It Seems Unfair

 

Friday Fiction: King Korm (Part Three)

This was, in ordinary times, the auction block. Now it was hung with banners along the wall, banners representing the crown, the legions, and even some of the greater guilds. Below those was a row of chairs, and seated there was a line-up of well-dressed Morgs, some fidgeting with boredom, some sitting up straight with self-importance. Craning his neck over the murmuring crowd, Korm could identify a royal herald, several sergeants in their dark red cloaks, and even an ancient general in blue.

But what really caught his eye and made him grind his muzzle was when he recognized Sekk, one of the most popular and social Witnesses in the City, looking smooth and sleek and bestowing smarmy, benevolent glances left and right. He fumed for a few seconds, then set it by. Why should this occasion be any different from the rest of life?

Then the five minutes must have passed, for there was another clanging of bells. The Herald stood up and formally approached the podium. He paused, then knocked on the stand slowly, three times, looking left and right over the crowd with a solemn expression. The crowd went silent.

“Cadets of Morg City!” he announced. “I welcome you to the King’s Camp Service. It may interest you to know that you have been counted, and that this year there are nine hundred and forty-six of you, something of a record number. Look around you! For these are all now your brothers, now and for years to come. May you remember that with pride! I welcome you in the King’s name!”

Korm flinched as everyone around him suddenly roared in salute, holding up a clenched right claw to the sky. He belatedly raised his own fist, then held it up a second too long when the others lowered theirs’. Luckily no-one seemed to be paying him any attention.

“I introduce you to Colonel Drim, the Commandant of your Camp,” the Herald barked. “He will be your overseer, your chief, and your ultimate authority for the next nine months. From now on you have no mother, no father, no family; there is only Colonel Drim, and he speaks as your sole commander, under the Throne. Respect him, as you would the King.”

He stepped back from the podium.

“The Colonel will address you.”

And suddenly it seemed to Korm that Drim was abruptly there, as if by magic. He had certainly not noticed the golden-brown cape of a colonel sitting on the stage, but now it was impossible to take his eyes off the precise, erect figure that was marching up to the podium like an inexorable sunrise. The big Morg stopped and glared out at the crowd over his scarred muzzle. He didn’t move his head but appeared to take in the group in one intense scowl.

“I am Colonel Drim, of the Fourteenth Regiment.” His voice was a deep, low rasp that somehow reached and echoed off the farthest wall. “You will refer to me only as Commandant; that is my function for this exercise. Failure to address me properly will be the occasion for a demerit. A demerit will earn you a punishment; the most common punishment is a flogging. You have been warned.”

You could have heard a pin drop. There wasn’t even a shuffling of feet.

“Now, some of you might think Camp is a jolly vacation away from home, sleeping out under the stars and having some rough and tumble brawls like you had with your gangs back behind the tavern at home. Some of you with older brothers may know better. Well, let me tell you how it’s going to be, so you’ll have no further illusions about the matter.

“Camp Service is a serious matter. It will demand your entire attention. And it may very well save your life, the lives of your family, and in some drastic instances, perhaps the existence of the whole City. This is not an exaggeration.”

He looked down at them grimly.

“We live under constant threat from the North. The fact that there has not been a direct assault on the City in your lifetime only means that the likelihood of an attack grows greater and greater. And when Barek – and his Ogres – strike, there may not be much time to train and prepare.

“That is what Camp Service is about!” he bellowed, his armored fist crashing onto the podium. Even some of the sergeants behind him jumped. “So that you are not caught with your diapers down when Ogres come knocking at the City gate! So that you can be mobilized at a moment’s notice to meet any threat.”

His voice became grave and even again.

“There may even be some of you, after the training, who will want to join the regular army. If you do, I congratulate you. There is no nobler sacrifice for your country. But even if you don’t, you can never say that you weren’t prepared for when war came upon you and you had to go marching out.”

Drim cleared his throat. His flat gravelly voice did not change.

“Now I’m going to explain how all this works. War is of necessity a clash between at least two combatants. For the purposes of training, you will be divided into two groups, and each will be headed by a ‘King’. Most training you will receive together, but the exercise of that training will be a competition between ‘Kingdoms’. You will learn how to give commands and how to receive them. You will learn the consequences of your decisions.

