diff --git a/awestruct.gemspec b/awestruct.gemspec
index 7abb9b8c..7620122a 100644
--- a/awestruct.gemspec
+++ b/awestruct.gemspec
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |s|
     s.has_rdoc       =   true
 
     s.add_dependency 'hpricot'
+    s.add_dependency 'versionomy', '= 0.4.1'
     s.add_dependency 'haml', '<= 3.1.0'
     s.add_dependency 'sass', '<= 3.1.0'
     s.add_dependency 'hashery', '= 1.4.0'
diff --git a/lib/awestruct/context_helper.rb b/lib/awestruct/context_helper.rb
index 4e01a8b9..dc103085 100644
--- a/lib/awestruct/context_helper.rb
+++ b/lib/awestruct/context_helper.rb
@@ -50,7 +50,13 @@ def fully_qualify_urls(base_url, text)
         img['src'] = fix_url( base_url, img['src'] )
       end
       # Hpricot::Doc#to_s output encoding is not necessarily the same as the encoding of text
-      return doc.to_s.tap{|d| d.force_encoding(text.encoding) if d.encoding != text.encoding }
+      if RUBY_VERSION.start_with? '1.8'
+        doc.to_s
+      else
+        doc.to_s.tap do |d| 
+          d.force_encoding(text.encoding) if d.encoding != text.encoding 
+        end
+      end
     end
 
     def fix_url(base_url, url)