The Loveland Castle--A Triumph of the Independent Spirit

People who are really into medieval stuff are weird. For example, when I was in college, there was a campus medieval club that would set up a canvas tent outside of the building where I worked an early-morning custodial job. Around this tent, they placed two or three guards to keep watch over their collection of wooden swords and home-made chain-mail (you know, just in case anyone wanted to steal them). One morning, maybe to raise my twelfth century street cred, I told one of them that I had an interest in medieval literature. The thane looked at me with a ye olde twinkle in his ye olde eye, and said, "Then you are a friend."

The sincerity of his words were moving, but I still thought it was a weird thing to say.

I've kept an eye out for medievalists since then. They are generally easy to spot, mostly because they are the only ones in the neighborhood who dress like Robin Hood. They like to do medieval things, like lay siege to a dog house or storm a mailbox. Also, they are the only people you know with names like "Ulf" or "Hrothgar" or "Erowen."

It is easy to poke fun at these people. Outsiders interpret their behavior as a strange attempt to escape the modern world. I don't know if that is the case, but I wouldn't put it past either Ulf or Hrothgar. Anyone who would lay siege to a dog house is escaping something.

Still, I think there much that we--the outsiders, the modernists--could learn from these medievalists.

Take Sir Harry Andrews, for instance. Harry Andrews was a committed medievalist. He spent the last fifty years of his life building a medieval-ish castle (christened "Chateau Laroche," but best known locally as the "Loveland Castle") along the Little Miami River in Loveland, Ohio.

Why did Sir Harry do it?

Good question. During my recent visit to the Loveland Castle, the man who took my admission fee ($3.00 a person) explained that Harry built the castle because his loyal knights (who were actually members of his Boy Scout troop) needed one.

Fair enough, I thought. At least he didn't do it to impress girls.

* * *

Although I grew up only a town away from Sir Harry's Chateau Laroche, I never got around to visiting it until this week. My expectations were high; I had heard and read a lot of good things about the castle. On their official website, for example, Sir Harry's knights, the Knights of the Golden Trail (KOGT), describe it (and themselves) in these terms:

"Chateau Laroche was built as an expression and reminder of the simple strength and rugged grandeur of the mighty men who lived when Knighthood was in flower.

"It was their knightly zeal for honor, valor and manly purity that lifted mankind out of the moral midnight of the dark ages and started it towards the gray dawn of human hope.

"Present human decadence proves a need for similar action. Already the ancient organization of Knights have been re-activated to save society.

"Any man of high ideas who wishes to help save civilization is invited to become a member of the Knights of the Golden Trail, whose only vows are the Ten Commandments.

"Chateau Laroche is the World headquarters of this organization, started in 1927."

Wow! Who wouldn't, on the "simple strength and rugged grandeur" of that description, expect anything but the best from the world headquarters of a society that "wishes to save civilization" from "present human decadence"? Personally, I was so inspired by those words that I nearly forsook the modern world and changed my name to Unferth.

Good thing I'm not a drinking man.

What can be said about Sir Harry's magnum opus? The exterior of the castle is impressive, especially when you consider that Sir Harry did it all with his two knightly hands. And, to their credit, the KOGT have done a nice job keeping Sir Harry's castle grounds courtly and colorful. I mean, if I were throwing a medieval-themed wedding (or even a medieval-themed Tupperware party), I would throw it there. As castles along the Little Miami go, it's one of the more picturesque.

Still, inside the castle is a different story. While the KOGT are big on saving civilization, they are not big on dusting. Walking through the castle, I felt like I was taking a tour of the home of Pig Pen, Charlie Brown's perpetually dusty friend. Everything--Sir Harry's framed photographs, swords, and suits of armor--was covered with the stuff. I think I even saw where some medieval smart aleck had taken a finger to the dust and written the words "WASH ME" in both Celtic and Old English.

Don't get me wrong: the Loveland Castle is worth the three dollar admissions fee--even with the dust that hasn't moved a millimeter since 1985.