“Do not be deceived. The position of King has many responsibilities and few joys. If you are chosen as King, the onus of your Kingdom’s success is on you. You will learn when to take advice and when to stand firm. If you are not chosen King, you will have to learn to follow orders, when to question orders, and how to approach your leaders with subtlety and tact.

“The successes of your Kingdom will be tallied and recorded. At the end of the training there will be one final battle, after which there will be only one with the title of King, and his will be the victory.”

He smiled bleakly.

“You might be asking yourself, what do we win? Well, that’s just it. You win. The King gets a small prize from the City, to celebrate with his subjects, but more important is the honor you will receive for your triumph, the bragging rights for your moment of glory. If you think that little enough …” He paused. “Think of how little it will feel if you don’t win.

“I ask you now to choose your Kings. His Majesty’s Herald shall explain the process.” 

Notes

Most of the illustrations I choose for these stories are only rough approximations, to give a little skin or general feeling to the tales. The marketplace would have been a lot bigger and barer than the picture I chose; General Ursus from Beneath the Planet of the Apes gives only a generic idea of how Colonel Drim seems. My hand is not as steady as it once was or I might have drawn pictures as I did in the old days; nowadays I have to try to make pictures only with words.

A Bit of Theology Thursday: A Pelican in Her Piety

Recently my nephew Kameron went on a tour to visit The Painted Churches. “The "Painted Churches" of Texas are a unique collection of churches, primarily built by Czech and German immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that feature stunning, hand-painted interiors. These churches, often appearing unassuming from the outside, were built by immigrants seeking to recreate the look and feel of their homelands, particularly the Gothic structures they were familiar with.” He took many pictures which I was later able to explicate for him, from the Stations of the Cross to a peculiar bit of stained glass with a rather odd but once popular bit of religious imagery.

(Could be bewildering)

This was a representation of “a Pelican in her Piety”, a formerly widespread religious symbol, popularized and disseminated through a Second Century bestiary, the Physiologus and its successors. 

“The Physiologus is a strange hybrid of genres, … [it] is neither quite natural history nor entirely a collection of just-so-stories. … the Physiologus is the earliest known bestiary—compendium of beasts—that staple of medieval literature. Like many of its inheritors, the Physiologus contains information about a variety of animals, and in each case, a theological interpretation of it. It is difficult to appreciate how, for early Christians, the Bible and the natural world really did make up “two books” to be read and interpreted and mined for meaning. Concerning the pelican, the Physiologus says that

it is an exceeding lover of its young. If the pelican brings forth young and the little ones grow, they take to striking their parents in the face. The parents, however, hitting back kill their young ones and then, moved by compassion, they weep over them for three days, lamenting over those whom they killed. On the third day, their mother strikes her side and spills her own blood over their dead bodies (that is, of the chicks) and the blood itself awakens them from death.

It does not take a subtle mind to see how one might theologise this ornithological observation.”  - https://www.theschooloftheology.org/posts/essay/symbols-the-pelican-in-her-piety

Shakespeare refers to this legend in King Lear. In Act 3, Scene 4, Lear refers to his two daughters, Goneril and Regan, as "pelican daughters," implying that they are feeding off his lifeblood with their greed and cruelty. Shakespeare also uses the imagery in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry VIII.

[A bit of a technical note: the Pelican, in wounding itself, is said in heraldry to be vulning, that is, making itself vulnerable.]

Wideo Wednesday: Get Up and Bar the Door

IT fell about the Martinmas time,

           And a gay time it was then,

           When our goodwife got puddings to make,

           And she’s boild them in the pan.

 275A.2     The wind sae cauld blew south and north,

           And blew into the floor;

           Quoth our goodman to our goodwife,

           ‘Gae out and bar the door.’

 275A.  My hand is in my hussyfskap,

           Goodman, as ye may see;

           An it shoud nae be barrd this hundred year,

           It’s no be barrd for me.’

