I once read of a Greek legend dating from early in Athens History (The earthly home of the Furies is a untouched wood located outside the city itself. There is no temple to mark this holy local, just eerie sense of Them, a vague touch of otherness. I know this as I have been there. In times of war this grove was not touch, such was the fear/respect of the Furies)
The legend is one that takes place during a very bloody conflict inspired by the Furies avenge a minor wrong that ripped the City of Athens apart at its throat; fathers fighting sons, and mothers fighting daughters, family killing family…
The conflict left the City of Athens a ghost town, full of the shades of the tormented dead. Among the people that survived was a small child (no mention of the sex of the child, just that it was an Innocent). This child happen to flee the city during the height of the conflict, a conflict that was inspired by and watched over, and keep alive by the divine force of Tisiphone.
This child happened to wander into the grove of the Furies while Tisiphone was in the grove.
Tisiphone would gladly kill any mortal who intruded into her divine presence without a second thought. Something about the spark of innocence that surrounded this mortal child covered in the blood of its family, blood which did not dim its innocence, staid her divine fury… It is said that she experience pity and compassion for the first time in her immortal existence because of this child.
The Child was never seen again, it is said that Tisiphone took the child to the Otherworld and cared for it as a mother. Whatever the truth of the tale is, Tisiphone left the field of battle, the City of Athens, and without her divine force keeping the blood letting going the fighting stopped, and people awake from their inspired blood lust, with cries of grief.
The City of Athens vowed that day never to fight among themselves again, upon that vow a blessed rain came washed the blood of the dead away. Tis said this rain was sent for the memory of an innocent child, an innocence that saved a city.
Retelling of 'Tisiphone and the Innocent' by Justin Howard, Spring '09
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