Category: Blog

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Returning Home

Gnew has been and likely always will be my favorite event. Yes, it’s hot but you know what? It’s home. This year the plan was to take it easy. I am still re-learning my body as I am going through changes as I continue to lose weight and see how my instrument is working. Minor other health issues but nothing to bring up here.

Since I had earned consorts champ, I have been trying to put up monthly challenges, serve as a mentor and teach. I chose to provide 3 classes at GNEW as I would not be fencing.

My first class was Friday for 12. I was presenting my ad hoc choir. This was not the best time for this class to be successful, but beggars can’t be choosers. We had a mixed skill level group but not much for vocal variety. Click below to listen to the group perform the piece they learned day of!

Edi be thu, heven queene

Sheet Music-Edi be thu, heven queene

Later in the day, I met with several performers who had an interest in the Bardic Arts. Aalina and I hosted a Bard round table to discuss questions, stories, fears and all in between. We had the full gambit of questions and I feel like the new generation of performers is strong and ready to flourish.

From there it was off to teach my son about the joys of service in the SCA. He is 9.5 so doing for others if somewhat foreign to him still. I ran off to retain with Their excellencies Stonemarche. I was given a plate of delicious items to share with the Deed gallery. There was nor formal gallery this year so tasty treats for all!

Saturday I started my day in morning court, seeing folks celebrated and then off to my final class. I did my rounds class. This class had originally been inspired by Aneleda Falconbridge. I had taken it over when she was elevated to Laurel. It had started as her labor of love and I have been continuing it. Inspired by this I have been putting together a book of all period rounds. It is a work in processes, but I hope it will continue to be a tool that folks will use to keep singing in a safe space.

Rounds Book compiled by Solveig Bjarnardottir

Here is a small recording of the folks singing in my group. This song is originally in German, but I am using the English translation with my students.

Music Alone Shall Live

The rest of the time in between was a blur until court. Previously, I had been asked if I would serve as an alternate on the A and S team. This was an absolute honor. I didn’t put much thought into it, but it has really kick started my desire to go into further documentation with my pieces. However, look at this group of amazing folks!!!! I am so excited to do this. Look out Pennsic. More to come on that post Pennsic.

Last but not least, for Saturday, my love was to be recognized in court and become a Lord. Wolfgang was to receive his silver brooch. I have a mold of the silver brooches I had made before. if you look back in past posts, you can see what they look like. However, this time, to make his special, I enameled it for him so it represents the heraldic picture of the award. That night, my house mate was being being apprenticed and I had the joy of heralding him and wandering camps to sing and do Bardy things. Just a good ol’ shennaniganless night. Irish coffee without the irish and songs for old and new friends.

Sunday was pack up day. The saddest day of all. Sure, it was hot and gross all weekend, but this is where my heart lies. As I was packing up, some old friends from Malagentia asked if I would mind mentoring their child in Bardic Performance. I was honored and moved. I have watched this amazingly warm human grow and nothing would give me greater honor. I cried back in camp. This… this was my passion, my joy. To bring bardic to the world, be safe and be a teacher. I cried for joy. We drove home…. washed off the GNEW tan and that was the end of this tale.

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Bardic Around the Fire

Another bardic another safe place. Not much to report on this one besides we had 5 completely new folks to Bardic/The SCA. People who I have never seen before got up and performed. I did learn that although my circle is a safe place, I do need to mention that politics have no place in my circles even though they are mutually followed and agreed upon.

Also, I think I may need to find a safe and kind way to tell folks that their piece may not be appropriate in general, even with trigger warnings etc….

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Palio di Stonemarche

This year Palio was very small compared to previous years. However, considering it was up against fencing champs and another full war event, we still had a decent sized crowd. It was bitterly cold and rainy at night, but that didn’t take away from the run.

I ran the fencing tournament that day, but I was also in charge of the Golden Tongue Bardic competition. This is very near and dear to my heart because it gives folks who were newer performers a chance to shine. The rules are that you can never have won a bardic competition. We had 4 folks competing this year ranging from age 10 to a bit older (We never speak of a ladies age!) These folks do not proclaim themselves Bards. They have had rough experiences and similar to me, had sworn they would never perform again.

