No sword by my side

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold;
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand,
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
'Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness, the power of the truth.

One of my favourite hymns from my childhood, When a Knight Won His Spurs is a children's hymn written by Jan Struther and set to a folk melody (Stowey) and harmonised by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The hymn is sometimes performed by folk singers on account of the folk origins of its tune; the link above is to a haunting version of it by acoustic guitarist Martin Simpson.

The knight in today's blip has 'no sword by his side' - he simply waits for it to be mended with a squeeze of superglue.