Diana's Story

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:33:15 -0800 From: "Fred (Flieg) Hollander" Subject: [lochac] Where we really came from

Crag -- This was just posted on the [lochac] list. Dorothea wasn't actually at the first tournament, but this is a poetic rendering of the story as Diana tells it. -- Flieg

>Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:59:50
>To: lochac@sca.org.au
>Subject: [lochac] Where we really came from
>
>Greetings from Acacia
>
>After the discussion we had a while back about were we came from I dug up
>an old story of the first event - I emailed Dorothea (who was there) and
>she game me permission to reprint it.....thought you might enjoy the read
>
>Diana told it at Twenty-Five-Year Beltane and I picked it up from hearing
>her. - Dorothea
>
>Okay, this is approximately the way Diana told it.
>
>Once upon a time there was a scholar who lived in an ivory tower. And in
>that tower lived many other scholars, who spent their time reading books
>and writing papers about what some other scholar had said another scholar
>had said *another* scholar had said they used to do in the Middle Ages.
>
>But the scholar of whom I speak was more fortunate than the rest, for she
>used to escape from the tower from time to time and go down into the town,
>where she met many interesting people. And some of these folk belonged to
>a tribe called “fandom,” and they too read many books and wrote many
>papers, and they published them in loose journals printed on coarse
>wood-pulp paper. And the scholar, who had some skill as an artist, drew
>pictures of knights and ladies and elves and dragons, and these appeared in
>the wood-pulp paper journals.
>
>And in this tribe were two young men with whom the scholar became
>acquainted; and they were beautiful young men, one dark and one fair, and
>both with eyes the color of summer heaven. And on a day the scholar went
>to visit the young men in their home, and she saw hanging on the wall two
>bright swords and two well-wrought shields emblazoned with devices of
>heraldry. And she said, “What do you do with those?”And the young men
>replied, “WE FIGHT WITH THEM.”
>
>And the scholar said, “How splendid. Next time you practice, I shall come
>and draw pictures of you.”
>And on many a day the young men met to practice their skills with sword and
>shield, and the scholar covered many sheets of wood-pulp paper with their
>likenesses. Then there came the day when the scholar stepped out of
>her own house into her back yard, and the thought came to her, “You could
>hold a tournament here.
>“Look! Here the fighters could fight, and here the spectators could sit,
>and if there were too many of them some of them could stand behind the wall
>there, safe from random blows. You could do it. You could hold a
>tournament here.”
>And she thought, “How delightful!” But she also bethought her that she had
>her Master’s orals coming up in two weeks, and
>going back into her kitchen, she said to her housemates, “I’ve had the most
>wonderful idea. TALK ME OUT OF IT!”
>
>And she told her housemates her idea, and they all answered, “That’s
>wonderful! We’ll all help!”
>And so they chose the First of May as the date of the tournament, and they
>caused to be printed on many sheets of wood-pulp paper the message, “Come
>to a Tournament—for that it is spring.” And the message was broadcast all
>round the ivory tower and the town besides. And on the day, at the stroke
>of noon, being the time set to begin the tournament, the scholar set foot
>outside her door, and there was no one there. And half an hour later, she
>stepped outside her door again, and there were fifty people there.
>
>Then came Jon deCles in the robes of an Archbishop, and intoned, “Ecce
>Eduardus Ursus nunc occipite post Christophorum Robinem tump-tump-tump
>scalis descendens,” and all sang “Amen.” And Elizabeth Pope, Doctor of
>Philosophy, was named Judge of the Lists, and the knights and squires came
>forth to do battle, and many brave deeds of swordplay were seen.
>And young David the Herald fought so well that Sir Siegfried von
>Hoeflischkeit dubbed him Knight there upon the field.
>And Marynel of Darkhaven, being then but young, had bidden her father
>Beverly Hodghead to come to the place half an hour after she did, in case
>she wished to return home; but when he saw the noble company and the deeds
>that were being done, he hurried home and returned again in haste, bringing
>the crossbow that he had made for himself. And he fired a bolt against one
>of the shields, and behold! the point curled up upon itself like a little
>shell.
>
>And a certain Knight was named victor, and he crowned his Lady with a
>wreath of roses. And then all said to one another, “What shall we do next?”
>And it was answered generally thus, “This is Berkeley. Should we not be
>protesting something?” And they marched up and down Telegraph Avenue
>protesting the ugliness of the twentieth century, from which they had
>escaped that day.
>And then, passing by the market, they bought roasted chickens and bottles
>of wine, and returning to the field of the tournament, they built a fire
>and sat around it, eating chickens and drinking wine and telling tales,
>long into the night.
>And the scholar, sitting by the fire, said to herself, “This happened.
>This really happened. The Last Tournament *wasn’t* in 1839, it happened
>today; and someday, years from now, I shall be able to tell my
>grandchildren that once, just once long ago, this happened.”
>
>But the man seated beside her was saying to the man next to him, “Now,
>*next* time I’m going to hit him like THIS!”
>
>Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin Dorothy J. Heydt
>Mists/Mists/West UC Berkeley
>Argent, a cross forme’e sable
>PRO DEO ET REGE
>
>
>="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="="
>Acacia d'Navarre (Chris d'Aquino)
>St Florian-della-Riviere, Lochac, West Kingdom (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)

  *   *   *    Frederick of Holland, MSCA, OP, etc.
|===========|   
(((Flieg Hollander, Chemistry Dept., U.C. Berkeley)))

================ Old Used Duke ===============

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