Quilly's Three Word Challenge

Here we go for another episode of Quilly's three word challenge.
Where we are supposed to write a story with some of the forgotten words Quilly has dug up for us from the dark catacombs of the internet on line dictionaries.
You can find their definitions by clicking on the links.

So hang on to your hats girls!
Oh and um ... If this is just a little bit over the top, that's just how it's supposed to be!
It could have been better, but it could have been worse, I'm a novice at this.
Please forgive me.


The people in the village had been whispering stories about bacchanal rites and orgies in the woods high up in the mountains. Stories about evil female creatures living in the wild.

The stories were laced with hitonious details on how they killed wild animals. How they slaughtered anything and anybody within their sight, tearing the flesh from the bones of the game they prey on, devouring even their own children in a frantic euphoria.



He did not believe much of the tales people told. To him this was a canard, a horrific tale made up in the wee hours of a hot Summers night by half witted characters that had been drinking way too much wine while staring into bonfire flames.

Or maybe the stories were made up by shrewd mothers to keep their husbands and sons away from whatever it was that went on in the mountains.


It was a good thing he had a perspicacious mind.
Whatever it was, he was determined to explore the mountains to unravel the truth about these mysterious man eating nymphs. He was now old enough to doubt and question the casuistries and the rumours people seem to love to spread around.

He was in his early twenties when he left the village and its volgivagant populace.


He mounted his horse and set off at the crack of dawn.
He had caught this horse and mastered the skill of riding it so well he had no need for a saddle or a harness. He looked at his reflection in the lake as he drove by and he liked what he saw. The horse and him looked as if they were one. With his well shaped slightly hairy and sun bronzed torso, he looked like an Adonis.
Hmmm, not bad!" he thought, " so this sight of me and my horse must have been how centaur myths came about, not bad at all!"

He drove for days on end until he reached a coppice.


The thickness of the brushwood and the steepness of the slope made his horse jib. This forest was no longer accessible on horseback. He would have to leave his horse and continue the journey by foot. He climbed and walked for hours. It had been raining for days ( I guess he must have reached Belgium by then!) and the moss that covered the soil felt queachy under his feet.
All of a sudden he heard a soft tinkling sound.

He stood and listened, but still he could not define it, although there was something familiar about the delicate notes that reached his ears. It was music! Elegant isangelous music.
There was something very feminine and fragile about this music.
He held his breath and listened. This was so beautiful. It was not a harp though, he remembered how he had often listened to his mother playing the zither.
As gently as he could he tried to make his way through the brush into the direction of the music. And then he caught his first glimpse of the Maenads.
He pinched himself to make sure he was not dreaming.


He stood in awe at the sight of this sun bathing bacchante.
She looked like a goddess. She was nothing like the hitonious creatures from the stories he had heard in his village.
He could not take his eyes off the mellifluous curves of her body. He wanted to touch the dew droplets on her soft skin.
And then he turned around and saw another one.


She was dancing. Her whole body was the expression of absolute joy.
"So this is what volgivagant people would describe as bacchanalia?" he said to himself.
"Look at them! I mean, look ... drunk raving out of control women ?"
"Maniacal dancing, loud crashing sounds of cymbals causing huge fracas?"
What a teterrimous exaggeration! Those women are merely enjoying and celebrating life to the fullest. What's with all those narrow minded people, making up stories like that?