Long ago, in the days when Caradoc and Bridget were Baron and Baroness Nordskogen, we held a Tavern Brawl. The theme was a celebration at an inn; the centerpiece was the Brawl, and a poem to be written about the Brawl. Shana the Fierce, in keeping with the theme, had brought a barrel of lemonade, to refresh the crowd and the combattants.

The fighters gathered in the list-field, each armed with dagger and mace. The daggers were daggers, and killed; the maces represented bottles., and stunned. A fighter hit on the head with a mace fell, and lay still for perhaps twenty seconds before being able to rejoin the affray. (Time and age have me, and memory fails for the exact length of time.) After two solid blows the bottle was deemed smashed, and thrown away as useless. A fighter could regain use of a mace by picking one up from the floor, to serve as a fresh bottle. Last fighter standing was the victor.

After a while, there were no fighters standing. Where, then, the victory?

But one had been merely stunned. He regained consciousness, promptly applied the dagger to all the other fighters on the floor (lest they, also, be lying doggo) and seized the win. And I wrote the beginnings of this poem: