The challenge was to write a "bardic" piece based on the events at Border Spat III. I wasn't confident enough to write it entirely on the day, so I wrote a rough piece based on the assumption that Ealdormere would win, and took my rhyming dictionary and thesaurus to the event with me to expand on the theme or change it entirely if the East won. As it turned out, there was neither the time nor the need to change it, so I entered it in the competition as it stood.
In choosing the tune (and hence the metre and rhyme pattern) for my work, I wanted to use something that had been used for a military themed ballad, and which was from prior to 1600. Looking through my books, the most obvious one that came to hand was The Queene's visiting of the Campe at Tilsburie, set to a tune called "Wilson's Wilde", by Thomas Delony, who died in 1600. It has a reasonably easy tune to sing, but an unusual verse structure - ABABCCDEFE.
My choice of language was fairly haphazard. I tried to avoid any particularly modern words or allusions, and in some places made an effort to use period grammatical style ("did they set forth", "did lay sleeping") and terms ("knavish and scurvy, and ill-favoured crew"), but on the whole this was rather a rush job for me.
The background to this story: the "Eastern Salient" is the area around Gatineau, just over the river from the Barony of Skraeling Althing in Ealdormere. Although geographically a part of the East Kingdom, there is no real EK presence in the area. Three years ago Ealdormere received a letter, written in haste and spattered with blood, saying that the Eastern Salient was beset by bandits and that the East were not protecting them as they should. Since the East were obviously unable to perform their duty, Ealdormere laid claim to this land. This precipitated a "border spat" between the East and Ealdormere, in the form of a fencing event to determine which kingdom had the might of arms to take care of the Eastern Salient. The event has now been held three years running, and this piece was written to commemorate Border Spat III, held in September of A.S. XXXVII (2002 C.E.).
Three years ago, as I hear tell,
And as I will sing, with your consent,
A dire fate our friends befell
Who dwell in the Eastern Salient
Their crops and lands were set afire
And for their women, fates even more dire
Their roads and highways beset by bandits
Their houses looted, their villages sacked
Their fertile fields plundered and pillaged
Who could protect them from this foul attack?Their trusty guardians answered the call
From Ealdormere did they set forth
They took their swords and daggers and all
To prove their honour and their worth.
Their Eastern neighbours did lay sleeping
Blithely ignoring the villagers' weeping
Only a handfull of Eastern sluggards
Knavish and scurvy, an ill-favoured crew
Came to protect the Eastern Salient
But when they arrived, they were too few.And so the guard of Ealdormere
Delivered the salient from its plight
The villagers had no more to fear
No more accursed by this woeful blight
Their wives and children could venture abroad
With thanks to the strength of Ealdormere's sword
Ealdormere vowed for to protect them
With sword and musket their lands to defend
The peasants promised, this coming year,
Their tithes and homage to Ealdormere send