Tribal Law? Spears at Fifty Paces?

Now just before leaving the subject of duelling, and returning to the saga of the injured brother (alright, the ‘Badly’ injured brother). How preferable would it have been, to have those punishments conducted with the same rules as duelling? Two people, each of them having a choice of weapons (which had to be agreed upon), with witnesses to arbitrate the matter? The power, and ability of ‘seconds’, to step in to stop excessive, extreme, or dangerous methods (because even duels were stopped if one combatant was injured in such a way that prevented the other combatant from winning honourably), this would be a crucial component. They could have helped in many situations I found myself in. I can picture it now the larger size of my father’s frame filling the room, My smaller, younger self (I was a little shorter then), standing before him, the seconds to our left and then, that moment of decision. Selecting weapons.

Knowing what I know about my father, distance would be important. Even if he had the reach, I had to choose something suitably distant (ICBM’s were out, of course, unfortunately). I also had certain skills which I knew my father didn’t possess (I was very good at throwing horse chestnut ‘grenades’. Another game we played in the park). I think I knew, a little of the way his mind worked, having competed against him in chess over the early years. And beating him several times in the many games we had played, gave me a little confidence.

There was always the ‘stand your ground’ method (tribal law, in some indigenous cultures) where each of us would take turns to stand in one place and, have the other person throw a spear at the other? It seemed I already knew how to throw a stilt and thus cause damage, albeit accidental (hence the reason we are discussing this predicament). But, a spear at distance, I wonder?

I had in later years attempted the javelin at high school. It was just unfortunate that the year I got to try out, our form accepted a 6ft tall 13 year old behemoth, who, could not only throw a javelin three times further than any other student, but ended up throwing the discus clear across the practice field and breaking a window of the English home room. He was then selected for the inter school sports. The sad thing, it was easy for him, for me it too a lot of effort to even raise the interest of the sports coach. And while he was readily available after school for coaching, I was having to get to my after school hours jobs, so as to have a little money. The first inter school competition was astonishing when he first walked out to the team line. I heard a collective groan from the opposition. He won the event, and the discus, and then decided he didn’t really want to do it anymore. But by then, records had been set and I was not even on the radar. So, no skill there, spears at fifty paces were right out.

(Continued tomorrow)