Another Week - "Zorn! Zorn!. . . All Dead! O Zorn!"

The quote's from "Watership Down," by Richard Adams. Best. Book. Ever. Go read it. I'll wait....

Now that's out of the way, 'zorn' in Lapine, the rabbits' language from the previously aforementioned awesomest book ever, means "destroyed, murdered, a catastrophe"- all of which could apply to my attempts at learning the zornhau ort.

So in my head before we even begin is death and destruction. Not the best frame of mind maybe, but when we found it was the 'wrath hew' I was all... "huh, that'll work." We were working with Von Danzig's interpretation of the zornhau too, which I misheard first as 'dancing'. That may be the basis of half my weird interpretations- simply mishearing and filling in gaps with the random stuff floating around in my mind. Either way, I've now got this one internally tagged as 'dancing death'. Catchy, no?

It gets sillier. Here's my attempt at remembering the gist of the maneuvers enough to sort of explain it to the class full of 3rd graders who asked about my weekend: "When your opponent comes at you from above, take a thwack at his sword with a growl (because you're all wrathful and stuff), and when you've knocked his sword aside, poke him in the nose with the tip of your sword (always threaten with the point). If he parries that, wind your sword over his and clock him on top of the head. If he blocks that too and your swords bind together (get all tangled up), give him a bit of a shove. If he blocks that too or you can't make him move, then slip the bind, drop the sword tip and poke him in the chest. And then... um, some more stuff happens but hopefully one of those worked because I don't remember the rest," followed by lots of giggles. 

It's kind of cute, really. They seem weirdly fascinated by the idea that their bunny-loving librarian fights with swords every weekend. When we head in for storytime, a few always hang back to ask if I have any new bruises, and how I got them. I caught a couple of them using "Captain Underpants" books as swords this morning, so we had to have a chat about proper care of library books, but I may have to try talking someone into doing a demo for them one day. We can make it fit the curriculum, I'm sure of it :)

I also have decided that I need to make flash cards of all these cuts and guards and such. Pictures and definitions and maybe pronunciations too. Maybe then I'll be able to remember them. Project! For now though, I need to go find a video and see if I can figure out how that zorn thing is supposed to end. The sword one though, not the one that ends with dead bunnies.

(seriously, go read it)