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This one seems to have gone down like a lead brick! Perhaps not that great a number of people know the history behind the Battle of Hastings. In 10 66 William the Concuorer set off on a decisive battle from the shores of Barfleur in France to invade Great Britain (although God knows what's great about it now!). During the ensuing battle, which we lost, our man - King Harold was struck in the eye with an arrow. What not many people are aware of is records show the poor b*stard screamed in agony for three days before dying.

Consequently the joke about some dud archer being told he's an absolute menace and would take out somebody's eye one day.

For the original joke that wasn't, go back a few days and you'll find it. (I dont think I'll give up my day job:(

weinbeck;647123 wrote: This one seems to have gone down like a lead brick!
I bet mine fares no better then.

There was a joke current in Norman circles about the low birth of William the Conqueror's grandfather. It was laughed off by William's great-grandson King Henry II when it was spoken of by Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, but I suspect the Bishop's life flitted before his eyes after he'd made his quip:The king used a needle and thread to put stitches into a bandage wound round an injured finger, at which the bishop said: 'How you resemble your relatives at Falaise'. The king, extremely amused by this witty remark, explained the joke about William the Conqueror's parentage to his men.I don't know about you, but I reckon there's a frisson about that. Henry had already had one archbishop killed, after all. "extremely amused by this witty remark" my arse.

Anyway, the moment passed and this is Henry's comment to his men, as best I can translate it:It is agreed the maternal grandfather of our William, the Conqueror of this country, was of ordinary lower stock among the inhabitants of his town. It was openly known to the Normans round the dining tables of Falaise, where William was born. In that town he was a celebrated skillful layer-out of bodies. I laughed because in fact I'm good at sewing up wounds. I obviously still share some of the blood of that man from Falaise.

William himself had been far less tolerant of having his face rubbed in it like that. At the siege of Alencon in 1052, Duke William was insulted by its inhabitants and ordered that his mockers should have their hands and feet cut off. Thirty-two of the mockers were crippled. They had "beat pelts and furs in order to insult the duke and despisingly called him pelterer because his mother's family had prepared corpses for burial". The French for skin was la pel. In the masculine, li pel, the word meant stake, pallisade or wall. It is conceivable that the defenders of Alencon during the seige were making a pun by shouting 'the walls, the walls' while slapping their leathers (the pelts, the pelts) at the duke, refering to his family's connection to human corpses.

The French knew how to be funny in those days. Monty Python's Holy Grail got it bang to rights.

I took the gist of this from The Origins of Herleva, Mother of William the Conqueror: Elisabeth M. C. van Houts, The English Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 399. (Apr., 1986), pp. 399-404. It's all her work, though she took six pages to tell it.

spot;647329 wrote: I bet mine fares no better then.

There was a joke current in Norman circles about the low birth of William the Conqueror's grandfather. It was laughed off by William's great-grandson King Henry II when it was spoken of by Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, but I suspect the Bishop's life flitted before his eyes after he'd made his quip:The king used a needle and thread to put stitches into a bandage wound round an injured finger, at which the bishop said: 'How you resemble your relatives at Falaise'. The king, extremely amused by this witty remark, explained the joke about William the Conqueror's parentage to his men.I don't know about you, but I reckon there's a frisson about that. Henry had already had one archbishop killed, after all. "extremely amused by this witty remark" my arse.

Anyway, the moment passed and this is Henry's comment to his men, as best I can translate it:It is agreed the maternal grandfather of our William, the Conqueror of this country, was of ordinary lower stock among the inhabitants of his town. It was openly known to the Normans round the dining tables of Falaise, where William was born. In that town he was a celebrated skillful layer-out of bodies. I laughed because in fact I'm good at sewing up wounds. I obviously still share some of the blood of that man from Falaise.

William himself had been far less tolerant of having his face rubbed in it like that. At the siege of Alencon in 1052, Duke William was insulted by its inhabitants and ordered that his mockers should have their hands and feet cut off. Thirty-two of the mockers were crippled. They had "beat pelts and furs in order to insult the duke and despisingly called him pelterer because his mother's family had prepared corpses for burial". The French for skin was la pel. In the masculine, li pel, the word meant stake, pallisade or wall. It is conceivable that the defenders of Alencon during the seige were making a pun by shouting 'the walls, the walls' while slapping their leathers (the pelts, the pelts) at the duke, refering to his family's connection to human corpses.

The French knew how to be funny in those days. Monty Python's Holy Grail got it bang to rights.

I took the gist of this from The Origins of Herleva, Mother of William the Conqueror: Elisabeth M. C. van Houts, The English Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 399. (Apr., 1986), pp. 399-404. It's all her work, though she took six pages to tell it.


Humour is a funny old business (no pun intended). I once made a quip about Tyneside having it's own National Anthem: "I'm busy doing nothing, nothing the whole day through..." The abuse that came forth was nobody's business!

"We work fo*kin' hard, boh! There's nothin' fonny about unemployment..." Well, how the hell was I to know he was a Jordie!

It's the way we tell them, weinbeck. I posted the funniest thousand year old French pun in existence here and NOBODY LAUGHED! My sulking will know no bounds.