Dikkii passed this tag along. Normally I don't do tags but this one was so odd it caught my eye. I can't see the why of it. So I thought I'd do it and maybe find out later if it means anything.
1. Grab the nearest book (that is at least 123 pages long).
2. Open to p. 123.
3. Go down to the 5th sentence.
4. Type in the following 3 sentences.
5. Tag five people.
The first four bits were easy. Well, the nearest book wasn't exactly easy. There are a lot of books within reach. I estimated the nearest and grabbed.
So, I now have 'Myths and Legends of the British Isles' by Richard Barber. It must surely pass condition 2 because it's about two inches thick.
Indeed it does. 123 pages is hardly any way into this tome. It's in a chapter called 'The Life of Merlin'. It looks ominous. Five sentences equates to nine lines down. This author must have had a big box of surplus semicolons when he wrote this. Okay, the next three sentences are:
When he felt the chains around him, which prevented him from departing for the forest of Calidon, Merlin was immediately downcast; he remained sad and silent, with all mirth banished from his face, and he would neither speak nor laugh. Meanwhile the queen came into court to visit her lord. The king appluded her arrival, as was fitting; he took her hand and told her to sit, embracing her and pressing his lips to hers.
The king here was Rodarchus, a good time before Arthur. It turned out all right in the end, even though everyone in the story is now dead.
Now I want to know what purpose, if any, it serves. Also I have to foist this on five unfortunates. That might not be easy since most bloggers seem to stop blogging soon after I visit. The tenacious ones, those immune to my Comments of Doom, are ThatGreenyFlower, DrSharna, Liz Burton, David de Beer (I know he likes this sort of thing) and Silverwerecat.
That's most of the planet covered, I think, and nobody on that list is close enough to come round and give me a hiding. So I suppose I'd better go and tell them all what I've done.
Is this why the others stopped blogging when I turned up? Did they know this was going to happen? At least one of them is an astrologer, so you never know...
7 comments:
My personal favourite re-telling of the old Arthurian legend is Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave trilogy. Lots of flowery metaphor - a fantasy classic.
Bah - I did it and since only about 3 people ever comment and they've all done it, I tagged the lurkers.
Dikkii - that's the problem with Arthurian legends. So many romantic retellings over hundreds of years. I'm glad I'm not a historian - it must be nearly impossible to work out what's true in that lot!
Dr. B - tagging the lurkers is a stroke of brilliance. I wish I'd thought of that. Next time I'll tag everyone who posts as 'Anonymous'.
Alas. Dikkii tagged me too. But I told him I didn't really know what a tag was. Wasn't it something like a chain letter?
Moreever, my wife (Mrs Sheepandgoats) already gives me grief for the, admittedly accumulative, time I spend blogging. If I start doing even more frivolous projects, she'll give me my head on a platter.
You're not married, are you Romulus?
No, I'm not married, and comments like 'head on a platter' do nothing to encourage me to change that situation! I'm afraid I don't respond well to authority.
Usually I don't do these memes either because I don't visit many blogs so I'd be tagging the same few people over and over.
I still can't work out what this one means. I might have to hunt back through the tags.
Oh no, no, not at all. I don't want to denigrate marriage. My wife, for example, leads me away from the computer 3 times a day so as to give me a bag of feed. Were it not for her, I might keep hitting that keyboard just like a Skinner rat until I dropped dead of exhaustion.
I've been keeping my head down for the leap-year day. It's never happened yet but you can't be too careful.
I've never yet met a woman who can cope with me sleeping all day and then vanishing for the night, followed by a day of squinting at a screen, headphones in place, and swearing. Then a good twelve hours of sleep to catch up and random sleep patterns for days afterwards.
What I'd need is a woman who's just the right level of weird. Unfortunately I've met many who far exceed that requirement as well as those who don't reach it.
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