Into Another Trap

The excitement is currently at fever pitch here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, as the Holy Roman Empire Games (no connection with holiness, the Romans nor an empire) gains its inevitable momentum. Dagwald Caedmeron - the Chicken Supreme of the Tree/Liberationist Alliance Administration has been putting in unannounced special guest appearances at various events and sprinkling fairy dust, the result of which is that all the Northumbrian participants in the Games events he's attended have spectacularly lost.

The greatest achievement so far has been the success of Braedwald the Wigger, who - fresh from his conquest of the land of the Franks and victorious tour on his two-wheeled trap, has also won the Holy Roman Empire Games Trap Contest in spectacular fashion, and has consequently received the Golden Honours. A life of glorious obscurity awaits him as politicos fall over each other to take the credit for his successes. But he has also - on the heels of his victories - been quick to open his facial trap to recommend yet more legislation for the Witangemot. He deems it Vital and Necessary that all Trap riders wear a helmet while travelling, lest they fall off their vehicles and occasion serious injuries to their pates. Naturally, the politicos are ecstatically pleased and excited at the idea of passing yet another law to keep company of the three hundred million others that have already been fashioned and written into the statute book by the political elite. To be sure, it's becoming something of a challenge to discover what area of human life and activity (if any) hasn't in some way been either restricted, constricted or banned by the freedom-loving overlords of Northumbria.

As I relate these things to you, I'm given to understand that a new law is currently being drafted to make it an offence for Beoris the Blond - the charismatic and entertaining Feudal Lord of Yorvik - to be suspended over the heads of the citizens on a wire. But we can be certain that for all this half-witted pettiness, the politicos won't legislate against themselves and their factions...