[tunes: (slow) The Patriot Game; or (fast) Sweet Betsy from Pike]
Oh, have you encountered the club “S.C.A.”?
They look medieval, in a modernized way;
They hold royal courts, feasts, and tourneys by sword,
To recreate Kingdom (and even the Horde).
Their people will tell you some fine-sounding things,
Of honour most noble, and the valour of kings,
Of how hard they work to earn chivalry’s name,
And then they will tell you, “It’s only a game.”
It’s forty-five years now, almost to the day,
Since I started “playing” in the S.C.A.
I’ve learned a few lessons, both painful and true,
And if you’ll have patience I’ll tell them to you.
Sometimes telling evil from good’s hard to do;
What’s kind and what’s cruel might give you a clue.
In play and in real life, the rules ain’t the same;
When the pieces are people, it’s not just a game.
Now, no-one could number the tourneys I’ve seen
Where men fought for honour, or for choosing the Queen;
In chivalric armor, how knightly they’d look,
But they would not acknowledge the blows that they took.
Some folks can’t distinguish the false from the real:
Awards are worth more than mere humans, they feel;
They’ll trample real people for fictional fame;
They don’t think it’s wrong, 'cause “it’s only a game.”
I’ve seen many good folk (I don’t know them all)
Earn honours for service beyond duty’s call,
Or crafting and artwork more lovely than Kells’s;
The awards for their labour went to someone else.
So if getting titles and glory’s your aim,
Be quick to take credit and swift to shift blame,
Know whom to suck up to and whom to defame,
And then you’ll have mastered the S.C.A. game.
Like any man, each king has had his own flaws:
Some proved it with malice, greed, spite, and bad laws.
That many are bastards should be no surprise,
When they’re crowned 'cause they’re fighters, not fair, kind, or wise.
So if you encounter the grand S.C.A.,
Look close at their actions, not just what they say,
Take heavily salted the things that they claim,
And don’t let them tell you it’s only a game!