Southern Knights

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. “In days of old when knights were bold and journeyed from their castles...” Thus began the live version of Jimmy Buffett’s “Gypsies In The Palace,” giving his own twist on the often ad libbed limerick. It’s a funny song, and the poem makes for some good laughs, but chances are you only picture a man when you think of the knights of old. Maybe that was true in Camelot, but not here in the South. Our knights tend to be female. Grandmothers, aunts, mothers, these are our nobles, our trustworthy and brave warriors who are willing to fight for us or feed us with equal fervency. 

In my heritage it is women who are the keepers of wisdom and virtue, and secret recipes that are only passed down to those whom they deem worthy. They don’t gather around a round table, but picnic tables, kitchen counters, coffee tables, gazebos, patio furniture, and pools. They convene informal conclaves to discuss hairstyles, cleaning products, high school crushes and bible verses. They dispense wisdom about relationships, dealing with PTA divas, removing pesky stains and good-for-nothing men.

I grew up playing with G.I. Joes in kitchen floors near groups of women like this. Their wit and wisdom wove itself into my DNA without me even realizing it was happening. To this very day their words will make an unexpected appearance on my tongue in a moment when they are needed the most. They could mix a bowl of potato salad, while simultaneously carrying on a conversation and fixing one of my broken toys. They moved with an effortless grace as elegant as any knight dodging a joust while delivering a victorious shot, and all of this on horseback. I can’t help but smile and think of them every time I hear the quote, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.” 

I not only grew up around women like this, I continue to be surrounded with a great many of them in my life, like an order of knights sworn to protect the virtues of all that is sacred in our culture. When you get a group of southern women together in the same room phrases like, “What can I do?” and “Do you need me to stir the beans?” fill the air with a melody like so many hymns. These are women who don’t just wear their heritage like a badge of honor, but embody it as if it were an ancient religion, washing dishes as an oblation and packing up leftovers like they were sacraments. Even the dishes themselves take on an air of holy relics as they speak of their “granny’s cast iron skillet” or “mamma’s butter dish.” This isn’t just cookware, they are sacred instruments used to summon ancient spirits of love and wisdom and strength. Memories of strong women who could run a household, nurse children, ring a chicken’s neck, strip tobacco, and influence the decision making of the men in their lives at a time when society denied them any semblance of authority. Is this not what the knights did? The knights had no real authority in the realm and yet they were the defenders and protectors of the kingdom. They carried out the will of their king, fulfilling the tasks he was incapable of or unwilling to enact on his own. And these southern knights do the same today for the people in their lives.

Like their ancient predecessors, these women are well armored because they have to be. Their skin is thick but their hearts are as soft as a nannie’s lap. When they stand up for what or who they believe in they get stung with words labeling them “bossy” or “assertive” or worse. Their crusades are seldom bloody, but they are nonetheless just as brutal. Today they fight for their sisters to be taken seriously when they come forward with stories of abuse at the hands of males. Some have to fight to be taken seriously, or for their marriages, their children, and anything else they love.

Although the time of the knights has largely come and gone, even today when a man is honored by the English crown we say he is “knighted.” When we think of those knights today we still tend to picture men and soldiers, but the word actually comes from an Old English word for “servant.” I can think of no better description for the women who have populated my life, and can imagine no greater reward and honor for them than to be “knighted” by their King. “And Jesus called them to him and said to them, ‘You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’....where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor them” (Mark 10:42-45; John 12:26).