Medieval Times

Prince Goofy the Minimus and his loyal minions gathered his subjects Thursday last, to present his vaunted strategic engagement plans and edicts for the year of our Lord 2009.

Gathered were they to the castle on the hill, where one Lord after another, landed, wealthied, and sycophant all, rose to tell the Prince that all is well in the land of Niocj, the treasury is brimming with gold, and expansion plans are in place to increase the dominion. So to, the messages were directed to his restless subjects, who in the past year had seen many of their number fall due to the strategic missteps emanating from the hands of King Lootus (struck down the year past by unknown illness), and his successor King Charlatan from the West. His subjects knew the loss must be laid upon the plans to send all of their number to foreign lands to fight. To say the natives were restless would be understatement at the least. Questions from the Prince's subjects, though giving the impression of being wanted and accepted, were put off to any remaining time at the end of the day, in hope that there be no time remaining to respond. A few minutes at the end, and questions there were, one in particular about the wiseness of the King's displacement of subjects to foreign lands with no replacements to carry on the fight here at home. The Prince answered himself, with cunning and appeasatory skill using circular logic, not really answering, a Prince he Be after all. Resigned they were, his subjects, no one willing to tell the Prince he wore no clothes, their lives they loved.

Later, knowing the value of entertainment and beer to placate the foul beastery of his unhappy subjects, The Prince ordered that everyone engage in revelry at the sporting arena of a place called Medieval Times, 30 miles distant at the edge of the realm.

Once at the arena, malty and sweet, beer of the Samuel Adams Winter Lager variety was served, the first round paid from the Prince's purse itself! (but after all, this was really the subject's own tax payments unbeknownst to them). The beer was cool and served by the keg to all who had gathered that eve. Expensive in gold this beer was, but the subjects realizing their lot in life, descended upon it like ravenous hyena and quaffed great quantities. What followed was a convivial atmosphere amongst the subjects and even with the great lords of the land! Although the lords seemed a bit perplexed at what to say to ordinary people when unscripted!

Then, with a great flourish of fanfare, the trumpeter blew the gathering to attention in order to proclaim in the words immortalized earlier by one of his subjects, the musician Ian Anderson:

My Lord and Lady, we have fortuitously happened upon these, uh...strolling players to provide you with their goodly tunes whilst you set about your, uh... prandial delights, albeit in the lamentable absence of your guests. So, my lord and lady, for your entertainment......

And so the great congregation moved to the arena with as much beer as they could carry, to be seated at tables facing the center of the arena, and to be entertained by sporting events and frivolous merriment consisting of horsemanship, jousting skill, soldiery, and swordery. The participants in the events were all the knights of the land, who were engaging to achieve the hand of the King's daughter in Holy Matrimony.

The Prince worried for his life amongst the riff-raff of his sometimes disloyal subjects, seated himself at the ultimate seating location, the better to keep an eye on his unruly subjects, a Prince he Be and wish to Remain, after all.

A dinner of tomato bisque and bread (foreign to many of the subjects), roasted fowl with potato, and apple crisp were served along with drink of many varieties, by wenches employed at the arena. The food was excellent, but did nothing to decrease the agitation of the raucous subjects who fervently cheered their Red knight during the games.

But alas, the Red knight, himself acting as if he had drank heavily, was quickly eliminated from the competition, much to the dismay of Prince Goofy's subjects, who then turned their attentions elsewhere for the remainder of the evening.

This unworthy scribe was not able to see straight at the end of the evening, at least enough to understand exactly what happened next as third party post priori accounts vary. One description is that one of the Prince's subjects, one known as Jla, took a roundhouse swing at the Prince upon leaving the arena, but fell flat on his face, having ingested too much beer. Another says that the Prince himself took a swing at Jla, missed, and was himself tagged on the head by a flag of the Red knight flung from the top of the arena by one of his irritated subjects. We'll probably never know exactly what happened, but many subjects wonder amongst themselves, if they will make another year unscathed to participate in such activity again.