Old Woman # 1 (illustrated by Emonic)

Rose travels to England in hopes of discovering the answer to the cryptic message given to her from Zelda, who said the message from from Rose’s Grandmother, who is dead.

Rose arrives in England and goes to Fawney Rig, where Unity Kincaid spend a majority of her life asleep. Fawney Rig was originally the home of Roderick Burgess and later became a nursing home run by Paul MaGuire, the lover of Alex Burgess, who has been asleep since Dream’s escape in 1988.

While wandering around the house Rose encounters three women who are residents of Fawney Rig. One of the women, Magda Treadgold, tells Rose a story of a Man Who Loved The Ladies.

This man would try to romance any woman with a pretty face and once they outlived his desire he would move on to another woman. Well, one day he saw a beautiful woman bathing in a river and he promised her that if she was his “lady-love” he would give back the clothes he had hidden. She agreed but only under the condition that she would be his wife and would be married at the next church they passed. He agreed and promised saying things like “If I don’t marry you, may that the worms shall eat me and if I don’t marry you, I wish that our children might grow wings and fly away.”

She became his “lady-love” which is really just a polite way of saying that they had sex.

On their travels they passed a church, but the man made an excuse as to why they could not be married in there. Eventually she became pregnant and needs a house to live in.

The Man finds a cottage inhabited by an Old Woman. The man went into the house and found the Old Woman was asleep in the bed. She was old and weak and the man smothered her and buried her in the midden heap, which is a dump for domestic waste.

It is unclear if the woman was a witch or simply an old woman. That aspect changes depending on who is telling the story.

This is that old woman.

In the published comic we never see her face, only the moment where she is being killed and so Emonic had to give her life based on the glimpse we see of her in the bed being smothered by the Man Who Loved The Ladies.

Emonic did a fantastic job with this character. I really like his interpretation of this Old Woman.

This Old Woman appears in The Kindly Ones…in Sandman # 62 on page 12.