A medieval take on the colonial self defense pasta

Own a trebuchet for home defense, since that’s what the medieval engineers intended.

Four brigands breach my keep. “By Saint George?” I bellow, as I don my chainmail coif and seize my arming sword. Cleave the first knave’s tunic clean in half, mostly frightening him because I haven’t sharpened it since Candlemas. Draw my crossbow on the second man, miss him entirely because the windlass takes twelve minutes and skewers my own tapestry of the Battle of Hastings.

I have to resort to the trebuchet stationed in the courtyard, counterweight already cocked and loaded with a respectable paving stone. “Godspeed, lads!” The projectile sails majestically over the invaders, demolishes my neighbor’s dovecote, and triggers a minor succession crisis among the local pigeons.

Fix lance and charge the final trembling scoundrel atop my least cooperative mule. The mule immediately refuses, bites him instead, and he flees into the moat where he develops a deep respect for feudal property law.

Just as the medieval engineers intended.