A perfectly triangular lake has three kingdoms along its three sides.
The first kingdom is rich and powerful, filled with wealthy, prosperous people.
The second kingdom is more humble, but still enjoys its fair share of wealth and influence.
The third kingdom is poor and struggling, with barely enough resources to maintain an army.
Eventually, the three kingdoms go to war over control of the lake, which has become a valuable resource.
The first kingdom sends 100 of its finest knights, clad in the best armor money can buy, each accompanied by a personal squire.
The second kingdom sends 50 knights, equipped with fine leather armor and supported by several dozen squires of their own.
The third kingdom can only send a single knight — an elderly warrior long past his prime — along with his faithful squire.
The night before the great battle, the knights of the first kingdom drink and celebrate late into the night.
The knights of the second kingdom aren’t quite as wealthy, but they still have enough grog to keep the festivities going well into the evening.
In the third camp, things are much quieter.
The squire takes a rope and throws it over the branch of a tall tree, making a noose. He hangs a cooking pot from it, fills it with stew, and shares a humble dinner with the old knight.
The next morning, disaster strikes.
The knights of the first two kingdoms are too hungover to fight.
The old knight from the third kingdom is simply too old and weary to rise from his bed.
So instead, the squires from all three kingdoms march into battle.
The fighting lasts all day and well into the night. When the dust finally settles, only one squire remains standing: the squire from the third kingdom.
And that just goes to show you that: The squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.
Explanation: The joke is a parody of the Pythagorean theorem: “the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides.”It replaces square with squire, and hypotenuse with “high pot and noose,” describing the cooking setup. It’s an elaborate math pun.