They said that -I- inspired them to give it a chance again. I was speechless. I just want folks to have a safe performance space.

When all was done, I chose, not the best or worst performer, I chose someone who moved me. I gifted them the prize and asked them to make me a promise that they would work on their story and tell it to me again sometime within the year.

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This year was different….

This year was different. I just couldn’t get out of my own way. 2 years of virtual performance just aren’t the same. I hadn’t been focusing on my music as much as I should have and the passion for competition didn’t light the flame underneath me. This was the first year I just didn’t feel like competing, but I knew it was good for me. So, I continued on. I had originally picked my repertoire, believing that this year would be like the last 5 where I would have to do 1 piece that was SCA appropriate, 1 piece that was period and the final round would be the crowns whim.

It was announced 6 weeks prior to crown bardic that there would be a theme. “War”. War was not really something that was comfortably in my repertoire. Sure, I like to make people sad like anyone else, but the war in the Ukraine had really put a damper on my soul. I needed to rework my plans for competition this year.

My head had tossed and turned about my first round piece. I wanted to tell a story. Folks don’t really know me for my story telling skills. They mostly know me as a singer. I had originally thought about telling the story of beginning the great unification of Japan. Our King, Ryou, based his persona off of Oda Nobunaga, who was one of the 3 unifiers of Japan. I thought that may be really neat. However, my addled brain just couldn’t bear to add new repertoire to it. Also, finding the right way to keep Oda Nobunaga in a positive light was evading me. So, I chose to tell a humorous tale. It wasn’t period, but it was SCA appropriate. I told the story of “How I caught the red dragon”. It was a strong way to start/finish round 1 and vastly different than anything my other competitors would be doing.

I chose for round 2 to do a completely persona accurate piece. I found a landsknecht piece called “Unser Liebe fraue”. My persona is a Trossfrau who would have traveled with the soldiers as they marched off to mercenary jobs.

The final round would be up to the crown.

The weeks passed and every day I asked my husband if I should still compete. It would put a damper on our house remodeling and also would limit my ability to care for our son at events. Every day he encouraged me to continue on. So, I did.

The bardic community is tight here in the East. We are all friends and there is no ill will towards anyone. We spoke often and I would see who would be joining me at Roses. The numbers were low. It was tough hearing the numbers that low. Daily they ranged from 3-7. Would it feel awful if I didn’t win? Would I feel awful if I did win? Did I deserve it? It’s so many feelings rushing through.

Day of came.

I had my community behind me. Again, nothing seemed like it was as it should be. I donned my German, which was my armor and off I went. My husband was trying to MIT for archery so I went alone.

I saw familiar faces. We hugged. We chatted. I found a new face. I welcomed her as I had never even met her before. She was one of us today. I don’t care what her skill level is. She would be one of us.

The day started with Anne de Basillion heralding us in. It was so cool to feel special. To feel like our championship, though small as it was, mattered.

Round 1 went off with out a hitch. A minor hiccup, but nothing I would call a mistake. I was pleased with my story. It’s not for everyone, but I made folks smile.

Round 2… thats another story. I had forgotten half of the words. I didn’t stop. I made them up as I went. This was a skill I picked up in college. Fake it till you make it. No one seemed to notice. Not even the judges who I had presented a copy of the text and translations to. WHEW.

The finals. We all went to the finals since there were only 5 of us. TRM picked my Ladino piece. I got to geek out and talk about my deep knowledge of ladino, a dead language and sing a beautiful piece of love and loss. I got to chit chat about batties and the macabre. I got to feel a bit more whole about my love.

The day was long, but over. I missed my Bardic family. I missed Agnes who was home with Covid. I missed the hugs and camaraderie that is our community. It was small, but we protected one another during each round. We were family.

We were each gifted a favor from HrRM and Agnes sent us all bracelets. I did not receive one from my sister. She only sent 4 and there were 5 of us. I was gifted a special one from Aneleda Falconbridge. This had a history.

Then… court happened. Sovereigns champion was named as Leyli Shirazi. This was the new to me bard. New to our community. She was magic and it was an absolute delight seeing her called up.

Then, this happened:

After my name was called, I stood there, dumbfounded and hid behind the court banners for the rest of the night. This was something I had been working towards since 2015. It finally happened.

