Seamus mac Neachtain - Silver Wheel

Hear the boom! crack! clap! of the cannonade,
the wallop of weapons ‘neath the white-hot sun.
Hundreds of hearts hammering in concert
As they man the meadow en masse to glory
Strength of mind significant to stratagem
Amid the anarchy of the general assault
Seamus mac Neachtain
The competent, courageous commander
Vanguard to view Kingdom to victory,
We, Wilhelm König with Vienna Königin,
Solemnly Swear him into the Order of the Silver Wheel
Reflective of the Southern Region Army repute,
Seen successful for Sovereign .
Done this day and  dutifully recorded at
Shire Wars VIII, the Battle of Hastings
On the 20th of October, A.S. LIII.

Color Coded Version
The first letter of the alliterated words are highlighted red.

Hear the boom! crack! clap! of the cannonade,
the wallop of weapons ‘neath the white-hot sun.
Hundreds of hearts hammering in concert
As they man the meadow en masse to glory
Strength of mind significant to stratagem
Amid the anarchy of the general assault
Seamus mac Neachtain
The competent, courageous commander
Vanguard to view Kingdom to victory,
We, Wilhelm König with Vienna Königin,
Solemnly Swear him into the Order of the Silver Wheel
Reflective of the Southern Region Army repute,
Seen successful for Sovereign .
Done this day and  dutifully recorded at
Shire Wars VIII, the Battle of Hastings
On the 20th of October, A.S. LIII.

Blather for Bloggy Goodness
At Baronial Investiture & King’s and Queen’s Bardic Championships  Lady Violet Hughes and I got to talking about Calligraphy, Illumination and Wordsmithing.  One thing led to another and she sent me the words for a Backlog Silver Wheel that she had been having a hard time with. After I finished the words, she sent the scroll to Lady Fiona the Volatile for the Illuminatioin.This was a fun collaboration with two of my favorite people in the world.

The words Violet sent me:
Hear the thunderous boom of the canon, the clash of weapons under a blazing hot sun. The excited shouts of hundreds of people with their hearts pumping and their minds full of glory. It takes a man strong of mind to apply the strategy and tactics amid the chaos of battle to lead the Kingdom to victory, and a strong voice to command the troops onward. Seamus mac Neachtain is this man, commander of the Southern Region Army. We, Wilhelm König and Vienna Königin, have decided to induct him into the Order of the Silver Wheel to reflect on the good work he displays during the Pennsic Battles. Done at Shire Wars VIII, the Battle of Hastings on the 20th of October, A.S. LIII.

Now my first thought was  to turn it into some sort of Hamilton Filk Scroll.  “Hear the thunderous boom of the canon” in particular inspired that thought of a Hamilton filk.  My mind turned to the
Lyrics from  Right Hand Man:
[HAMILTON]
Yo, let’s steal their cannons—
[MULLIGAN]                                      [COMPANY]
Shh-boom!                                      Boom!   
[WASHINGTON]
Goes the cannon, watch the blood and the shit spray and…
[COMPANY]
Boom!
[WASHINGTON]
Goes the cannon, we’re abandonin’ Kips Bay and…
[COMPANY]
Boom!

