This day We have come to this hostelry
We Majesties Wilhelm and Vienna
With all the East Kingdom in company
Called to our thrones, before us on bent knee
We have here the scribe Faolán an Sccreccain
A lord known for skill with parchment and pen
His skill has grown from scribbles of knotwork
Done sitting on stairs while dancers did lurk
Now crafts manuscripts, full of the graces
done fine, in the tiniest of spaces
A combat scribe, Our Faolán an Sccreccain
Calligraphy skills used time and again
Imagine him clad in drab olive-black
Hiding behind trees, wary of attack
Inscribing scrolls lost or suddenly inspired*
Avoiding onslaught with muck, not desired!*
Creating words in a Barony blue
Working with inks to achieve varied hue
He collects fonts and letters a plenty
His portfolio will ne’er be empty
Today he joins the Order of the Maunche
His great artistry for the East, most staunch
These arms which we grant for him alone:
Argent, two porcupines statant erect respectant maintaining between them two pens in saltire, a mountain of three peaks sable.
The wearing of these, We will condone
In Concordia, Barony of Snows
We Celebrate fellowship straightaway
Surrounded with this ridiculous prose
27th, October is the day
Expressly pleased are We, with all surveyed
On Anno Societatis fifty three
In Our Copious Lands from shore to sea
Color Coded Version
Color Key
ABABBCC
Rhyming couplets
Heraldic Language
Traveling roads caked in dark sienna
This day We have come to this hostelry
We Majesties Wilhelm and Vienna
With all the East Kingdom in company
Called to our thrones, before us on bent knee
We have here the scribe Faolán an Sccreccain
A lord known for skill with parchment and pen
His skill has grown from scribbles of knotwork
Done sitting on stairs while dancers did lurk
Now crafts manuscripts, full of the graces
done fine, in the tiniest of spaces
A combat scribe, Our Faolán an Sccreccain
Calligraphy skills used time and again
Imagine him clad in drab olive-black
Hiding behind trees, wary of attack
Inscribing scrolls lost or suddenly inspired*
Avoiding onslaught with muck, not desired!*
Creating words in a Barony blue
Working with inks to achieve varied hue
He collects fonts and letters a plenty
His portfolio will ne’er be empty
Today he joins the Order of the Maunche
His great artistry for the East, most staunch
These arms which we grant for him alone:
Argent, two porcupines statant erect respectant maintaining between them two pens in saltire, a mountain of three peaks sable.
The wearing of these, We will condone
In Concordia, Barony of Snows
We Celebrate fellowship straightaway
Surrounded with this ridiculous prose
27th, October is the day
Expressly pleased are We, with all surveyed
On Anno Societatis fifty three
In Our Copious Lands from shore to sea
Bloggy Bloggy, Bo-Bloggy Banana-fanna fo floggy
When Faolán an Sccreccain's name came up on the lists of those to be inducted into the Order of the Maunche for the upcoming reign, Lady Æsa Sturludottir and I were approached by his wife, Baroness Maria Erika von Ossenheim and his Laurel, Mistress Fiona O'Maille o chauncoille to do his scroll for the Manche. Æsa and I both sent in the request and were given the go ahead to do the scroll.
Apparently Faolán had fallen in love with the humerus AoA we had worked on together, the Pennsic before. He actually had to do the calligraphy twice as he was giggling too much and had messed up his first attempt.
This became a Damocles Sword hanging over my head! I had done funny! I needed to do funny again! But my inspiration for funny was turning up nil!
So I took a break from figuring out what the content would be and concentrated on the writing style. Faolán had adopted a late 1300s persona and that meant Chaucerian English! One of my favorite time periods to write in. Rhyming couplets are fun.
Standard Chaucerian English consisted of Rhyming couplets, 10 syllables long in Iambic Pentameter. He also used The Rhyme Royal, stanzas that consists of seven lines, in in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCC.
I had never attempted the Rhyme Royal before and wanted to challenge myself. I decided to use the Rhyme Royal in the beginning and the end of the award, specifically the parts that identify Their Majesties and the location and date of the event. Using the Rhyme Royal for Their Royal Majesties certainly seemed appropriate at the time. In future awards I may not split the rhyme scheme, Chaucer didn’t mix them in any of his separate stories.
I decided to forgo funny and draw upon our many decades of friendship to craft the points I wanted to mention in rhyming couplets.
The first was my earliest memories of him, which, unknown to me, was before he considered himself to be a member of the SCA at all! At that time our local Dance Practice was in the top floor of a building on the RPI campus. Before the practice would start in the nice weather at least, many of us would hang out outside at the bottom of a long flight of stairs. He would sit there and doodle knot work. I remember being amazed that anyone could freehand celtic knotwork! What I had not realised was this was before he considered himself in the SCA. He lurked for a few years before he fully committed to joining the Society.
The phrase “in the tiniest of spaces” is a direct reference to a scroll he worked on with me for Birka that year. I had done the illumination and the wordsmithing for a scroll.
I found myself unable to do the calligraphy. My stroke affected eyesight and hand tremors were too much. I called Faolán and begged for his help. It was days before the event and I was a panicked, desperate mess. He agreed to do the calligraphy for me and the Friday night before Birka in the (then) Radisson hotel, he sat down and wrote the words in a beautiful hand with the smallest pen imaginable. The spaces for the words were only in one inch circles. He not only went out of his way to help me, but suffered through a very restrictive and difficult space. As “payment” for his help he only made me promise never to give him anything that small to work on again!
Mere words can’t express how grateful I am for his help.
The next reference was to Faolán being a “Combat Scribe.” A tern he applied to himself after having to craft unexpected scrolls for awards at the event that the awards were meant to be handed out! I had often observed him at events with his portable scribal kit working on scrolls throughout an event. What I didn’t know was that he had coined the term, “Combat Scribe” at the first Tourney of the Daffodils. The first event of the new Shire of Midland Vale and one that I was the Head Steward for!
Then came the stanza where I had to include his arms. The language of the arms are finite and I couldn't change them to fit into any rhyme scheme or syllable count. So I didn’t. And I inserted the arms in between the 2 sentences of the rhyming couplet.
The final stanza I switched back to the Rhyme Royal. For the AB rhyme I wrote
“In Concordia, Barony of Snows
We Celebrate fellowship straightaway”
I was particularly fond of oblique reference to the Concordian Order of the Friends with “fellowship.” An order that both Faolán and I are in.
So while it didn’t end up funny, per se, the scroll did end up representing the many ways in which our lives and friendship Being able to make this scroll was a privilege and an honor. Faolán wrote about the scroll here. I am grateful to Baroness Maria and Mistress Fiona for thinking of me and for Lady Æsa in being a willing partner in crime.
