Our Priceless Heritage

Jan 5, 2001 - © Virginia Marin

Folklore Table of Contents

I cast my vote on November 7, 2000 and thirty-some-odd days later, the entire country was still waiting for a president-elect, in the most disgusting election experienced in America since its founding. While other folk wanted their votes recounted, I wanted my vote back. Why? Because I considered neither candidate worthy of my vote. Nor, in my opinion, was either worthy of the votes of the people whose patience wore thin with party bickering and hanging and sleeping chads.

That was then. This is now. A new year. A new month. January. The month in which George W. Bush becomes the president of all of the American people.

Do I still consider him unworthy of my vote? No! The system played itself out. The system worked--albeit to the chagrin of some, to the cadre of others.

Know ye that: Seven and a third centuries ago, GALLENT knights came to challenge King John and to wrest from him the crushed liberties of his Anglo-Saxon subjects.

In the meadow of Runnemede they assembled, dauntless and determined. The place chosen had for generations been a favorite meeting place of kings in council. Runnemede, a meadow of council was, in 1215, already a memorable spot.

Here under an ancient and venerated oak, whose boughs and branches had looked down on the ceremonies of Druids, at a spot where the valley of the Thames widens out in quiet beauty, the Saxon Kings had been wont to gather their people about them to discuss questions of more than usual importance.

It is still a pleasant meadow where rushes grow in the clear water of the winding river and its banks are green with grass and trees.

On the side of the Barons, came the Marshal of their army, Robert Fitz Walter and a great concourse of the nobility of England.

With the King came in all some four-and-twenty persons of any note, most of whom despised John and were merely his advisers in form.

    Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie; when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing. Now wasn't this a dainty dish to set before the King?

The Barons embodied their demands in the form of a Royal Grant, scrupulously respecting constitutional usages. When the draft was read out to the King by Stephen Langton, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, a true English patriot, John swore furiously. According to tradition, John railed out that "they might as well take the kingdom at once."

The copyright of the article Our Priceless Heritage in Folklore is owned by Virginia Marin. Permission to republish Our Priceless Heritage in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Go To Page: 1 2 3

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic