View source for So It's "By my Halidom, I'll Cleave Thee"

''So It's "By my Halidom, I'll Cleave Thee"'' is an article published in [[The Daily Mirror]] on 6 march 1948.


== Article ==
[[File:the-daily-mirror-1948-03-06-p5-by-my-halidom.jpg|thumb|350px|right|[[The Daily Mirror]] (6 march 1948, p. 5)<br /><br />With cries like, "I will spill thy evil blood," modern knights in armour, [[Adrian Conan Doyle]] and Captain Douglas Ash, battle with mighty swords — to revive of the days of chivalry.]]

''"Daily Mirror" Reporter, Minstead (Hampshire), Friday.''

Two men in armour brandishing heavy swords, pranced over the greensward near this village today, shouting through their visors: "Sire, I would fain slit thy weasand," and, "I will cleave thee to the chine."

The clang of 500-year-old steel against steel was heard for miles around. It was almost serious.

The armoured figures were [[Adrian Conan Doyle]], 37, and Captain Douglas Ash, an artist, who for some time now have been realistically reliving in deed, dress and thought the days of the knights of Crecy and Agincourt — all for a purpose.

''' 'Sire, This Is No Merry Joke' '''

For [[Adrian Conan Doyle|Adrian]], six-foot son of the [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|author]] of "[[The White Company]]" and creator of knight-heroes like [[Sir Nigel|Sir Nigel Loring]] is trying to start a "back to medievalism" movement.

He told me all about it today as he returned from his morning assault-at-arms with Captain Ash.

"Sire, this is no merry joke," he boomed, slipping off his visored helmet.

"Come quaff a stoup of ale and tarry awhile, for I am battle-weary."

Then, pointing to the perspiring Captain Ash, he said:

"This oaf, sire," has cut me all over today."

[[Adrian Conan Doyle|Mr. Adrian]] bowed me with a sweep of his steel-clad arm into his Elizabethan home full of medieval knights' armour.

"The trouble with people today," he boomed, "is that they are losing all their individualism and chivalry. I want to change that.

"Instead of sportsmen we have become a nation of sports watchers."

''' 'I'll Spill Thy Evil Blood' '''

Captain Ash interjected: "He's dead right, old boy. There's no sport in kicking a leather pudding around a field. This is the only true sport." He grabbed for a ten-foot long sword.

Refixing his visor [[Adrian Conan Doyle|Mr. Adrian]] went clanging over the lawn after him, shouting: "By my two-handed sword I will spill thy evil blood."

[[Adrian Conan Doyle|Mr. Adrian]] sleeps in a 400-year-old four-poster. He keeps a "pillow-sword" by his bedside for night prowlers.













{{footer_periodicals}}