The white woman existed as story long before I chose to write of her and I can lay no more claim to her than can all of those who have spoken or written of her before. But no less either.

Angus McMillan, self-styled ‘discoverer’ of Gippsland first brought her into being in 1840 with a report of his discovery of a heart cut into the ground near present-day Sale, along with a number of items of women’s clothing, a lock of hair, a broken looking-glass and an open Bible. When he later revealed that he’d also seen a woman being driven unwillingly into the bush by natives, all the elements of romance were there, out of which it was possible to construct her story.