In the early part of the 15th century, after being banished by the crusaders, Galahad sought to create a school for the community (of northern Mercia) The Mercians had already left the land and the knowledge lapsed
Galahad carefully drew a sign in indigo ink on to some pressed leaves that he had taken from a palm tree in Galicia. He had already dried, pressed and stretched the leaves before writing his sign. In uncertain terms, the sign read, ‘Mens Tuition’
While he was happy to accept the possibility of confusion, he felt well justified in writing the sign since it was accurate
An ample Gaelic maiden saw him, picking up his paintbrush to retire from his task, and expressed her disapproval. She threw a container of red paint at the sign it missed and hit the wall, he jumped away but the liquid slashed his clothes. He then heard a few women giggling from across the path. As he stepped backwards to end the engagement, he could help not looking up angrily at the proud maiden standing in the path of the sun
‘Say something’, she said, to which Galahad opened his eyes wide, followed by a deep outward breath and a sigh. He rose from his crouching position, straightened his back and continued walking away without saying a word to the vexed woman who seemed ready for battle
Almost a moon-quarter had passed, full off similar assaults. It was then that Galahad decided to answer to the women calling him to come outside, each day disturbing his teaching. He had ignored the threats, the gossip and being called a misogynist, each night as he locked the school doors but today he knew he would have to address the ignorance of the village people
‘I’m not going to tell you again, this village is no place for your patriarchal misogyny. We are a people of the Muun and suddenly you are appear with your disrespect towards we of the infant carrying type’.
‘I apologise if I offend though I seek not to insult anybody but am permitted to placate thee for a short while, to restore the uniform…it is just, I am under specific instructions to teach men alone for now.’ Said Galahad.
‘And what of us, who will teach us’? Said one woman among the bunch of twenty or so maidens.
Galahad had the same look of exhaustion on his face. ‘Well if you come in you’ll find out but you’ll have to excuse me, I must continue to educate these young men as they are the future of our planet.
The woman shouted curses back at him as he walked away ‘You are a fool, how in mercy can we, it says men’s tuition on your fekin signage’. She stretched the ‘n’ in ‘mennn’s for extra emphasis.
Galahad, became excited hearing the woman repeat the word but then hearing her curse, he just shook his downward facing head as he climbed the step to open the classroom door; she didn’t understand and he had no intention of engaging.
Before Galahad could remember where he had left off there was knocking at the door again but much more violently this time. This agitated him a little and caused him to address the class. ‘Accept my apologies but today it seems we will not be able to continue our lesson as these people are committed to disrupting our session. Sorry but we will resume in the morrow’.
He then went to the door to face whatever was possessing his will. It was an even larger group of maidens, now with an extra male figure.
‘We tried to tell you that discrimination doesn’t work here but you didn’t listen, now hear it from the judge’, said the narrow women with an exaggerated overbite that stood before him. There was a man was holding a scrolled piece of paper in both hands, which he unrolled as he read after being thrust forward by the crowd of women.
‘In light of the church’s new rules of male dominance, we the people, unto the court of Offer, order you to retract your notice of tutorage to the strictly male species on the premise that it violates the ongoing heavenly rule of the Mercian soil–from ‘she’ comes ‘he’ and without ‘she’ as the principle, life is no mor. This act, if continued, will effect a breach of equity upon the land and so in time the tenure of life on earth will expire. You have until the first quarter to abandon or reestablish your mission, in the interest of reflecting the true guardians of the planet’.
It sounded very much as though the words were written for the shaking man to repeat; especially since a red-haired woman to his left was unwittingly miming the words just as he spoke them–she seemed to know it by heart.
As soon as he looked up at Galahad for a response, the door creaked open. It was the first student leaving clutching a two books tightly to her chest. One clearly said ‘Spelling’ and the other you could read ‘ble’ as the rest of the title was obscured by her wrist.
The women’s eyes opened with surprise. One woman tried to hold her position shouting, ‘Now your breaking your own rules, huh, guess a skirt is always an exception to you men, well we are tired of being the exception, we’re the standard’!
‘Ay’, said the other ladies. Others laughed until, very suddenly, other women students began to vacate the building. They looked with astonishment as more an more women left the little house of knowledge.
Finally Galahad spoke to relieve their suspicious minds.
“I opened a menes school for the simple reason that, if you don’t supply the men of this land with knowledge, as you said, life on earth will be no more, which seems to be the plan of the Church. By ‘man’ I call upon the first of our species but so long have you spoken babble without understanding, you no longer know the origin of the words that you utter.
I offered men like you’, he said pointing at the redhead, “to enter my school of self. I want nothing more than for ‘her’ to know ‘she’ once again so that her place is set as the sworn protector of life. But you know not your inner but only your outer and all that which books have suggested is. Had you been curious rather than controversial, you would have entered as an individual and asked me why I seek only men to teach. Had you have done this, you would have known by now how poor an understanding of language you possess”. There was a disproportionate amount of words coming from the large group, Galahad was the lone voice as they listened for understanding.
“While you have not paid for your learning, these jewels will likely fall from the swine’s neck unto the floor of the filthy sty unused, only to emerge once per while when the ego needs an injection of peer praise.
But I will tell you this ‘man’, it is but the church’s obsession with eliminating the threat of the fecund guardian of life that has deliberately caused you all to forget that the man the first is and was indeed female.
If you care to take the very word and replace any of its neighboring vows to el, you will find evil to be another blow to woman and her celebrated grandmother Eve El who found equilibrium by managing the curse of the grave reptile by fusing it with the blessing of the Avian creating an evening that males struggle to achieve though they may try. And through failing , the church takes her title of Moon and turn it to man as though they can fit into her shoes that know nothing but nurture. And that, I believe, is what brings you here, because you are curious to know how I can request the company of males to teach, when all the time it was thee that I seek to show that thee knows not what she is but only what her sun has tricked her into being through drunkenness.
No better time than now could thee appear to learn who she is once and for all but line my pockets you must for it is a noble yet time-consuming action well worthy of a donation”
He bid them to, upon payment, enter through the door with acceptable money in hand, ready for donation