You see, Sir Harry's Chateau Laroche is a monument to the Independent Spirit. To the rest of us, Sir Harry and every other hard core medievalist seem like they're three motes shy of a drawbridge, but they don't seem to care. They are who they are, chain mail and all. They seize that independent spirit with a gauntlet of steel.

It takes a lot of courage to be a dork in this world. It takes even more courage to be a dork with a big dream. Sir Harry had a big dusty dream, and he made it a reality. That's more than most people can say.

Dusting Off an Old Poem

I was digging through some of my old poetry and I found this strange piece of work. I'm not sure if I would call it good. I might call it okay. I would definitely call it weird. Some might call it a little gross.

I remember writing it late one night. Sarah and I were still living in Provo. Connor was probably just a baby. We lived on the bottom floor of an apartment building next to a laundromat, so we always had people walking past our living room window. Apparently, on the night I wrote this poem I let my imagination run wild.

I can tell that I wrote it at a time when I was still taking myself seriously as a poet. It has that sound to it. I also wrote it at a time when I was trying to write longer poems, which explains its wordiness.

Anyway, enjoy.

On Hearing Someone Sing Outside My Window

If I were alone and somewhere else—
in a cabin, maybe, in the secluded forests
of central Alaska—the soft singing
I just heard outside my window would be
disconcerting, if not scary.

I have seen enough movies to know
isolation provides the perfect setting for madmen
and murderers to play mind games on hapless
campers before finally finishing them off
with a sharp ax or kitchen knife.

If that were the case—if I were alone
in the woods with only the four walls of a cabin
to separate me from a suspicious song—
my imagination, which usually trampolines
to the grizzliest conclusions, would get the better
of me. In the initial fear of those first notes,
my body would shiver; salty drops
of sweat would run down the sides of my ribs
like earthworms, drenching the armpits
of my flannel shirt. My breathing, of course, would be
as labored as a freight train wheezing through the night,
my heartbeat like an alarm clock without a snooze
button. Even my toes, which are always so calm,
would panic and scramble for sanctuary.

After this rebellion of my senses is
quelled, I would barricade the door and windows
with my furniture, turning my rough-hewn
tables and chairs on their sides, pushing them
against anything that would allow access
to my rustic domain. Only then, with the cabin secure,
would I listen again for the eerie song of the stranger,
placing my ear, perhaps, to a drinking glass
against the wall. If I’m lucky, I would hear nothing,
the maniac singer having moved on to a cabin more worthy
of his art, one full of teenagers on spring break.
If I’m not so lucky—which is usually
how these things go for me—I would hear
the stranger’s song still outside my window
rise to a hideous crescendo, followed by a murderous,
calculating silence.

But I am not in a cabin in central Alaska.
I live in an apartment beside a Laundromat
where the procrastinators of the day go to wash
their clothes at night. The stranger, no doubt,
is some musically-inclined college student
who returned home from a good day with her books
only to discover, with some chagrin, that she had
no clean clothes for tomorrow—
hardly a maniacal ax murderer poised to hack away
my door, slice through the craftsmanship
of my barricade, and spill my blood on a grand scale
with plenty of splatter for the horrified investigators.

Swine Flu Blues

A little humor for these perilous times...

Swine Flu Blues

My nose ran like a faucet,
So now I’m on the news.
My friends won’t dare to look my way.
I’ve got the Swine Flu Blues.

It started out as allergies,
Then turned into a cold,
And then I heard about this Flu
And placed my life on hold.

I bought a blue mask, just in case;
Flu meds I had to steal.
I looked around for kosher pork
To fix a pork-less meal.

I shunned my friends from Mexico,
Unlearned the Spanish tongue.
I plan to boycott Taco Bell
Before this song is sung.

So, as my heath care bills amass,
The doctors claim I’m fine.
But I know best: I’ll soon be gone.
These Swine Flue Blues are mine.

A Great Closing Sentence

"We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes."

--James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer

Mormonism and a Magical America: a Review of Orson Scott Card's Red Prophet

On 7 November 1811, on a hill near the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers, Native American forces under the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa attacked American forces under William Henry Harrison. In the aftermath of the attack, which later became known as the Battle of Tippecanoe, 30 to 50 of Tenskwatawa's warriors lay dead on the field, and William Henry Harrison became an American hero.

