SWORD WOMAN – This was the first story about Robert E. Howard’s fiery woman warrior Agnes the Dark aka Agnes de Chastillon, a sword fighting, butt kicking woman in 1500s France. Previously, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed the one and only story that R.E. Howard wrote about Red Sonya (NOT Sonja) – Shadow of the Vulture, set in the late 1520s, not in Howard’s fictional Hyborian Age.
Unlike Shadow of the Vulture, none of the Dark Agnes tales were published during Robert E. Howard’s lifetime. Sword Woman, the character’s origin story, saw print posthumously in 1975, 39 years after Howard’s suicide. The author dedicated the short story “To Mary Read, Graine O’Malley, Jeanne Laisne, Liliard of Ancrum, Anne Bonney, and all other sword women, good or bad, bold or gay, who have swaggered down the centuries, this chronicle is respectfully dedicated.” Continue reading
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