Went to an SCA event yesterday. Karen and I brought Slim, as there was to be sight-hound coursing. I actually got to see it for the first time (circumstances have always prevented me from seeing it before this). Slim is amazingly fast. And strong! When they tested the lure, even though I was prepared for him to try and go after it, he nearly yanked my arm out of its socket. He was very tired after the coursing, which meant that he slept in the back seat on the way home, instead of trying to come up into the front seat every thirty seconds.

As I missed most of opening Court, I was unable to swear fealty with the rest of my Order, so I had to do it later, in front of the Order. Unlike many Crowns, Odo & Elena didn't make me repeat an oath, but told me to swear fealty in my own words. Which of course I wasn't prepared for. My mind went blank, and then I said something, but I have no recollection of what it was that I said. (It must not have been too bad, as an out-of-kingdom Laurel said "Well sworn" as I came back to my seat.)

But it threw into sharp relief the idiocy of the SCA's utter inauthenticity regarding the matter of religion. Religious observance was one of the chief characteristics of the Middle Ages, yet religion is practically anathema in the SCA, which purports to re-create the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Oaths of fealty were administered with a hand on the Bible, not upon a Sword of State. Period oaths also mentioned GOD a lot, but due to the SCA's official mandate against religious observances, having done so (for the sake of authenticity), without previously announcing my intention to include words of a religious nature (and then providing an opportunity for anyone who might be offended to leave the room), would have landed me in trouble.

Even more ironically, there is much debate in the SCA on whether people with Jewish personas should be required to swear fealty, as it's against the Jewish religion to swear oaths -- despite the fact that it is every bit as much against the teachings of Christianity so to do: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (Matt. 5:33)

Which makes the courtroom tradition of swearing upon the Bible really interesting: if someone is a Christian, and swears upon the Bible, then he's violating the teachings of his religion, which logically calls the veracity of his testimony into question -- for if he is willing to violate his own belief system, how can he be trusted to tell the truth?