[SCA] RIP Duke Gyrth
Nov. 13th, 2004 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damontDuke Gyrth Oldcastle, Conch Herald of Atlantia, former Brigantia Principal Herald of the East Kingdom, passed from this life today.
Sorry to those for whom the first bit of this duplicates much of what I posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sca_heralds ...so I'll put the rest behind a cut (which you're now looking behind -- pay no attention to the man behind the curtain).
Dammit. I had known he was sick, but not this bad off. He had been ill, having recently lost a leg (in stages no less) due to an injury suffered earlier this year. This afternoon a heart attack took him from us.
I am sorry that I never did get the chance to sing him the filk I wrote for him, which appears (in part) in the Known World 2004 Proceedings. Gyrth was the one person whose style I always tried to emulate as a court herald, and he will be missed.
It's a little more than that though -- he was such a huge figure in the history of the SCA around here. He was King of the East once, later the losing finalist in the very first Atlantian Crown Tourney, eventually winning again and being the third King of Atlantia. Over the years his household has provided no small number of kings, officers, et cetera. It is sobering to realize that one of the founders of my kingdom is gone, not to an accident, but to his body simply giving out on him.
"Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away."
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
montuos has already posted the Cookie Story as a tribute, so I will post the other good story to which I bore direct witness. At a Coronation some years ago -- probably Fall Coronation, just after Pennsic -- I was asked to be Gyrth's second for Court. A delegation from the East Kingdom was called in, and its leader told a tale of how Atlantian fighters were both huge and quick. This, of course, could only be the result of some nefarious Breeding Program, which needed to be halted. The King of Atlantia, needless to say, disagreed. The "disagreement" became a challenge, and the very first Pointless War was arranged. (More recently a heresy has developed in which this war is called "Kingdom Crusades" by those who know no better.)
And when that piece of Court business was concluded, Gyrth cried out: "To the East -- our friends in peace, and in pieces!" Vivat.
Maybe he'll be able to hear me from where he's gone when I finally get around to singing "I Wanna Be Gyrth Oldcastle" someday.
Sorry to those for whom the first bit of this duplicates much of what I posted to
sca_heralds ...so I'll put the rest behind a cut (which you're now looking behind -- pay no attention to the man behind the curtain).Dammit. I had known he was sick, but not this bad off. He had been ill, having recently lost a leg (in stages no less) due to an injury suffered earlier this year. This afternoon a heart attack took him from us.
I am sorry that I never did get the chance to sing him the filk I wrote for him, which appears (in part) in the Known World 2004 Proceedings. Gyrth was the one person whose style I always tried to emulate as a court herald, and he will be missed.
It's a little more than that though -- he was such a huge figure in the history of the SCA around here. He was King of the East once, later the losing finalist in the very first Atlantian Crown Tourney, eventually winning again and being the third King of Atlantia. Over the years his household has provided no small number of kings, officers, et cetera. It is sobering to realize that one of the founders of my kingdom is gone, not to an accident, but to his body simply giving out on him.
"Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away."
montuos has already posted the Cookie Story as a tribute, so I will post the other good story to which I bore direct witness. At a Coronation some years ago -- probably Fall Coronation, just after Pennsic -- I was asked to be Gyrth's second for Court. A delegation from the East Kingdom was called in, and its leader told a tale of how Atlantian fighters were both huge and quick. This, of course, could only be the result of some nefarious Breeding Program, which needed to be halted. The King of Atlantia, needless to say, disagreed. The "disagreement" became a challenge, and the very first Pointless War was arranged. (More recently a heresy has developed in which this war is called "Kingdom Crusades" by those who know no better.)And when that piece of Court business was concluded, Gyrth cried out: "To the East -- our friends in peace, and in pieces!" Vivat.
Maybe he'll be able to hear me from where he's gone when I finally get around to singing "I Wanna Be Gyrth Oldcastle" someday.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 05:57 am (UTC)