Long ago (though not quite as long as certain legendary exploits which would pass into the vague realm of "heroics") and far away (slightly farther away than the realm of Valencia, or slightly nearer, depending on which direction one was measuring from), there lay a vast sea, and by that sea, a humble cottage, and within that cottage dwelt several noble souls. Over the years, many of the children who had grown up there would do great deeds of their own and make their own names as worthy adventurers, but at the time of this particular saga this had not quite begun to come to pass. Rather, these children were napping, while their mother, Princess Isabella Maria Lucia Elizabetta of Valencia, worked in the garden opposite the shore. (Most of the flowers she looked after were the normal type, content with their beds, but a very strapping Martian flytrap had sprung up and frequently bit at passersby unless it was fed a healthy diet of passing insects. The business of keeping it sated delighted the young ones, so long as they kept their fingers at a safe distance.)
This left Gary Galavant, occasional knight and not-so-courtly bard, to the pleasures of his quill. He scribbled a few lines on his parchment and bit his cheek as he heard them echoing against the rhythm of an earworm he could not shake. He crossed them out. He wrote down a few more, scratched these out too, and then upset the inkwell. Fortunately, the ink soaked into the parchment; unfortunately, the parchment was rendered unusable.
Using power that the years had not worn from his hands, he seized the heavy parchment and forcibly squeezed it into a ball, then hurled it into the compost pile, which lay out the window, amid the weeds. Isabella looked up from her planting, waving through the window. "Need a break?" she mouthed.
Galavant nodded, pacing up from his desk. Strange, that his new vocation had proven on some occasions to be more physically taxing than hers. He walked outside, going around the house until he and Isabella could see each other as he walked up and down the sand.
"Don't mind me," he helpfully explained, "I'll just be muttering under my breath for a bit."
"Oh," Isabella said, "is that all? I was afraid of something dangerous."
"Let's hope," said Galavant, instinctively glancing out towards the water to see if any lost pirates were about to make unexpected landfall. Then, he began spouting forth in tetrameter.
"I love you just for who you are,
No name with which you are endowed
Could make me any jot more proud
Of you. Love beats out pride by far.
But I do not have any shame
In praising such a lovely name...
Like Isabella!
Let me tell ya!
(And I'll do so acapella)
That I was a lucky fella
When she first walked into my room
Because she brought out all my best;
Not just through a chance to go quest,
But pointing my path out of gloom.
I'd given up the dreams of youth,
Her melodies came, laced with lies.
And in their spaces, harmonized
The way that echoed back our truth.
As for Maria..."
"Skip it," said Isabella, "it's trite."
"Excuse me?"
"Odes to my middle name, my first middle name, and all? I appreciate the sentiment, but even a giant could hum that sort of thing. Keep going, though, you sound lovely."
"Er...thanks," Galavant said. He repeated some of the rhymes he'd just experimented with; mostly simplistic, he figured, but they'd suit. Then, he pressed on.
"Take Lucia!
There you'll see a
Perfect complement for me, a
Second chance for me to be a
Defender of what's good and right;
And a first chance to be the man
I am today-a better plan,
For though it's great to be a knight,
And valiant deeds brought me great glory,
Still I am earning honor here
And love this company most dear,
That I can hail in my own story."
He glanced back at Isabella, who'd turned to delve into another row of flowers. Then he picked up a rock, and attempted to skip it, counting syllables under his breath. This didn't exactly succeed; although he managed to hurl it a considerable distance on the first try, it immmediately sank once it hit the surface of the water. Undeterred, he kept composing.
"Elizabetta!
Why, I bet ya,
(At the risk of going meta),
She's the very best I've met, a
Commanding presence in the field
Of battle and of crops as well.
Stalks and hearts fall under her spell,
For her both weeds and zombies yield.
With sword or shovel she makes space
For burgeoning new life to sprout
Amid the compost, rising out;
From all our wars, a peaceful place."
"Our wars, plural?" Isabella asked. "Is that a nice way of saying you've declared war on some of the other realms?"
"No," said Galavant, "I just thought the plural would scan better."
"Oh. Well, in that case I suppose it could be worse."
"Thanks for your vote of confidence," he said. "What about the 'of Valencia,' is that actually part of your name?"
"I suppose you can include it if you want. Although it's more of a title, really."
"I just want to set a good example for the kids, you know? That we're people, we're more than the places we come from..."
"Well, I'm setting the example that I'm an individual, I'm not a second copy of you, and my name still reflects that."
"I should think that hardly needs reminding," Galavant laughed, but he began brainstorming anyway.
"Of Valencia!
She hails from hence, yeah.
I should say in her defense, yeah,
It will make a lot more sense, yeah,
That in the end it's not a title
Or names or even place of birth
That really give a person worth
Or prove particularly vital;
But there a future queen and king
Gave her each gorgeous, thrilling, name;
The world has never been the same
Since she has made my verses ring."
Isabella got up, tucking her remaining gardening tools in a basket under her arm, and danced around the house to join Galavant. In time to his new rhythm, she improvised,
"You tell them, Gary!
The man I'd marry
Once again and never tarry
For it never would be scary.
The world sets traps for the unwary
Like pirate vessels for a ferry,
Or captains drunk on pirate sherry
From zombies that you can't just bury,
To jousting madmen on a prairie,
And robbers that leave you with nary
A cent. Though some traps may look hairy,
With you, no load's too much to carry."
"Thank you," Galavant blushed. "Can I carry your load-I mean, your gardening inside?"
"No," said Isabella, "I'll get started on dinner, you want to copy your poem down before you forget it."
He nodded. "Does this mean it's my turn on diapers afterward?"
"Absolutely!"
"Sounds fair," he said.
By the time they'd gotten in, the kids (three of them, but Galavant was starting to consider maybe taking the average of their pre-engagement guesses and trying for four or five) had started to wake up, and he couldn't help but grin as he began taking pen to a new piece of parchment. I love you just for who you are, he began. If one of his poems could get through to them, remind them that they were more than heroes' children, that would be plenty.
"Honey?" Isabella asked, once he'd finished transcribing.
"Yes, yes, diapers, I know..."
"No, not that. I just-why didn't you go by 'Gary' growing up? It's so much more rhymable!"
"Oh, well, rhyme isn't everything. Look at 'Maria,' I think it's lovely, but if you think it's trite-"
"I just think, when you could be singing about someone like Gary, I don't really stack up..."
"Ssh, you'll give our children the wrong ideas," he teased.
"Eh?" one of the toddlers gurgled.
"Your father is being very silly." Isabella scooped her up.
"Your father loves you very much," Galavant said, kissing her on the cheek, "and your elaborately-named mother, too."
And so, the poems of Gary Galavant continued to pass into lore. And about seven hundred years later, an arbitrary cohort of self-proclaimed musical theater experts attempted to settle the merits of songs about the names Maria and Gary, but what do they know?
Note: "The Music Man" (including "Gary, Indiana") beat out "West Side Story" (including "Maria") at the 1957 Tony Awards.