Now I could imagine an amazing scroll full of Hamilton references or a filk.  But that is the sort of thing that you write out for someone that you are absolutely certain will appreciate it. I wouldn’t write one for a stranger.  So although inspired, I set that idea aside and moved on to a new one.
I tend to favor poetic scrolls those that use the strict poetic forms.  The East Kingdom wiki page for Seamus mac Neachtain was largely a stub with nothing but a photo, that I can only assume is him, wearing a Norse hood. As such, I turned to Anglo Saxon poetry or Old English poetry.  The poetry of Beowulf, the infamous Norse Saga.
The poetic form follows the pattern of each line being 10 syllables with at least 3 words starting with the same consonant.  As with any poetic form, there are more subtleties in the structure, but that covers the basics.
My second challenge was to keep the word count down.  I have a tendency to go on and could easily make a 500 word count scroll. Violet’s original word count was 125 and my goal was to keep to that as much as possible.  I am proud that I kept it to 106 words. Following the strict syllabic structure aided in that.
Essentially I broke down each sentence that Violet originally wrote and rewrote it with the 10 syllable count and the matching consents.
Dictionary/Thesaurus.com and Rhyme Zone are my best tools for these kinds of projects.It does make me wonder how the ancients did this kind of poetry without such tools!  I would be forever trying to think of an appropriate rhyme.
I did not keep it strictly to the 10 syllable line.  Many of them go to 11 syllables long and a couple a bit more than that.  When it came to his name, I was unsure how to pronounce it correctly and therefore couldn’t correctly count syllables.  Therefore, his name became its own line.
The last line of the scroll, the date and location of the event I also dropped the cadence entirely.  Sometimes that’s necessary when conforming the poetic form of old and the information needed for the East Kingdom Scroll.
Shire Wars VIII, the Battle of Hastings
On the 20th of October, A.S. LIII.
Of course there are things I would do differently had I seen them then.
Hundreds of hearts hammering in concert
I should have done:
Hundreds of hearts hammer in harmony
It stays within the 10 syllable limit and throws in another alliterative word.
I sent it off to Violet who calligraphed it beautifully and she  sent it to Fiona for the illumination.  Making it truly a trifecta of collaboration.

ETA:
It is with a heavy heart I report that Seamus mac Neachtain suddenly passed away this past June, 2019.  While I did not know him many of my friends did and I grieve with them.  It is my understanding that he had received the backlog scroll and loved it.  That he loved it, however briefly, is why we pour our hearts and souls into each piece of art we produce.

Hrafn Breiðskeggr - Court Barony

Bold Hrafn Breiðskeggr
Good Baron of Our hearth
Served the souls Carillion
Causing all growth and joy
Speaking songs with Our voice
Of Precious mouth content
Bear shirt bourne far from home
Finds the way back to Us

Duties done his home calls
His uncut thread be cut
Sailroad Shores do call out
Craving raven feeder
Our eyes overran tears

Through a Draught of giants
The mind's worth he’s displayed
Drives him into Our arms

Baron Bestowed upon
Upright Hrafn’s hat-support
Granted, going forth from
First today then the rest
Anointed arms for him
Per fess argent and sable, two ravens volant to chief and a Thor's hammer counterchanged within a bordure gules
Forthwith and ever more
Done this Day June the 8th
That which won’t be undone

Our will, Our joy set at
Southern Region War Camp in AS 54

Word count 175

Words with Color Coding

Color Key:
The syllabic structure, as exampled below:

(a) – (a) – A –

A – – – – –

The meaning of any kennings used
Hrafn Breiðskeggr arms, Which are deliberately not attempted to put into the rhyme metre used.

Rex Ozurr, Ring Bringer (king)
Bright Regina Fortune
Kind and Kindred Rulers
Reaching those near and far
Guards of Great Tyger Lands
Lo, ever vigilant 

Caretakers of the whole 

Tempest children of men (mankind)

Bold Hrafn Breiðskeggr
Good Baron of Our hearth 

Served the souls Carillion
Causing all growth and joy

Speaking songs with Our voice
Of Precious mouth content (speech)

Bear shirt (Norse warrior) bourne far from home 

Finds the way back to Us

Duties done his home calls
His uncut thread (destiny to be fulfilled) be cut
Sailroad (sea) Shores do call out
Craving raven feeder (warrior)  
Our eyes overran tears

Through a Draught of giants (sudden realization)

The mind's worth (honor) he’s displayed
Drives him into Our arms

Baron Bestowed upon 

Upright Hrafn’s hat-support (head)
Granted, going forth from
First today then the rest
Anointed arms for him
Per fess argent and sable, two ravens volant to chief and a Thor's hammer counterchanged within a bordure gules
Forthwith and ever more
Done this Day June the 8th
That which won’t be undone

