kareina

Greetings,

At the first Drachenwald Crown tourney I attended the first people I met were those people who happened to be sharing a cabin with me. One of the ladies in our cabin had a lord fighting for her in the tournament that day, so she had prepared a bunch of inspiring quotes, and each round before the tourney started, when the salutes were called she went onto the field, and as he champion knelt before her she read one of the quotes from a little leather book before retiring to the sidelines and watching him to battle in her honour. This idea captured my imagination, and when he was given victory on the day I suggested that she write up the story of the day to share with the known world. However, being about to be invested as Queen she didn't have time for this, so I offered to write it for her to edit as she would. Eventually we got the story into a form we liked and submitted it to Tournaments Illuminated.

However, the review panel didn't like the fact that the quotes she'd chosen to inspire her champion mostly came from modern and Victorian sources (including Tolkein). After consultation with both the TI editor and her (now) Grace (this having been the second time she'd used the quotes technique to inspire her champion) we have decided to substitute period quotes for the things she actually said on the day. However, she and I are both in very busy places in our lives at the moment, and don't have time to start skimming the period literature for quotes that would be suitable to speak to one's champion before he raises his sword in defence of one's honour in a Crown Tournament in the SCA.

Therefore I call upon the hive mind: if any of you can think of (or just happen upon in your reading you are doing now) any quotes that you think would be suitable for this article, and are willing to share it with the world, please let me know the quote, and the source (with the details we'd need to cite it in the article). I think for this project any culture, any place, any time within SCA period is fair game, so long as the topic is appropriate.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Once I've got a nice pile of quotes I'll give them to her Grace and let her choose which ones she wishes to substitute for what she actually said on the day.