[Northkeep] An observation, of a local discussion

Jerry Herring j.t.herring at sbcglobal.net
Fri Oct 7 04:50:49 PDT 2011


It is truly a sad thought that the official fighter practice, the one where 
everyone should be welcome could be cancelled all because of this situation. 
I am not exactly sure what is going on there but I think people may have gone to 
far at that the point that they cancel practice over this. We might all need to 
step back and think about what is going on. If this is the stand the people 
choose to take then they may have lost site of the dream of the SCA and the 
tennents of chivalry and honor that it was based upon. The thought that such 
important ideas might be cast aside so easily is even sadder still. There was a 
time when the measure of a becoming a fighter and a knight in the SCA was more 
than how well you could swing a stick or how well you looked in armor while 
doing so. 

 
Look up some of the tenants of knighthood and chivalry the concepts we are 
supposed to be recreating. For honor and chivalry is charged to every fighter 
who takes the field as the heralds remind them of their oaths. The 
meaning behind those words are very important and in the tenants of knighthood 
that they define are things like protecting and providing for the meek and the 
weak, your word and deed is supposed to tempered with kindness and compassion. 
If we abandon those ideas for the sake of a private practice where only those in 
armor are welcome then at that point all you become is a common warrior trying 
to learn to use a sword and not something more. It is in striving to be more 
than just a warrior with a weapon in the steps one takes to uphold grace and 
honor above skill that the word chivalry and knighthood was born from. Since I 
was 14 years old and saw Balvin, Guest, Jonathan. Beorthlic, Thorvald, and 
others for the first time upon the field and I heard those 
words...for honor, glory, and chivalry lay on...I tried to recreate that moment 
and when as a boy I swung my homemade wooden swords I dreamed of being more, of 
being looked on as honorable, of achieving glory, and doing so with 
chivalry...Until now when I looked upon the fighters of Northkeep as they took 
the field I still saw the heroes of boyhood.
 
These are the last words I will speak on this forum about this subject.
 
Most kindly
Ian


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