Barony of Dreiburgen - Article - Out of The Myths of Time: Chivalry through the ages

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Out of The Myths of Time
Chivalry Through the Ages

by Lord Darius "The happy Cook" von Tannenburg

I finally got around to watching a couple of movies that I have wanting to watch for a while. Both were based on "true" stories. The first was a retelling of the fall of Troy and the second was about a long distance horse race across the Arabian desert. While I enjoyed them both as separate stories I could not help but notice the similarities in each. In the first tale one of the main characters "Achilles" was concerned a great deal with personal glory, but also with honor. He led his troops from the front and did not respect those who would not show equal courage. When his cousin is slain he challenges the city of Troy's war leader to single combat. After his sense of honor is satisfied he is approached by the Trojan King who asks for the return of his son's body so a proper funeral can be held. Moved by this display of honor and courage (the King had sneaked in to the Greek camp to make his plea), he agrees.

The second movie was also about one man's need to prove himself. And like the other story, honor, was not only a theme but nearly another character in itself. Both the organizer of the race and the central character wanted to show the quality of their horse, and both were tested as they tried to hold true to their own moral codes. In the end they learned that despite being products of cultures that were literally from opposite ends of the earth, the concepts of "Honor" and "Courage" made them more alike than different. They became friends before parting.

What would our world today be like if, like the people in the stories, we could all find a way to see that in all the ways that really matter, people are people and we are not so different from each other as we might think? Time and again I am happy to have found myself in the SCA. Here is a place were we are encouraged to be "ourselves" and yet we are all bound by the same principals of "Honor" and "Courtesy" and "Courage." No doubt we take some of what find in our society back with us to the mundane world. When we "play by the rules" rather than take short cuts that in the long run do not help us or our employers, we demonstrate our honor. When a tough job needs doing and volunteers are few, we show courage when we step up to the challenge. I imagine that as time goes by the SCA and similar groups will by these and other examples make the world into the kind of place we might wish for. Forty to Ninety-thousand world wide (depending on whose estimate you look at) might seem like a drop in the bucket of six billion people, but like the ingredients in last night's soup, we could be the spice that makes the human melting pot come out just right.

Darius von Tannenberg has granted permission for all of his articles that were previously on the Dreiburgen web site to continue to appear on the site, 9 Oct 2006.

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