Like any well-read, intelligent personage with a loving family, I spend most of my free time wondering what would happen if Red Sonja, the chainmail-bikini-wearing counterpart of Conan the Barbarian, took up arms against the Dark Elves of Menzoberranzan. After nigh-interminable research and rumination, I came to a three-part conclusion:
Drow spot a top sword:
Red dame, none madder.
Flee, ye gog-eye elf!
Regarding the first line, the drows, or drow, are the Dark Elves of D&D’s Menzoberranzan. The genesis of this line was, of course, the reversal of drows and sword. I realized immediately that no palindrome can withstand a word like “fight,” cursed with the unmatchable “thg” clump when reversed, so I fell back on reader inference. Elves of any stripe tend to be aloof—in the eyes of impatient mortals, at least—and once I had that word, the word “fool” sprang out at me. Given that, it hopefully goes without explication that the “ah, ha” interjections, coupled with the image of a sword, add up to their foolish aloofness being under direct assault.
About Author
J.B. Toner studied Literature at Thomas More College and holds a black belt in Ohana Kilohana Kenpo-Jujitsu. He has published two novels, Whisper Music and The Shoreless Sea, and innumerable shorter works. Toner lives and works in Massachusetts with his beautiful wife and their beloved daughters, Sonya Magdalena and Rebecca Eowyn.
