I will kill him I will kill him Cunning me that no one sees But Trickster did not dare attack Hoolar openly. Hoolar'sfriends were stout and round. Hoolar's friends would thrash him sound. So Trickster stole poison from Hundred Step (2). Then he invited Hoolar to dinner. "Sit and eat, Hoolar," said Trickster. "I have prepared Last Dish Stew."
They sat to eat. Trickster spooned up a big dish of stew for Hoolar, and another dish of stew for himself. Before they ate, Trickster saw mud on Hoolar's hands. (3) Hoolar was embarrassed and left to wash. While he was gone, Trickster put the Hundred Step poison in Hoolar's bowl. The poison sizzled and bubbled as all poisons do, trying to warn Hoolar that it was there. But it had settled down by the time he came back. Then Hoolar saw mud on Trickster's hands. And Trickster had to go and wash.
He came back and ate the stew with Hoolar. Then he sat and watched Hoolar. They chewed fenef seeds (4) and chatted. Trickster kept looking for signs of poison in Hoolar. He looked so hard he began to feel a pain in his stomach.
But Hoolar felt fine. "That was a good supper, Trickster." he said. "But you were much too generous." Trickster felt more pangs inside. Hoolar reassured him.
You gave me too much stew, my friend.
You gave yourself too little, my friend.
While you were washing for cleanliness I gave your bowl to me I took your bowl for mine So you had the greater So I had the lesser Thank you Trickster, for Last Dish Stew You are my best friend.
And that was the end of Trickster.
TRICKSTER'S SECOND POISONING OF HOOLAR One day, Trickster had had enough of Hoolar.
I will kill him I will kill him Cunning me that no one sees (5)
But Trickster did not dare attack Hoolar openly. So Trickster went to Noruma and stole Spirit Rock Poison. Trickster had a good plan to fool Hoolar. He invited Hoolar over for dinner. Trickster gloated.
First I make a pot of stew Hide a bowl under the rug No one sees the hidden bowl Then pour poison in the pot All the stew is bad for man Hoolar will eat the stew Hoolar will die of the stew
When Hoolar came by, Trickster poured a bowl for each of them. Hoolar was happy. "Last Dish Stew, this is my favorite!" (6) Trickster and Hoolar both went to wash. Trickster came back second. When Hoolar was not looking, Trickster pulled the hidden bowl out from under the rug, and replaced it with the bowl from the table. He was pleased with himself.
As they ate, Hoolar kept looking at Trickster curiously. Finally Trickster could stand it no longer. "Why look at me, Hoolar?" he asked.
"You have strange spices, Trickster." said Hoolar.
Trickster finished his bowl. "Strange spices, Hoolar?" "Yes," said Hoolar. "I was just about to eat my bowl of stew,when I saw you'd seasoned it with Spirit Rock Poison. I cannot eat Spirit Rock Poison. I am surprised that _you_ can."
"But you ate your stew", said Trickster. "I saw you." "Oh," said Hoolar. "I found an old forgotten bowl hiddenunder the rug with no Spirit Rock Poison in it. I put my bowl there and took it for my own. I did not think you would mind."
But Trickster could not answer. He had already turned to stone.
(1) Murder by poison is considered to be murder via witchcraft, and as such is one of the few Doraddi capital crimes.
(2) Hundred Step is either a reference to a venomous centipede or to a deadly snake of that name.
(3) The Doraddi, while not scrupulously clean, are expected to carefully wash their hands and face before eating. Not least because they normally eat from a communal bowl. Trickster feeds stew to Hoolar precisely because this permits him to provide separate bowls, into one of which he inserts the poison.
(4) a mild intoxicant
(5) there is at least one more Trickster Poisoning of Hoolar tale. All begin identically.
(6) a snide insert by the storyteller to make fun of Trickster and please his listeners, who of course know all the Poisoning stories by heart.
Question for SCAers:
How often do you get hit in your arm proper -- not the shoulder, or near the shoulder, but the actual arm itself? The legionairy armor I've seen had shoulder protection that would have protected the shoulder and the top half of the upper arm.
Steve Lieb
>My original point was as regards the SCA simulations and their
>utility for drawing conclusions - I still stand by it. Regardless
>of whether the Swiss or Greeks planted the butts of spears/pikes/etc
>in the ground, NOBODY simply charged in a wedge at a pike square
None of the SCA battles so far described have had anything near a pike square. A wedge may well have worked against the kind of short-spear armed guys that the SCA seems to field. I ask the SCA -- no one has yet mustered a unit in which everyone was armed with 10 foot or longer spears, have they? Since the SCA is primarily medieval, they'd have no desire to reproduce this, it seems to me. The Swiss pikemen are appearing near the end of the time that interests most SCAers, but if one of you knows of a case in which SCA forces carried long pikes and marched in step I'd be delighted to hear about it.
Steve, your conclusion that the SCA battles are totally bogus may or may not be so, but an unfair comparison between a pike square and a rabble of spear-armed SCAers won't answer the question.
> for the majority of the republic, and much of the empire, Rome was
>a largely infantry force. Cavalry pursuit and massed cavalry action
>just wasn't common
BUT, as soon as the Romans began meeting and fighting mounted foes, their war style change. The Byzantines, heirs to the Roman style of government & war, learned in wars against Frankish knights and Persian bowmen to use horsemen of their own. And the Romans would have done the same, if they'd had to fight horsemen frequently. But during the course of the Western Empire, the only horsemen they met were the Parthians and the Huns. Note that against both these foes, the Romans had real serious problems.
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