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Meanwhile in the sleepy farming town of Laocos the villagers are discussing the threat of an Amazon attack. This discussion, like all their subsequent discussions, consists of men complaining that they are ‘farmers not fighters’ and women complaining that they’re cowards. The biggest coward, it seems, is Erno. Only Medius shows any sign of courage, but since he is only in his mid-twenties he is therefore dismissed as ‘a mere child’ and told to shut up.


An Amazon waiting to be whipped

Valeria, daughter of the village leader, finds Zeno by a pond and nurses him back to health and give him a lift in her cart. Then the Amazons raid Laocos on a twofold mission to ‘destroy the old and the useless’ and to capture some men-folk (for breeding purposes). Once all the eligible males have been dragged back to the chalk-pit they are ‘forced’ to partake in a mass orgy with the Amazons. To facilitate this sacred ceremony they pass round a ‘special wine to make you happy... and more pleasant to be with’. The Amazon queen, it should be noted, requires two men to impregnate her.

After the raid the village has another discussion in which Valeria, whose dad has just died, accuses the men of being


The Amazon Queen stirring up man-hate

cowards. Both Erno and Medius hope to marry Valeria, and both decide that now is an apt moment to pop the question. Naturally, she brushes them off claiming they are, respectively, a coward and a child. Valeria then sets off into the mountains to find Zeno but gets groped by his bandit mates. Only when she is about to be gang-raped does Zeno show up and tell them to lay off. In the end Valeria persuades the bandits to help her village by offering them three sacks of crushed oats, ten panther skins and five hogs – but they insist on getting a woman each as well.


Zeno instructs Valeria on horse riding technique

Valeria agrees to their terms, but later tries to fob them off with a hut full of gurning hags. The bandits refuse to accept these ‘broken-down battle-axes’ and insist on bedding villagers of their choice. Nobody



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