ANST - my rant on destroying legends (long)

Screamin Gael screamingael at hotmail.com
Tue May 18 11:55:26 PDT 1999


Greetings and salivations!

FOREWARNING: As anyone who knows me (few on this board) can tell you, I am 
rarely prone to rants, but when I do, they meander, are prone to smart-ass 
commentary, and get a little weird. There, ya been warned. On to the 
rant....

I recently watched a program on TLC or THC (don't remember which program, 
bad with names, but I think it was Arms in Action)that was discussing 
knights, Vikings, and the like. A certain "historian" (I prefer to call him 
a roman bootlicker, for reasons soon to become clear) was happily 
proclaiming the romans to be the only true military force in existance, and 
that everything that came after was a pale shadow of roman might. Well, this 
led into more PHD'ed "experts" griping about how the Vikings were realy just 
scavengers who couldn't fight and were just cowards at heart, knights were 
just mercenary scum, who couldn't fight and were cowards at heart, 
etc.,etc., ad nauseum. Well, after my wife tackled me and wrestled the 
hammer I was trying to hit the TV with out of my hand, I decided to compose 
this rant (and send some realy nasty e-mail to certain "experts"....crude, 
juvenile, but damn satisfying! <EG>).
Why do our historians have to destroy Legends? is it not enough to enjoy 
them, take pride in them, and learn from them? I know the wild west wasn't a 
John-Wayne-in-a-white-hat time period, but it gives us something to strive 
for. Honor, Chivalry, Respect, Dignity....these words have no meaning to 
most people outside of the Society (and, sadly, even to a few IN the 
Society). I blame this on these revisionist jacka&*es ripping the magic of 
legend out of history. Who cares if the knights of the middle ages were 
mercenaries, the legend and mystique of chivalry and honor, the Knightly 
Code, is far more important than the actual history of the knight. It gives 
us something to strive for, a template of how we SHOULD live. So far, the 
SCA is one of the few organizations that makes anything resembling an 
attempt to bring these things back into the modern era. We as a society have 
allowed these smeggin' jerks with the paper degree to turn Chivalric Knights 
we should emulate into rapacious mercenaries with title. They've turned 
Honorable Samurai into merciless thugs. They've even retained the roman 
attitude that the Celts and Vikings were nothing more than barbarians, when 
fact proves otherwise. Yes, I know not all knights were grand and 
chivalrous, and I know Bushido was perverted in later days by the Samurai's 
masters, does that mean I should revel in that? Drek no! In my substantially 
educated mind, Knights will always be Chivalrous, and dragons DID exist, 
fairies DO live in the woods, and so on. Makes my life worth living.
I say we get some Society egghead some money and have him build a time 
machine, send these academic spongeheads back to oh, I dunno.....maybe the 
Cretacious Era, and get them out of our hair!

VIVAT ANSTEORRA!!
VIVAT SOCIETARA!!!
VIVAT LUNACY!!!!

Yours in the Dream (and ranting lunacy),
Breandan Mac Aodha Bhui


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