Tippecanoe, however, plays out differently in Orson Scott Card's Red Prophet, a fantasy novel set in a "magical America that might have been." In Red Prophet, the battle is an outright massacre, and Card's telling of it owes as much to the Book of Mormon as it does to any American history book. Readers who are familiar with Alma 24, for example, will readily recognize Card's inspiration for the the group of pacifist Shawnee, led by the Prophet, who allow themselves to be massacred rather than take up arms against their attackers. Other Mormonism-inspired elements surface in the novel; most obviously, the life of Alvin Maker, the story's main character, seems at times inspired by the life of Joseph Smith, while the characters Tenska-Tawa and Taleswapper seem loosely based on the Angel Moroni.

In less creative hands, these Mormon elements might come off as either heavy-handed or corny--like an Osmond Brothers' concept album or a lame Halestorm comedy. Card, however, knows where and how much to borrow from Mormonism. So, while Mormon readers will understand certain aspects of Red Prophet differently than non-Mormon readers, non-Mormon readers will not likely feel like they're missing out on something crucial. Nor will they feel like they're being fed Mormon doctrine subliminally.

One downside of Red Prophet (for me, at least) is that it's the second volume of Card's "Tales of Alvin Maker" series, which means it's not a stand-alone novel. So, the first third of the novel is basically a retelling of Seventh Son, the first volume of the series, while the last third of the novel reads like a prelude for the third volume. What is more, the novel is dialogue heavy (in the bad sense), which is true of all of Orson Scott Card's novels. Still, Red Prophet has a great story to tell. Card's characters--both likable and detestable--are interesting, as are his descriptions of the Tippecanoe massacre and Alvin's spiritual experiences. Overall, I'd recommend the novel--and its predessesor, Seventh Son--to any fan of fantasy or historical fiction.

Six Word Reviews

I've been told that my reviews are too long, so I've decided to limit these to six words apiece. 

Enjoy. 

Books:
Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times by H. W. Brands
Good--but what's the real story?

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
So lame. Mediocre TV miniseries material.

A Mercy by Toni Morrison
Better than Morrison's overrated novel, Beloved.

Graphic Novels:
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight by Brian Augustyn
Batman versus Jack the Ripper: Awesome.

Batman: Year One by Frank Miller
Should be titled: Gordon: Year One.

Movies:
X-Men: The Last Stand
Worse than X2? Are you serious?

A Boy Named Charlie Brown
Real winners are losers. Good grief.

Speed Racer
Ignore the critics. Reason: Racer X!

Massacre at Mountain Meadows (and Not Much Else): A Review

The Mountain Meadows Massacre is undoubtedly the darkest corner of Mormon history. When I first learned about it, I was sixteen years old and the grim details of the massacre--more than 100 men, women, and children slaughtered by a group of Mormons in southern Utah--were so shocking that I was convinced they were the product of some anti-Mormon propaganda mill. How could the Mormons, who had been so severely persecuted in Missouri and Illinois, be capable of such a crime?

Unfortunately, the massacre was no fabrication. On September 11, 1857, somewhere around 120-140 men, women, and children--California-bound emigrants from Arkansas--were massacred by a group of Mormon militiamen and their Paiute Indian allies. The attack occurred in the days leading up to the so-called "Utah War," when Mormons were receiving vague reports that the United States government had sent an army after them. Paranoia spread across Utah, and outsiders were looked upon with suspicion and scorn. At the same time, Mormons were in the midst of a spiritual "Reformation," which encouraged Mormons to rededicate themselves more firmly to living the precepts of their religion, including the defense of Zion.

While the massacre has never been as well known as other American massacres--such as the much, much smaller "Boston Massacre"--it has recently received some significant media attention. For example, the massacre became a matter of national news when critics of Christopher Cain's 2007 film September Dawn, which reduced the massacre (Titanic-style) to a melodramatic tale of star-crossed lovers, accused the director of making an "anti-Mormon" movie in order to disrupt the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Several best-selling books, too, have been published in the last decade--most notably Judith Freeman's Red Water (2002), Sally Denton's American Massacre (2003), Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven(2003), and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre (2004)--which examine the massacre in one form or another.

