I got a bluetooth gadget for my car radio recently, so now when I’m out driving I can listen to stuff on my phone instead of the pitiful collection of local radio stations (plus one community station). When I’m giving the BatPup a lift somewhere, which is frequently, that means listening to their Spotify playlist. And one of the songs has a line about “who died and made you king”, which got me thinking about the answer to that in the SCA.
In theory, “who died” is whoever came second in the final of the Crown Tourney, so for our current King Niall the answer would be Sir Radbot von Borg. But in a sense, a tournament is like a Sort function: whoever wins has defeated every other entrant (figuratively and indirectly, most of the time, but literally in the case of the last May Crown, which was a round robin in which Niall was undefeated). So “who died” would be: all the entrants. But then you have to consider that a victory comes as a result of a lifetime of training and education, and in a sense it’s everyone he ever fought, and everyone he ever learned from. And when you consider that some of our influences are no longer with us in this physical plane, there may even be some people who did, literally, die to make him King.
So I wrote this. The tune is here. The first person to comment after I posted this on FB was the current King himself, so I guess it passes muster.
August 2019
You fought the tourney to win the Crown
You were the greatest, hands down
That’s honest cheering, can you hear the crowd:
‘Cause win, tie or lose it, boy, you did us proud.
But in the feast hall, you stop a while
You’re looking wistful, mid-smile
They think it’s all about the pointy hat
But you know there’s so much more to this than that
You’ve got the power, you’ve got the glory
You’ll write the next page in all our story
And through it all the most important thing
Is who died and made you King.
It’s not some child’s game, no spelling bee,
You have no umpire, no referee
Your honour’s beacon is your guiding light
The only fight worth winning is a true, clean fight.
You’ve got the power, you’ve got the glory
You’ll write the next page in all our story
And through it all the most important thing
Is who died and made you King.
Your friends and teachers, they taught you how;
Some stand here with you, right now.
And some are memories, now gone before:
But they’ll be beside you for ever more.
You’ve got the power, you’ve got the glory
You’ll write the next page in all our story
You won’t forget the most important thing
Is who died and made you King.
Who died and made you King.