[Bryn-gwlad] Archery and the Moustache War

[Chris Zakes]

At 11:06 AM 8/31/2006, you wrote:

>Thanks for telling me about the story and I look forward to hearing 
>the rest of it.


I can give some more details on this.

The Moustache War was something of a spinoff from another 
inter-baronial a few years earlier (In that one, Baron Bjorn of 
Namron decided that since the Barony of Bjornsborg was *obviously* 
named after him, it should therefore pay him tribute, or possibly it 
belonged to him--stories differed. The fact that Bjornsborg had been 
in existence since before Bjorn had even heard of the SCA was 
conveniently ignored.<G> Much good-natured silliness with claims and 
counter-claims being posted in the Black Star, ensued--sort of like 
the posts about the Widow Ruspoli for Gothic War these days.)

Anyway, My lady and I were driving back from a Steppes Twelfth Night 
with Baron Johann and Baroness Erika, and got to talking about that 
war, and decided it'd be fun to do it again. At that point, Don Robin 
of Gilwell (whose coat of arms features a moustache) was Baron of the 
Steppes; one of Bryn Gwlad's prominent citizens was Don Blayne 
AtteWood, who sported a particularly impressive handlebar 
moustache--an obvious infringement on Robin's arms. To emphasize the 
seriousness of this situation we scheduled the war for April Fool's 
Day. (Unfortunately, as Daniel pointed out, some people took it 
seriously anyway, which just goes to show the Perversity of Human Nature.)

At the war, the Steppes had recruited quite a few "hotshot" fighters, 
most notably Duke Inman who was probably the best fighter in 
Ansteorra and one of the best in the entire SCA. Bryn Gwald, on the 
other hand, had mostly mid-level and beginner fighters but lots more 
archers with *lots* of arrows. In each melee, as soon as "lay on" was 
called, our archers started by picking off the top-level folks on the 
other side, and kept shooting until everyone on the other side was 
dead. I wasn't keeping score, but I'm pretty sure that Inman was 
killed within the first thirty seconds or so of *every* battle, and 
I'm not sure if he ever got to throw a blow all day. He was, 
understandably, *not* happy.

         -Tivar Moondragon