As I am writing this particular vintage tale the seeds have been sown for a new War of the Pearls. Since there are many new folk in our barony who may not have heard the story of the original War of the Pearls, I feel that this is a good chance to tell some of the history of the Shire of Seleone.
As near as I can remember, it all started at a fighter practice just before Seleone became an independent shire. Several fighters thought it would be rollicking good fun for Seleone to have a war with the Barony of Axemoor. The pretext of the war would be a dispute over the lands between the East and West branches of the Pearl River; each side would claim that it belonged the other, a la The Pennsic War.
Personally, I had reservations about this idea. Isolde and I had founded Seleone as a canton of Axemoor and we had always enjoyed good relations with our parent group. I was afraid that someone might take the war seriously, but I went along with the majority of our citizens who wanted the fight. I should have had more faith in the good folk of both Seleone and Axemoor.
As a preamble to the war, Seleone, started to do some shtick about the boundary with Axemoor. Unfortunately, I had gone a viking at the time so I do not know how exactly it began. I do know that The Honorable Lady Daphne of Colchester composed a bit of doggerel about the tangled web that is weaved when Axemoor practices to deceive and delivered it at Baron Ragnar's court in August A.S. XXVII.
In response to this, Axemoor produced a baronial cartographer, one Jean-Pierre Richard de Montague, (played with a terrible French accent by Lord Shaul ben Yisrael). This most outrageous of fops maintained that he had carefully surveyed the border between Seleone and Axemoor and it was clearly the West Pearl River.
In October I wrote an open letter to Baron Ragnar Kaupmadr in which I stated that obviously Loki had been at play in the Barony and Shire. Since Isolde and I had founded Seleone, we knew where the boundary was, and it was the East Pearl River.
Also, that October, Katerina Tessmer conceived of a brilliant plan for further shtick. The idea was that several of us would assemble at one of the interstate highway bridges over the East Pearl River. We would have our picture taken in front of the East Pearl River sign along with an Axemoor banner and a sign that said, "Welcome to Axemoor".
At the Golden Dragon Tournament hosted by Wyrmgeist several Seleonese "borrowed" one of Axemoor's banners when no one was looking. The abductors left the event after feast, but I stayed for the revel. I remember keeping an eagle eye on Seleone's banner and worrying about what I should say if the theft was discovered. Fortunately, that did not happen before I departed.
We did run into one snag when it came time to execute our plan. It seems that there are no signs on the interstate bridges identifying the East Pearl River. This problem was solved by simply making an (obviously) hand made sign saying "East" and holding it in front of the sign that identified the East Pearl River as merely the Pearl River.
In November Seleone had an event with a Chinese theme: A Wall Too High. Baron Ragnar had to work that Saturday and so he arrived at the event midway through the feast. There were some boos and hisses form the populace of Seleone at his arrival but I stood up and told the populace that this was a historic occasion: never before had I seen Baron Ragnar arrive late for a meal!
Ragnar and Sigrid Thorbjornsdottir had been married the previous weekend so I tried to settle the dispute between Seleone and Axemoor by relinquishing Seleone's claim to the land between the Pearls as a wedding gift. Ragnar declined by pointing out that the land rightly belong to the king, and I had no right to give it to anyone.
Insulted by this refusal of such a generous gift I vowed that Seleone would not let this rebuff go unanswered.