 275A. They made a paction tween them twa,

           They made it firm and sure,

           That the first word whaeer shoud speak,

           Shoud rise and bar the door.

 275A.5     Then by there came two gentlemen,

           At twelve o clock at night,

           And they could neither see house nor hall,

           Nor coal nor candle-light.

 275A.6     ‘Now whether is this a rich man’s house,

           Or whether is it a poor?’

           But neer a word wad ane o them speak,

           For barring of the door.

 275A.7     And first they ate the white puddings,

           And then they ate the black;

           Tho muckle thought the goodwife to hersel,

           Yet neer a word she spake.

 275A.8     Then said the one unto the other,

           ‘Here, man, tak ye my knife;

           Do ye tak aff the auld man’s beard,

           And I’ll kiss the goodwife.’

 275A.9     ‘But there’s nae water in the house,

           And what shall we do than?’

           ‘What ails ye at the pudding-broo,

           That boils into the pan?’

 275A.10   O up then started our goodman,

           An angry man was he:

           ‘Will ye kiss my wife before my een,

           And scad me wi pudding-bree?’

 275A.11   Then up and started our goodwife,

           Gied three skips on the floor:

           ‘Goodman, you’ve spoken the foremost word,

           Get up and bar the door.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbacJ_ngjeE

Items of a More Reasonable Nature from the Wish List

This final batch of books from the Wish List are at the same time more reasonable (especially reasonably priced; no book over $23) and also at the same time kind of superfluous. Much of the ancient literature is stuff that appeals to my smartypants side; whether I would actually read it is kind of a moot point, but I would be so happy to have them on hand, for reference and whatnot. There are two volumes that, until last night, were competing for my 'one book a month' resolution: Zero Gravity by Woody Allen and Borges: Collected Fictions. If I chose Woody I would have all five of his writing collections, but the clotted comedy of Mere Anarchy has kind of put me off his work for a bit, and there is only a hardcover available right now. Jorge Luis Borges is always a writer I've felt that I should be more into (what with all the fantasy and magical realism and whatnot), and having his collected fictions all in one place appeals to the completist in me. I was never that into him when I was reading Ficciones, though, although now that I'm older I might appreciate his work more. As it is, I can't decide on anything right now, so maybe I'll just let things slide until something really arouses my interest. 

Items from the Wish List: A Series of Series

I have two reasons I get complete DVD boxed sets of television series: to always have shows on hand when I feel the whim to watch them, and to always have them safely filed away so I don't feel I have to watch them whenever they're on. Both of these reasons are connected to what you might call the fugitive nature of some shows: not always being available, or not the right episode that you want to see. Comedy, mystery, science fiction, drama, sometimes all at the same time. Overwhelming if taken all together, the Wish List items may finally be acquired if pecked away at one at a time. But can I? Should I? Are these joys better 'taken on the wing'?

Pricey Items from the Wish List

I'm afraid all my good wishes to finish the LOTR chapter today came to naught; I couldn't even write a little section. Yesterday was a singularly unfortunate and 'off' day; I'm still recovering my spirits. But I still had the odd compulsion to make a list of stuff I wanted from my Amazon Wish List; it is the first of the month and I have no truly compelling item that I have knocking at the door. But these 'big ticket' items have been tickling my fancy for a while; there's just no really good reason to buy them (except for aesthetics, if you can call that a good reason) and prices are high.

Especially enticing but most unnecessary are those deluxe editions of Tolkien books, each with Tolkien's own illustrations; they are volumes of which I already have multiple copies. Would I even read them, or would I be too fearful of even besmirching them with my touch? But they are beautiful, and impressive, and a luxury that I would be hard-pressed to justify. 

More justifiable would be the Annotated editions, dripping as they are with various illustrations and scholarly notes. But it would be the third edition of The Annotated Alice that I've ever owned, each more intricate than the last. I already have adequate versions of The Arabian Nights and Hans Christian Andersen; the only book I really don't have is The Secret Garden, and my interest in that is kind of marginal.

I'll probably have several other Wish List inventories through the day, not all of books, but certainly all items that I either can't afford or can't justify, but I certainly would like to own. If it were just a matter of wishing.