Arrochar Strikes
By THLaird Colyne Stewart, July AS 50 (2015)
At Trillium War the sinners gathered
As clerics set the field with painted pins
To make the penitent repent their sins
The contrite pilgrim must then take a ball
And from safe distance roll it ‘cross the grass
Then in the outcome they must prove their class
And fight one knight per pin that did not fall.
So teams of three were sent to do the deed
And Arrochar took up the worthy call
And stood on field, waiting their turn with ball,
When Berend, gentle Master of the Laurel,
Awed all with glorious shoots of superb skill
As more than once he sent the ball to kill
And sent all pins to lie in repose floral.
Sir Nigel told him then to stand aside
And let his brothers take their turns to throw
So Kol and Colyne then their skill did show
And knocked pin after pin unto the ground
Though not as well as Berend did they tried
Rejoiced when many so thus truly died
Then went to face the knights upon the mound.
So well three battles then the squires fought
In singles first they faced a Master pink
Much blood was spilt for greedy grass to drink
Then three on three they faced a hardy group
Defeated two before the battle’s end
And finally beat a polearm’s deadly friend
To prove their worthy valour as a troupe.
With skill of arm at boules and with the blade
The house of Arrochar purged forth their sins
And the holy clerics tallied up their wins
In honour of their knight and of his love
The ermine and the star won well the day
By dropping pins and fighting in the fray
And in good brotherhood they won thereof.
And so to Nigel do we therefore praise
For teaching well his men the warrior’s ways
May much more honour come in future days.
At War of the Trillium
2015, there was a Bowling Knights tournament based on a period event where
people would roll a ball at pins representing their skins. They were pardoned
for each sin they knocked down, and then could pay to be forgiven for any
remaining sins. In the Bowling Knights tourney, each of the pins was
represented by a knight or master-of-arms. So, when a team took a turn to bowl,
they had to fight any members of the chivalry whose pin was still standing.
There were six pins, and five frames. Each pin knocked down, and each member of
the Chivalry defeated, were worth one point.
Team Arrochar was one
of six or seven teams to take part, and was represented by Baron Berend van der
Eych, Baron Kolbjorn Skatkaupandi and THL Colyne Stewart. In the first frame,
Berend bowled a strike. He repeated this in the second. At this point he was
told by his knight, Sir Nigel, not to throw the third. Instead, Kol bowled the
third frame and knocked down all the pins except for Duchess Kaylah’s. Arrochar
offered her single combat and defeated her. In the fourth frame, Colyne knocked
down three pins so it was a three on three fight. Arrochar managed to take out
two of the knights before being defeated by the third. Berend was then allowed
to bowl again for the last frame. He got another strike, but as it was the last
frame he was allowed another ball. This time he knocked down five pins, and
Arrochar faced Sir Tiberius. As Tiberius brought out a polearm, single combat
was not offered. Arrochar swarmed Tiberius and won the field.
This meant that
Arrochar missed out on only one point, and scored 35 out of a possible 36 to
win the tourney (due largely to Berend’s skill at bowling).
This poem was written
as a canzone, which was an Italian or Provençal song or ballad, or a type of
lyric resembling a madrigal, originating during the 13th century. Derived
from the Provençal canso, the canzone consisted of five to seven stanzas with
each stanza being between seven to twenty lines. It ends with a tornado, the
Provençal version of the envoi (a shortened stanza used as a sort of epilogue).