Our will, Our joy set at
Southern Region War Camp in AS 54

Blog-Blog, Bo-Blog, Banana Fanna Fo-Flog…

Jonathan Blaecstan put out a call for a wordsmith to help with a Court Barony scroll. Specifically, he needed help for someone with a Norse persona. I answered the call and then set to work on the words for Hrafn Breiðskeggr’s Court Barony Scroll as he stepped down from his position as Baron of Carillion.

Hrafn had requested that his stepping-down scroll use his new name and persona, a 10th century Norse Varangian Guard. The Varangian Guards were Norse warriors who would travel to Byzantium and serve as elite guards to the Byzantine emperors.

I chose to use the Dróttkvætt "noble warrior's meter," the same meter that was used on standing stones and memorials of Norse warriors, some of which were found in the 10th century. I felt this was a good match for his persona.

I wanted to include two distinguishing characteristics of Norse poetry. The first is kennings. A kenning is a reference to an item or concept which does not name it directly, but rather suggests in an elliptical way. A modern example of a kenning would be "First Lady" to indicate the wife of the president. Kennings can also be found in names like "Trash Panda" for a raccoon, or "Danger Noodle" for a venomous snake - although while these modern kennings aim to make their objects sound more "cute," the kennings of Norse poetry were used to make their objects sound more grand. In Norse kennings, the ocean becomes "sail-road" or "seagull track" and an axe becomes "blood-ember" or "precious troll-woman of the prow-sun."

The other distinguishing characteristic of Norse poetry is alliteration. In the Dróttkvætt metre, the lines are linked in pairs by alliteration, two initial sounds in the first line matched by the start of the first stressed syllable in the second line.

Each stanza must be 8 lines long and each line 6 syllables long.

I like to have many kennings at hand, to have a pool to choose from, so I went to my various sources and gathered several on the page.

In this scroll I expanded my use of kennings from a simple word replacement and used a few that represented concepts. As expected, here are several kennings available for "king" or "chieftain," but few for "queen." While I could certainly use the name of a goddess, this time I chose to use "Regina" - not necessarily appropriate to the time period, but it conveyed the information I needed in the correct number of syllables.

I wanted to convey that Hrafn Breiðskeggr’s service to the crown as a landed Baron was finished, and as a member of the Varangian Guard he could return home and have his praises sung or rather, carved in stone.

I was particularly proud of several couplets:

“Speaking songs with Our voice

Of Precious mouth content”

I had wanted to emphasize that one of his many jobs as a Baron was to speak the words of Their Royal Majesties. I used the kenning of “mouth content” for speech.

“Duties done his home calls

His uncut thread be cut

In this couplet, “uncut thread” is a kenning for a destiny to be fulfilled. I used “be cut” after that to imply that his destiny or time as a Landed Baron was completed with full honors and accolades.

I felt these lines conveyed the gravitas of being a Landed Baron and the celebratory occasion of his stepping down and receiving his Court Barony.

I enjoyed wordsmithing this scroll very much. The rigid syllable structure and alliterative verse made for an interesting challenge. I was striving to convey all the relevant information as concisely as possible - although since it was for a Baron stepping down, I felt comfortable exceeding my 100 word limit to nearly 200

This was a backlog scroll from Southern Region War Camp IX and Baronial Investiture Now hosting K&Q Thrown Weapons Champions

Entered the wordsmithing of this scroll St. Eligius Arts and Science Competition, November 16th, 2019. It was entered in the new category of Non Tangible Research category. To my shock and honor I won this category.

Entered the wordsmithing in Queen & Crown's Arts & Sciences Championship feb 21 2020
I did not advance to the next round, nor did I expect to.

Court Report: Southern Region War Camp