>
> "Andrew Solovay" <asolovay_at_...> writes:
>
> >the wealthy clan might retaliate by
> >making a generous-but-useless gift to the poor clan (like a sacred
> >relic of great historical significance but little practical use).
>
> Which immediately makes me think that there might be a few
> hugely-valuable but totally-useless relics that have been passed
> around from clan to clan for the last 300 years (if not the last
> 3000)... kind of like those unwanted gifts that, the story goes,
> people receive for Christmas from one relative only to give them to a
> different relative the next Christmas.
OK, somebody has to write the legend of Eurmal's Fruitcake now.
David