Folksburywoods Story Blog

As a schoolgirl, Minerva was a sassy lass who chased all the boys with a cricket bat. Later, she grew into a stunning beauty, the likes no man had seen.

“Don’t let the beauty fool you. Minerva has more brains than the entire town,” her headmistress was often caught saying.

The young woman saw how cruel and petty men of wealth and power were and decided to take action. At first, she played along, accepting trinkets and baubles from her suitors, quickly turning them into cash.

As her last act of compliance, she accepted a dowry from a wealthy merchant, then promptly vanished. Word was she ran off with a lover from a distant land; nothing could be farther from the truth.

Minerva made her way to the ancient port of Alexandria, where she purchased a fine sailing ship. She gathered a crew of two and set sail for the north.

Over the years, the child/woman gathered a list of men who had defiled the good name of many innocent ladies. Now, she would avenge them the only way a man can feel it: take their wealth.

Before parting England, she had secured the shipping routes of sellers, traders, and dealers of each man on her list.

She would take what was theirs through piracy and force them to suffer the humiliation of failure, the only pain a man can feel.

So it went. Year after year, Minerva and her crew looted or set ablaze the ships carrying the industrialists’ raw goods or finished products.

Like a series of dominoes, they fell, some so hard they hung themselves, others crawled into the bottle or simply faded away like the color in a dead flower.

When the last man ended his life with a bullet through his temple, the pirate Minerva set sail for home.

After setting up a trust for all who suffered from the fiends, Miss Minerva opened a school for urchins in the middle of Manchester.

She would greet the children daily and tell them a story too fabulous to be true about a young girl who dared to say no to the men in power and her adventures on the high seas.

“Tell us another story of the pirate girl,” the children would beg when she finished.

“There’s enough time tomorrow. Now finish your meat so you can have your pudding,” said Minerva with a twinkle in her eye.