One of the things that sets us apart from the Kingdoms and from the other Households of the SCA is our memory. We remember, the good and the bad, the joy and the pain, those who are here, and those who have ridden ahead.

Pale Horse is the Khanate for our Brothers who ride ahead. They ride in the darkness facing all of us. When we come to the end of this path, they are there, waiting to greet and welcome us to their numbers. They ride ahead, ever out of sight, but never out of touch. Through the Pale Horse Banner we remember their names, that they may never be forgotten. Through the hearthstones, we keep them as a part of our home. Every year, at Pennsic and Estrella, we read their names, that they will be remembered. In the West, we murmur our greetings and relationship with each, in the East we add a stone to the hearth and call up our memories of them, the support of a Brother, the joy of a Hordling, the worth of a friend.

Pale Horse is our memory of the members of our Family who ride ahead, but it is also our defiance of the dark, for we know that They wait there and we will all join them in the end.

So let us honor and remember our Brothers, Hordlings, and Friends who ride ahead, scouting the path we will all take.

~ Omar Khan

 

The pale horse that runs silently
Through the night, and calls from us our souls
Whose call none may naysay,
Who races from here to where none return.

The pale horse that runs silently
Through the night, and calls from us our souls
Whose call none may naysay,
Who races from here to where none return.

The pale horse, swifter than the wind,
More silent than the stone of the mountain,
Who runs through the night
And calls to him our souls.

The horse that is a fulfillment
Of all endeavors, all lusts
For they do direct us
But to his passage.

And thus our Khan is seated
Upon a white horse hide
To remind us of yon pale steed
Lest we falter in our duty.

Ere he comes for us. For all men
End alike upon his back
And none may change one line
Of who and what he was.

Look well upon the white horse hide,
Be unfailing in duty to the Great Khan,
For all men end alike upon
The Pale Horse.

None may naysay his summons.

by: Tagan the Talesmyth, April 26, 1992

 
Members of Khanate Pale Horse