most agree she died of a broken heart.

In her agony, before she died, she wrote a note to the local magistrate, begging him to see that her death was avenged.

Unsure of how to adjudicate a clear fatal case of unrequited love, the tired old public servant took the maiden's corpse on a long upriver journey to see the king.

At each harbour on the way the magistrate told the maiden's tragic tale, in the hopes that someone would reveal how to bring justice to a broken heart.  Some heard the story and said only ''Bah, tis a shame'', and others upon hearing the tale, lamented a great deal of their own suffering at the hands of love and cried to bring the rogue to justice! But most would whisper behind their fingers, of fools in love and hopeless battles.

But even as the magistrate arrived with the corpse to the riverbanks of the capital, the folks in the countryside were already forgetting the maiden's sorrowful plight and moving on with their lives. And even though the king declared  the lady's tragic death a great loss for cause of chivalry, no actual justice was ever meted out for the woman scorned.