The Old Testament story of the widow Judith - the siren who lured her people's deadly enemy, Holofernes, to his death, beheading him in his own bed to save Jerusalem - is an enduring cultural myth in Western society. In this book, Margarita Stocker explores the Western fascination with the image of Judith and the abundance of interpretations that have surrounded her at different times between the early Middle Ages and the present day. The myth of Judith provides a key to modern society's view of women and power, the book argues. In dealing with the threatening image of a powerful femme fatale who is also a saint, the vested interests of Western culture have deliberately, often deviously, subverted images of sex and death as a way of marginalizing women and protecting traditional notions of masculinity.