Runa of the North - Award of Arms

East Kingdom clad with Kindred of Rulers Assess all. We, Tindal and Alberic Seek sterling gentles to raise their stations Runa of the North runs demos, races Creates clothing crafted with thread and wools Boosting her group she hatched “Viking Hiking” She’s known to send hailstones from the bowstring Now the Award of Arms Runa attains Lady, at last! Valkyrie of linens Concluded in Our Court in the Cloud-Lands Word count 69

Color Coded Version

KEY
Red letters - alliterative text
Yellow Highlighter - Kenning
Blue all caps - Meaning of the Kenning

East Kingdom clad with Kindred of Rulers PRINCES, PLURAL

Assess all. We, Tindal and Alberic 

Seek sterling gentles to raise their stations

Runa of the North runs demos, races 

Creates clothing crafted with thread and wools

Boosting her group she hatched “Viking Hiking”

She’s known to send hailstones from the bowstring ARROWS

Now the Award of Arms Runa attains

Lady, at last! Valkyrie of linens  WOMAN/LADY

Concluded in Our Court in the Cloud-Lands SKY/HEAVEN/ETHEREAL COURT

This was read out at the Fourth Ethereal Court of the Eastern Consules, Tindal & Alberic

36:05 - 38:51

I am Loquacious of BLOG.  Prepare to be assimilated.

Ciaran ua Meic Thire put up a call for a Norse scribe on the EK Scribes page. Mistress Leonete tagged me to bring it to my attention. A brief conversation later and I had the job! 

I was lucky, in that the recipient not only had a long and detailed write up, but also a wonderfully detailed East Kingdom Wiki page. With those in hand I got to work. 

I decided to stick with the Beowulf format and planned for alliterative text, 10 syllables per line. 

Then I hit my favorite source for kennings, the Skaldic Project. (Much to my dismay, I discovered that the site had been redone and my ability to search for kennings and copy and paste them into my working document seriously curtailed. I quickly sent them an email, explaining how I used the site and inquiring about how best to use it in the future. I did find an older version of the site and proceeded to use it as normal.)

There I found the kenning that kicked my scroll into gear - a kenning for plural kings!

I used a couple wraparound sentences in the scroll - that is, a sentence that trails onto the next line. This device is uncommon in iambic pentameter, the rhyme royal or rhyming couplets of Chaucer. 

I worked and reworked the sentences many times. None of these sentences had a rhyming cadence and I wanted to make sure that the herald would be comfortable reading the text. 

Kennings, and how I used them:

Kindred of Rulers - Kings, plural

Although the Consuls prefer thar title, they do accept titles specific to a recipient's persona. 

This is a direct use of an extant kenning, meaning kings, plural. It perfectly fit our reigning monarchs and the recipient's persona.

 

Hailstones from the bowstring - Arrows

This seems like a cheat to modern eyes, for 2 out of the 3 alliterative sounds are from the middle of words of the kenning - but they are both compound words and the sounds are the important parts of alliteration. 

Valkyrie of Linens - Woman/Lady

Here I used the kenning to illustrate their new rank. 

What was more interesting to me was the mention of linen. On the recipient's Wiki page it specifically mentions their garb was made with either linen or wool, and I wrote "linen and wool" in an early draft. But when I found this kenning for "lady," I desperately wanted to include it - so I opted to change "linen" to "thread" and use the kenning unchanged. 

The Cloud-Lands - Sky/Heaven/Ethereal Court

Cloud-Lands is a kenning for both "sky" and "heaven."  While I do not know if this is due to Christian translators throughout history or a specific mention of an afterlife, it is listed differently from other kennings for the sky. 

I choose to use it for Ethereal Court - an apt metaphor for these strange times.

