I guess, since I happened to bring it up in the last vintage tale, I’ll continue with some more of my less than stellar pronunciations. In particular, I remember an Axemoor Christmas Revel at which I was in charge of the live weapons.
As is frequently the case, the live weapons were being run at the same time as archery, and many of the gentles in attendance wished to participate in both contests. Several of the participants shuttled between the two venues, and one of these shuttlers was Duke Kane Redfeather.
Because of the back and forth traffic between archery and live weapons, I frequently had to call over to the archery range to alert a participant that his turn at live weapons target had come up. When Duke Kane’s turn came to throw the ax at 25 feet range, he was again over at the archery range. While this worthy was both a Duke and a Knight I couldn’t resist calling him over to the live weapons range thusly: “Duke Sir Kane Redfeather, get your axe over here!”
Fortunately, it is a measure of the graciousness of the man, as well as his sense of humor, that he did not take offense at my attempt at levity. Of course this was not the first time I had used the good knight as my foil. A few years earlier, during the second reign of Kane and Ilissa their Majesties attended an Axemoor Mad Hats Tourney. At the end of the feast, the autocrat announced a contest to state in 25 words or less, “Why I would like to cut Kane with a knife.” The winner would then have the right to cut Kane.
At first the populace seemed reluctant to make such a treasonous statement, but after come cajoling people began to stand up and give their reasons for wishing to cut Kane with a knife. I’m sorry I don’t remember specific ones, but I do remember that they all seemed rather mediocre to me. I could not help but think, “My word, have they all forgotten their Sunday school lessons?”
Finally, when it seemed that no one was going to give what, to me, was the obvious reason, I stood up. “I would like to cut Kane with a knife for one reason,” I declared, “I am Able!”
The winner of the contest was declared to be Her Majesty (I believe that the fix was in on this one). Ilissa stated she would like to cut Kane with a knife because she was, “Co-Kane”. As the winner Her Majesty was given a sharp knife and then a large cake in the image of His Majesty was wheeled in and Her Majesty then proceeded to cut Kane with a knife. If I remember correctly, I got a piece of his foot and I must say that I never knew His Grace was chocolate.
My most regrettable utterance, however came not at an event but at a demo. At one time there was a Renaissance Faire held at the Petit Bosie shopping center, and Seleone provided demos. I usually did the announcing for the fighting demos, and this was the case one Sunday morning when we had just finished a team melee. As I strode out to the center of the list field in order to announce the final item, a grand melee, it occurred to me that the mundanes seemed to be particularly responsive, especially the children. That inspired me to stat my spiel to announce the grand melee with, “Fun family entertainment. People killing each other!”
After I had said it I realized that this probably wasn’t an utterance which would put the Society in the best light. I really didn’t think much beyond that until I saw myself quoted in the paper the following day. As I recall, there was subsequently a letter to the paper decrying the glorification of violence at the Renaissance Fair. Maybe that’s why the Faire was discontinued after the second year.