[MR] cloven fruit

[Liz Herman]

There *is* one issue with the cloven fruit that I haven't seen mentioned 
here yet.  Sometime in my first year of playing with the SCA (1996/7), I 
came across someone who had a cloven fruit and was using it to flirt.  
Problem was... I had *no* clue what the person was talking about when 
offered... puzzled face and comment occurred on my part.  The man who 
held the fruit obviously assumed not only that I knew what the fruit was 
and how it was to be used, but that anyone offered it should partake and 
participate. 

Want to guess what I thought of him, and any others who might think the 
same way?  If it had been my first event, and I hadn't known anyone in 
the SCA yet, it probably would have gone a *long* way towards scaring me 
off - especially combined with the fact that the only members I'd met in 
high school and college were among those stereotypical heavy 
fighter-types who have been known to do such things as wear their mail 
under their business suit... or never wash (or appear and smell as if 
they never did).  Heck, it had taken an A&S demo out in An Tir the 
previous year to get me to at least look at my local barony back here.

I've no issue with the idea of cloven fruit being used in a "game" of 
courtly love, among people who know each other, and know what it 
symbolizes and how the game is to be played.  But, as an icebreaker when 
you haven't the foggiest if the other has a clue...  let's just say I'm 
glad that I haven't the foggiest who the person who approached me at 
that event was (so I don't hold it against him)... other than knowing it 
wasn't someone among the very active in my barony at the time.  And I'm 
quite glad that I got to know people in my barony a bit before those 
first few events.


-Elisabeth