Fifty dancing virgins

As I write, the actual Cup, the Webb Ellis Cup, the Rugby World Cup, is down at Bluff about to start its pilgrimage northwards through the land for the homage of the faithful. First, today, they carted it across Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island where the primary school kids did a haka and had their photos taken individually alongside the Cup.

This is very moving stuff. They have modified some large cartage van as the centerpiece of their cavalcade, and it seems that worshippers in Hokitika or Havelock, Dannevirke or Dargaville, can form orderly queues and file through the van for a reverential glimpse of the Cup.

It is reminiscent of the ancient Hebrew narrative describing King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant up into Jerusalem. He sacrificed bullocks along the way and had the Ark preceded by dancing singing virgins. David himself danced the Ark into Jerusalem, naked, and subject to some public ridicule. He was just happy, that’s all.

So at least when the Cup is in the approaches to centres with sacred rugby turf there could be some local dancing virgins. About fifty should do it, if they can be found. A reduced number might be necessary at Taumarunui. Solemn barbecues with Heineken could substitute for sacrifices, although I would personally prefer a properly spit-roasted bullock. But that would take too long.

The Cup is an elaborate silver thing with a lid, and I was intrigued to learn that its two handles have silver representations of a satyr on one and a nymph on the other. This could be seen as sinister. The only connection I can think of between satyrs and nymphs on the one hand, and world Rugby on the other, seems to me strictly off-field and causes considerable angst from time to time, with players sent home. One has to ask why this design was chosen. Perhaps we will never know. One possibility is that, as happened in the building of old cathedrals, carvers and engravers, artisans and decorators, often left their own little secret jokes.

Well, now it proceeds north. With only two months to the opening of Rugby Heaven and its ancillary horrors such as Auckland’s Party Central -- to say nothing of the media’s sickening obsequious and sycophantic devotion -- it has become a case of sauve qui peut. There is no escape committee I know of.

An item in the NZ Herald today says there is some trouble recruiting enough people to serve beer. I imagine there are sufficient people to drink it.