Spear pennants

dennis guy grace amazing at mail.utexas.edu
Wed Oct 2 08:27:30 PDT 1996


At 11:12 AM 10/2/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>In order to avoid (or confuse) the "spear-stealers", has anyone seriously 
>considered tear-away pennons instead of reinforcing them more heavily?
>
>Would probably make for a one-time surprise, but I suspect that it could be 
>a pretty funny sight when that "handle" comes off in the hand of the 
>attempted snatcher (and an off-balance would-be stealer *might* be more open 
>to that return thrust!)
>
I love this idea.  It's sly, devious, cunning--Sun Tsu would approve.  I
have a clear image of a spear-stealer toppling onto his backside with a
handful of tear-away pennon.  We could make the pennons of a fairly sturdy
broadcloth (painted or inked rather than embroidered, to keep down the cost)
and make the ties of felt, perforated to facilitate tearing away.  We could
even write messages on the margins of the pennons--something like:

        This pennon has been alchemically treated to cause rapid genital
shrinkage.  Have a nice day.

I have also found that, by connecting my pennons with stitched loops instead
of ties, I can march with my pennon at the spear head and slide it back down
toward the butt before engaging.  I devised this method to avoid damaging a
finely made pennon, but it should work to keep it out of reach of grabby
enemy soldiers.

Also, a shovel handle at the butt of your spear will not only keep the
banner from slipping off the spear, it will make your spear harder to pull
away and give just a tiny bit of added oomph to that last foot of full range
thrust.

Sir Lyonel
Dennis G. Grace
Postmodern Medievalist
Assistant Instructor
Division of Rhetoric and Composition
University of Texas at Austin

For every wight that lovede chivalrye
And wolde, his thankes, han a passant name,
Hath preyed that he myghte been of that game.
                --Jeff Chaucer (obviously describing the SCA) 
         




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