© 2000

Tradition is a wonderful thing. It gives us a sense of history, of belonging to something greater than ourselves, but it most of all gives us someone and/or something other than ourselves to blame for the embarrassing stuff we feel compelled to do. Yes sir, every time you find yourself serving the fruitcake-that-tastes-like-a-doorstop at Christmas, or saying, "Prithee, my comely wench, but mightst thou servest me an hotte dogge with ye workes?" at a local Ren Faire, or fighting the neighborhood raccoons for property rights to a swiftly rotting jack-o'-lantern at Hallowe'en, or singing the Whiffenpoof Song at the big Harvard-Yale game when you wouldn't know a whiffen if it poofed all over you, you can always defend your actions with the proud and clarion cry: "It's a tradition!"

(You can also try blaming it on your kids, if you prefer, but that won't work with the Whiffenpoof Song. Even kids aren't that gullible.)

Now here at the Chicks in Chainmail series of hard-hitting and culturally enriched anthologies, we've got a little tradition of our own. We call it Blaming Someone for the Title of the Current Book. Your humble and obedient editor took full responsibility-and rightly so-for the series concept as well as for the title of the first book, but since then, although the concept has remained true and fixed as the pole star, the blame for the titles of individual volumes in the series has gone skipping merrily hither, thither, and yon.