[Sca-cooks] silly reasons for SCA wars

[Stefan li Rous]

> Sorry...my bad.  Our Barony and our neighbors in Storvik had a war one
> year...it was kind of silly, but lots of fun.  The point of  
> dissension was
> the fact that a town called Upper Marlboro was in their Barony and  
> Lower
> Marlboro was in ours.  We claimed that they should cede Upper  
> Marlboro so we
> could reunite the two Marlboros!  Very silly.

No silly than the struggle that started Pennsic..  between the East  
and the Middle to decide which kingdom that Pittsburgh was in.. the  
loosing side got Pittsburgh.  Or so I have been told.

Ranvaig >>>

Yes, that is one of the stories which has grown up around Pennsic.  
Even Master Cariadoc gives two different stories. The real one, and  
the one that makes the better story. You can find both of them in the  
Florilegium, although right now I can't remember whether they are in  
the Pennsic history file, the Pennsic stories file or one of the SCA  
story files.

Unfortunately, no matter what precautions you take to come up with a  
silly reason for a war, someone is likely to forget it is just in fun  
and get too serious about it. Just after I joined the SCA, about 18  
or 19 years ago, there was a war between the Barony of Bryn Gwlad and  
the Barony of the Steppes in Ansteorra over mustaches, called the  
Mustache War. The creators of this war chose that since they figured  
no one would take it seriously and forget it was in fun. From a  
recent message on this war from the guy who was baron at that time:
"It was originally about Don Blayne's mustache, ya know. He had that  
magnificent handlebar that Robin said infringed on his badge. My  
having a respectable mustache was just icing on the cake, and Robin  
expanded his "attack" to include all the mustaches of Bryn Gwlad.  
(And yes, the exchange mentioned below did happen at least once after  
war had become inevitable, although I doubt anyone remembers the  
actual words used. But this is close enough.)

CC cookies weren't only the prize -- winner take all although we  
shared with the losers of course -- but also the coin of choice for  
hiring mercenaries. Bryn Gwlad had barrels of them. Literally barrels."

Unfortunately, one of the cadets had a Don who lived in the other  
barony and decided to fight with his Don rather than with his barony.  
A lot of people got upset and turned against this individual and a  
number of nasty things were said and accusations thrown around about  
loyalty and such.

But then it seems I've heard a lot of accusations thrown around about  
loyalty and such in regards to the fiasco in Iraq in the last couple  
of years as well, so I guess no matter what silly reason you come up  
with for a war it is likely to lead to accusations of lying and lack  
of loyalty and bitter feelings.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****