For a moment there I thought that this was going to be posted on April Fools' Day (apparently it's "Fools'" and not "Fool's" or Fools") and I thought I had committed a grave mistake by not having a page that engaged in foolery, but fortunately this posts on the 31st instead. Also, I feel like the intermission was sort of a whole week of foolery, so maybe I can be let off the hook.
The joke goes as follows: There is a three-sided lake with a kingdom on each side. Two of these kingdoms were quite large and wealthy, but one of these was very small. Now, one day the large kingdoms each decide that they want complete control of the lake, so they each declare war on the other as well as declaring war on the smaller country. So each country sends out its knights to prepare for battle. The two large kingdoms each has a massive group of knights, but the small kingdom has only one, rather aged knight. Now, the night before the battle, the armies of the large kingdoms each have a big party and the knights get really drunk. But the knight from the small kingdom has a quiet night. His squire hangs a pot above the fire using a noose and makes some stew, and they both go to bed. The next day, all of the knights from the two large armies are horribly hungover. So much so, in fact, that the squires have to be the ones to fight. Seeing this, and feeling it ignoble for a knight to fight against squires, the lone knight from the small kingdom sends his squire out as well. That day, the squires fight fiercely, but ultimately, the squire from the small country emerges victorious. All of which, of course, only verifies what any trigonometry student knows: that the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the two sides. |
