Tom Perigrins KNO3 Story
----
Many years ago, when I was a well muscled young man of my middle 20's, I
belonged to a Rennaisence Faire group called "Clan Collin". This was a
recreationist group that portryed a Scottish Mercenary Army of the 16'th C.
I played the part of the Artillary Officer.
Well, I decided that the Rennaisence Faire was too "prissy". Where was the
offal in the road? Where were the chamber pots? Where was the raw
sewage? So, I decided to re-enact a less salubrious part of 16'th C
life. I decided to extract saltpeter from manure and urine, according to
the procedure of Birringucchio (1540).
So, I got a half barrel, put it up on some bales of hay, drilled a hole in
the bottom of the side, and plugged it. Then I went out and found some
well dried horse dung, some oak ashes, and some lime. I then put a
4-finger thick layer of manure in the barrel, followed by a 2-finger thick
layer of ashes, and a 1-finger thick layer of lime. I repeated that until
the barrel was nearly full. Then, that evening, after the Faire had
closed, I had a few selected men of the clan pee in the pot (this was
pre-AIDS). This was allowed to set overnight, and to begin it's ferment.
*flurp, blub, bubble*
The next Faire day (Sunday) opened to a hot and swealtering day, and right
in the middle of the first fork in the road there was a burley Scotsman
stirring a pot of rather foul smelling yellow-brown liquid. This gig
provided HUGE amusement to me and the Scots all through the day. For
example, there was the Sassenach (Southern English) Officer who came to
inspect what the Scots military was doing - I told him I was making
saltpeter, and before he could realize what was happening, I had used my
hand to scoop out a few unbroken lumps, and deposited them in his hand. At
first he didn't realize anything was "amiss". After all, they were coated
with ashes and lime and looked like light-weight rocks. But as I described
how "this be the most fullsome earth I could find in the stables", and then
as I lifted one up and broke it open and said "Ach, but they no be broken
up enough!", it dawned on him that he had a handful of ... shit.
There we were, on stage, with several hundred people watching us. His
20'th C person was revolted! He had a handful of horse manure! But his
16'th C character was "fascinated". So, he poked at it once or twice,
discussed the qualities of the English versus the Scottish earths, and then
dropped it back into the barrel. He leaned towards me and used my sleeve
to wipe off his hand (the least I could do), and then said in a very quiet
voice "Damn you!". All the while my hangers-on were trying to prevent
themselves from visably cracking up...
But even more fun was the responses of the public! At first they would be
very interested. After all, here is a big burley guy stirring a pot of
something right in the middle of the fork in the road. This guy WANTS to
be noticed! They would come over and I would launch into my spiel... but
after a while they began to twig. The terms "saltpeter", "earth",
"humours", "waters", and such were almost familar - and after a while the
color, the ODOR, and the words would all click, and they'd say "you have a
a bucket of SHIT? OH GROSS!". Only a few stayed after they realized what
was in the bucket...
But the MOST fun of the day was in the middle of the hotest part of the
afternoon. Two young women came over to flirt with me (In the mid-70's I
was a competetive bicycler and thus I had good legs under the kilt, had
long flowing hair and beard, and cut a good figure of a man). These young
women were drunk as skunks - it had been a HOT day, and the ale went down
easily.
So, here I am, with well mixed horse manure up to my elbows... flirting
with two lovelies with halter tops and shorts. And it seemed as if they
got into a flirting contest with each other (which I LOVED!). First they
chatted, but then one took her fingers and ran them up and down the smooth
silky looking liquid on my arm. Normally that would have been a very very
provocative gesture, but I had to tell her what she did. At first she
didn't understand... but finally she did -
"you mean that's horse shit?"
"Aye, mixed with the waters of the men of the company"
Suddenly, flirting was NO LONGER on her mind. She pulled back, and looked
as if she might leave, when her companion started laughing at her distress.
This was too much for her. She took her now dirty fingers and wiped them
on the shoulder of her friend. "Well how do YOU like it?" Suddenly her
freind was not so happy either! So she reached down, and grabbed a handful
of the mixture, and flung it at first one, and hit her full on the halter
top, right on her -- shall we say -- most curvacious anatomy.
In the next 60 seconds things escalated even more. Suddenly liquid manure
and urine was flying in both directions, and screams and curses were
following. I stepped back against the tree behind me, and could but watch
in amazement as they flung handful after handful of foul filth back and
forth. Then they set into pushing and shoving, and grappling, and ended up
wrestling in the dust of the street. This dust mixed with the handfuls of
yellow muck to produce a most amazing cake on each of them.
All this time the men and women of Clan Collin are howling with laughter,
and can hardly stand for the hilarity of it. I myself am dumbfounded... I
have never had two women fight over me before (although, I think they were
fighting not over me, but rather because of their rivalry), and certainly
I didn't look forward to embracing the winner if it should come to that.
But the fight came to an end, they parted different ways without a backward
glance to me, and I never saw them again after that (But I did go home
that night with the woman who has been my wife now for one and twenty
years, so that worked out alright).
Finally, I filtered the liquids, and boiled them down, and recieved a pound
of crystals that were contaminated with earthly humors. This was dissolved
in a small amount of boiling water in an iron kettle, and allowed to cool,
and I did recieve three ounces less than a pound of very light yellow
crystals. This was then powdered, and mixed with those things in those
ways that one does (I cannot tell you more, for that is a guild secret),
and it did make a fine and goodly gunpowder.
----- As told by Tom Perigrin