At best, the scholarly, fictional, and cinematic treatments of the Mountain Meadows Massacre seek to better understand the causes and consequences of the tragedy. Recently, some of this scholarship--Bagley's book in particular--points a steady finger of blame at Brigham Young, the Mormon leader who was no where near Mountain Meadows at the time of the massacre, but whose role as Prophet and President of the Church held no small influence over the Mormons. While no smoking gun has ever linked him directly to the massacre, Young remains a controversial figure in Mountain Meadows scholarship. So too remains Elder George A. Smith, a Mormon apostle who, in the weeks prior to the massacre, delivered a series of fiery sermons across southern Utah, which were largely designed to prepare the people for the rumored army invasion.

Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard's Massacre at Mountain Meadows (2008, Oxford University Press) is the most recent contribution to Mountain Meadows scholarship. Authored by historians employed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the book draws its account of the tragedy from both traditional sources of the massacre and "documents previously not available to scholars," such as assistant church historian Andrew Jenson's 1892 field notes from his interviews with "massacre insiders" (xi). Throughout the study, the intent of the authors seems to be to show how generally good people come to commit abominable crimes. Their focus remains tightly on the Mormon perpetrators of the massacre, exploring the motivation (or apparent lack thereof) behind their crimes. Attention, too, is given to the victims, the Fancher-Baker Company, although not as much as one would expect.

In many ways, Massacre at Mountain Meadows is a milestone in Official (or quasi-Official) Mormon history, which has a reputation (understandably) for being interested more in the inspirational side of the Mormon story than in the tragic and embarrassing. The book does not shy away from the violent crimes the Mormons committed, nor does it entirely shy away from exploring its controversies (such as Young's involvement, Smith's sermons, or John D. Lee's alleged rape and murder of two teenage members of the Fancher-Baker company immediately after the massacre). That said, at 231 pages (not counting appendices and end notes) the book is far too slim to be an adequate study. The authors acknowledge this fact in the introduction, stating that "too much information [on the massacre] existed for a single book," suggesting another book on the tragedy's aftermath will be written sometime in the future (xii). Still, the lack of any substantial information about the consequences of the massacre is the most disappointing aspect about this book. Upon finishing the book, I found myself researching "the rest of the story" on Wikipedia.

Another downside to the book is its lack of narrative energy. At times, Massacre at Mountain Meadows drags when the authors strive too hard to be moderate in their storytelling. Often, for example, the personalities of the Mormon perpetrators go unexplored and underdeveloped in the authors' attempts to be fair to everyone. Consequently, no real antagonist emerges in the narrative, except, perhaps, Isaac C. Haight, the Cedar City stake president who kept the momentum for the massacre up until it finally came about. John D. Lee, likewise, is a close candidate for primary antagonist, since it was he who led the initial attack against the Fancher-Baker company, yet the authors seem to dismiss Lee as a deluded, reckless zealot. Personally, I would have liked to see a more complete portrait of Lee's psyche. To a large extent, such portraits are what generate interest in historical narratives and compel readers forward. A more intimate account of the Fancher-Baker company's experience while under siege to their Mormon and Paiute attacks would have also helped the book along.

Despite its brevity, Massacre at Mountain Meadows is adamant on the point that Brigham Young did not condone the attack on the Fancher-Baker emigrants. While not an overt rebuttal to Bagley's 2004 book, this new study is clearly responding to someone. Unfortunately, nothing in the book is as conclusive on the subject as one would hope. Still, the smoking gun remains undiscovered--and Young's involvement with the affair is still only a matter of conjecture. Personally, I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Overall, though, I would recommend Massacre at Mountain Meadows to anyone who wants to learn more about the tragic event. It is certainly not a complete account of the massacre, but it seems like an adequate place to start.

But, then again, so is Wikipedia.