Word: sark
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...give me the thinnest and oldest." Other seigneurial privileges included the right to keep bitches, forbidden to the Sarkese for fear that a proliferation of dogs might drive sheep over the island's 300-ft. cliffs into the English Channel. That noble prerogative caused one of the rare Sark rebellions against Dame Sibyl's authority. The islanders overruled her prohibition, and bitches are now allowed on Sark-provided they are spayed, of course...
Maintaining the islet of anachronisms was no joke for Dame Sibyl. Nor was it merely a commercial venture designed to bring 50,000 tourists to Sark each year to savor medieval folkways and buy tax-free cigarettes and liquor...
...Sark is not a sort of feudal pageant to amuse visitors," she wrote in her autobiography Dame of Sark. "It is a real live community of people who are happy to have retained their ancient form of government, and possess a subtle dignity of their own, born of many years of independence, honorable work and satisfied old age." Dame Sibyl often complained that it was not easy to maintain the unchanging character of Sark. For example telephones, electricity, and tractors have been allowed in. She noted that "it is not easy now to get horses suitable for drawing our carriages...
When the Nazis occupied the Channel Islands in World War II, Dame Sibyl heroically remained on Sark, to keep up the islanders' morale and "to look after them," as she put it. That included maintaining a haughty refusal to listen to any orders from the Germans, who helplessly fell under her commanding charm...
...never doubted we would win, it was the complete isolation-apart from the occasional Red Cross messages and BBC broadcasts-that was so depressing." Her eldest son died in the war, and she survived two husbands. In recent years, the crippled old lady maneuvered her electric cart along Sark's unpaved roads, greeting every islander by name. "So long as my life may be extended," she said, "I shall strive to maintain this little feudal paradise, with all its traditions, laws and customs, as an oasis of quiet and rest...