Myth Mondays: Behind the Scenes with In the Springtime by Elizabeth Thorne

Please welcome Elizabeth Thorne to Myth Mondays for her post on In the Springtime, which is featured in Seducing the Myth. Take it away, Elizabeth…

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"Picking flowers in the field, in the springtime of the year. I heard the sound of chariot wheels, and was afraid with nothing to fear."

Although I've always been a mythology enthusiast, I didn't fall in love with the Persephone myth until the first summer that I worked as a singing wench at the Renaissance Festival. Most of the songs that we sung were performed as a full group, but there were several that were rehearsed separately, which the rest of us therefore didn't hear until the Faire actually opened and we had our first performance. One of those songs was a retelling of the Persephone myth that was so beautiful that it made me cry – not just the first time I heard it, but every time it was sung all summer.

"They say he forced me, but that's not true. Of my own will I followed him down. To his dark place beneath the hill. To his dark palace below the ground"

Unlike many retellings of the Persephone story, in which Hades lures her down to his realm and traps her there against her will, in this song, Persephone went willingly. It tells the story of her falling in love. The conflict in the story wasn't that she was forced, it was that her love had consequences. By abandoning her responsibilities, the world she left became a darker place.

"They say above us the world grew cold, the leaves and flowers began to die. The fruit trees withered and grew old, and darkening clouds filled up all the sky."

Suddenly, the story became much more interesting to me. It wasn't about a young woman kidnapped and in need of rescue. It was about a woman torn between two different worlds – the one where the universe seemed to tell her she belonged, and the one to which she had been drawn by love. She was drawn to both places, but couldn't live fully happily in either one.

"Oh yes its true then that life is good and I have learned the lesson it can teach. That you can never have all you want, and you never want what's within reach."

The song remained stuck in my head for a good five years, and when I saw a call for an anthology of mythology erotica, I knew that Persephone was the story I wanted to tell. However, although I expected to write a dark and beautiful romance, like the song I adored, that wasn't what ended up on the page. Instead, I ended up writing about what I thought it might really have been like if Persephone had been just another teenager, defying her overbearing mother in the hopes of finding love.

"The sweetest flower that ever grows, grows far deep inside a bush of thorns. And happiness then is like the rose, for without pain nothing good is born."

A lot of mythologies use a romantic relationship to explain the cycles of the year, because such relationships often are cyclical. They run hot and cold. They make us happy and they make us miserable. The only difference, is that when the gods feel those conflicting emotions that they shape the world to reflect their moods. All that mere humans can do is alternate between having a lot of sex… and eating a lot of chocolate.

Then again, it's probably for the best that we can't throw lightning bolts, and that the only way we can turn our former lovers into beasts is through a creative application of Photoshop.

Find out more about Elizabeth on her website, http://www.withbatedbeth.com/

Find out how to bag your copy of Seducing the Myth here.