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Love for my Laurel-Ican

Several months back, my Pelican reached out to me and asked if I wanted to create tokens for my Laurel as she was going to be asked to join the Order of the Pelican. At that time, I was unable to complete the project so I said no. More covid struck the world and the event was moved to a much later date. I wanted to do something more special than just tokens. I wanted to do something that meant something to Sabine. Her full SCA name is Sabine de Kerbriant and she is a 14th century french woman. What better way to capture that than to do a 14th century brooch. Her badge that she marks all of us is a heart. So, I found a heart shaped brooch. I wanted to something truly accurate to her persona. Luckily, l found this. See the below link:

Link to museum where brooch is housed

The original brooch said “Without being parted” which wasn’t what I really wanted to convey, so I did some research and found a 14th century french phrase which seemed to be more fitting. “Here I am Yours” IOSV IEI ATI VCI.

From there, I did my work. I 3D modeled this in fusion 360

This is the image after many many hours of modeling

From there, I made a mold out of high temperature silicone and cast it

After it was cast, I cut off the sprue, cleaned it up, ran it through a rock tumbler.

To make the brooches functional, I took silver plated copper, cut them to length, wrapped them and filed the edges to make them sharp. I made 75 of these for Sabine’s elevation. My hands were cranky.

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A More Challenging Assembly

You would think after the 3 prior years of running this event, it would be easy as cake. The problem was that the 3 previous years had all been different. Covid-19 is still raging on and that lends itself to many other challenges.

In the first year of the challenge assembly’s inception, it had a large location in an area that was well accessible by many of the performers in the region. Bringing it up north had it’s own challenges. EKCOP has no money of it’s own, so we would need to find a sponsoring location. Luckily, Stonemarche had some extra money in the coffers and could offer us a sum to run this event. Finding sponsors for the challenges was another item as folks were unsure how their challenges were going to be taken and how they would view them.

This year, I was able to have 18 sponsors of 20 unique challenges. Next, getting folks to travel to New Hampshire and be willing to perform. We still had the requirements of masking indoors and performing outside would pose a challenge as there was a baseball game booked on the same grounds we were using. Can’t really complain considering the site was only charging us 75 dollars for the day. In addition we had to figure out how much food to feed people for day board and how we could encourage folks to teach.

The performance community in Stonemarche is decently sized, however, covid was making this all difficult. All in all, we had 43 attendees and actually made a profit of a little more than a hundred dollars for the day and this with charging folks the least amount we possibly could. We also had 12 amazing classes ranging from singing, story telling, history of stories and insturmental. The videos will be up soon… I hope.

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Demo at the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire

One of my jobs, as it has been for the past year is to serve as the Chatelaine of the Barony of Stonemarche. For the previous year, it has really just been an administrative job due to the nature of events and COVID. However, at the Aisles of Marche, I had set up a mini demo for any possible new comers to be able to see what we had besides shopping. I wanted something that was more visually pleasing than just some folks, standing around in garb and answering questions. I wanted something interactive.

For the NHRF, I started off with a new, revamped booklet, which was not as intense as what we have on the SCA website, but has some key information that a new comer would need walking into their first, second or third events.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1quyibfNwdMUSnwOxnH4hwkdgSateUS5r/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105255312117189439983&rtpof=true&sd=true

From there, I also created a form with pictures of all the main folks in the Barony, as well as the Royals. This was accurate at the time of it’s inception. This will get updated as officers and royals change.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mND-AeuMKRuFKDMQosknxJdEkfRBMiFy/view?usp=sharing

From there it was grabbing weapons, crafts, books, arts and SINGING! I cannot have an event without singing. I brought a few copies of my rounds book and as folks had time, would encourage them to sing. We also had live crafting demonstrations and board games. I picked a few of my favorite medieval board games and set them out to teach people. On the games, there was a copy of the barony and sca information as well as the rules. I figured this might be a better alternative to business cards. Also, for the hip crew, we had a QR code to scan so I could email folks directly. I know I don’t want to carry a card with me if I don’t have to.

The rest of the day I spent answering questions for new comers, herding my amazing volunteers, scheduling breaks and just having a blast welcoming new comers.