My armour is cold

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, March AS 50 (2016)

I cannot fight, my gear is cold,

I feel my age, I feel so old,

Today was tough, I am so tired,

My armour needs to be rewired,

My leg is sore, so is my hip,

My sword has lost its thrusting tip,

I just am not in fighting mood,

I recently ate too much food,

I want to talk to other folk,

I have no drive to slash and poke,

My fighting clothes are damp and wet,

They smell of month old event sweat,

My axe is blunt, my helm all rust,

My shield is laden down with dust,

I feel a cold just coming on,

I cannot breath through deaf’ning yawn,

I have no tape to make repairs,

I did not bring my underwears,

My cup is sitting on the steps,

So little strength in my biceps…

A glare from knight puts all to rest

I armour up and do my best.

Written as an escondich which was an Occitan genre of poetry about excuses. Bertran de Born (1140s – c. 1215) wrote the only extant example of this genre known as Le m’escondisc (“He Protests His Innocence to a Lady”).