[Ansteorra] Story from Crown Tourney

[tmcd at panix.com]

Leaving aside the question of mad dogs and Ansteorrans fighting in the
noonday sun:

On Mon, 12 Jul 2010, Jay Rudin <rudin at peoplepc.com> wrote:
> Pick your favorite heroic movie.  Examine it carefully, and you'll
> see that the hero -- the one you're cheering for -- is doing
> something stupid.
>
> Robin Hood shouldn't enter the archery contest.  D'Artagnan
> shouldn't have three duels with musketeers on his first day in
> Paris. ...
>
> These things are stupid -- outrageously, gloriously stupid.

I've never had much tolerance for the outrageously, gloriously stupid,
especially when it affects others.

Robin Hood endangered not just himself, but his people and his cause.
The duke of Buckingham didn't just endanger England vis a vis France,
he endangered the honor and the life of his beloved, the queen of
France.  Byrhtnoth nobly let the Vikings come across the causeway to
the shore, and thereby got his forces annihilated in the Battle of
Maldon, thereby forswearing his oath to protect his men and his
people; his people were looted, burned out, raped, enslaved, and/or
murdered, and the English ended up paying the Danegeld anyway.

My hero is Henry II Plantagenet, who loved peace and rarely attacked,
who ended 19 years of anarchy, reduced England to peace, established
the kingdom so firmly that it was never seriously threatened again,
made many good laws, was so famed that he was offered the kingdom of
Jerusalem (and was wise enough to turn it down), and was the only
medieval king of England to die rich.  Richard the Lion-Hearted was
the noble crusader who loved war above all things, who largely failed
in his crusade, help the oppression of the Jews and slaughters among
his victims, spent the treasury into virtual bankruptcy, and left his
kingdom without a clear heir and defences so weakened that his
successor could not hold on.  And don't even get me STARTED on that
arrogant two-faced snot Tommy Becket.

Danyll de Lyncoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com