Sparky photo from Matthias von Würzburg

Court Report: 4th Ethereal Court of Their Royal Majesties Tindal & Alberic

Yasemin Bin Al-Hajjar - Maunche

We have mudh to say to the East this night 

Yasemin Bin Al-Hajjar puts stars to flight 

We Declare her skills earn augmentation 

She raises the East with her hand and light 

We directly seek to raise her station 

For calligraphy and illumination 

Her raiment, as well, elegant and sleek 

The Order of the Maunche meets this vocation 

Counsels, Tindel and Alberic bespeak 

Of this fine alchemist with paint and ink 

Granted at Ethereal Court with delight 

With copious speech that is not oblique

Word count: 84

VERSE STRUCTURE COLOR KEY AABA BBCB CCAC We have mudh to say to the East this night Yasemin Bin Al-Hajjar puts stars to flight We Declare her skills earn augmentation She raises the East with her hand and light We directly seek to raise her station For calligraphy and illumination Her raiment, as well, elegant and sleek The Order of the Maunche meets this vocation Counsels, Tindel and Alberic bespeak Of this fine alchemist with paint and ink Granted at Ethereal Court with delight With copious speech that is not oblique

Went out at The Third Ethereal Court of the Eastern Consules, Tindal & Alberic
At the 7:57 mark through 10:22

BLOG POST! WOO! OOO! Fiona presented me with doing a Maunche scroll and I jumped at the opportunity. I have known the recipient, Yasemin Bin Al-Hajjar for many years and we both live in the Shire of Midland Vale. In this time of COVID, it was specifically requested that we not give a particular time or place in the scroll and as such I left it as merely an Ephemeral Court. Fiona showed me the inspiration piece, "Bahman-Ardeshir swallowed by a dragon," 1580-85, and I quickly set to some internet searching to learn more about the rhymes and metres of Middle Eastern poetry. I found "A Thousand Years of the Persian Book Classical Persian Poetry" and particularly the authorJalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - better known simply as Rumi - who was definitely within the recipient’s time period. So I looked into what forms the poet would have used and discovered the Ruba’i, which included one of the first western translations of this poetic form by Edward Fitzgerald in the mid 19th century. I decided to follow Fitzgerald's translation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." While this is a later piece, it follows the same poetic form as Rumi, and seemed to be the best compromise between Yasemin’s time period and the time period of her scroll. Fitzgerald uses a particular verse structure known as the Rubáiyát Quatrain - the same form Robert Frost used in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." I broke down the verses of the scroll into the cyclical structure, linking the unrhymed line of the final stanza back to the first stanza. 

This was an exciting project and I enjoyed working with a new poetic form. The illumination and the calligraphy were incredibly gorgeous and all together we made an incredible piece that, I hope, reflects the incredibly talented recipient and her wonderful achievements in the East Kingdom.

Sparky photo from Matthias von Würzburg

Wymarc of Dragonship Haven - Award of Arms

Tindel! Alberic! Great Eastern Consules
Measure Our folks worth in more than ounces
Seeking the best, not those that are craven:
Finding Wymarc of Dragonship Haven
As a fencer, she swashes and buckles,
She’s won contests! No skin off her knuckles!
She’s a volunteer and picks up a broom
Gives their hard won time making events bloom
These traits We value, for which Arms We give
For Wynmarc to wear, long as she may live
Done today in this Our ethereal court
The praises of Our Wynmarc all will purport 

 
Word Count: 90

Blather:

Fiona the Volatile tapped me to write the words for this scroll. Neither of us knew the recipient and we didn’t get much more information than was in the original write up. This is not a hindrance, but a delightful challenge! An early idea was to put Roman references in the scroll to reflect our reigning Consuls. It didn’t really work out, though I explored a few wiki pages as an initial path to take. I will keep the idea for possible future scrolls. Fiona decided to go with murder-bunnies as the theme. This matched Chaucerian rhyming couplets, which are always fun, and both of us went to our respective drawing boards. When I am writing rhyming couplets, I write the first line, rhyme the end word, and write the next line of the couplet backwards. The hardest line in the text often becomes my favorite one and this scroll was no different. The favored couplet - 

As a fencer, she swashes and buckles, She’s won contests! No skin off her knuckles! - originally was written as: As a fencer, she can swash and buckle She won Baronial Thrown Weapons, no trouble!

The couplet went through several revisions, because in the description I received she was listed as the Baronial Thrown Weapons Champ, but her primary focus was Rapier fighting. I wanted to mention both interests in the scroll. But given the requirements of Chaucerian English, I couldn’t fit it all in the line. I also wanted to refer to the swash and buckle of fencing without directly naming it, but "buckle" didn’t have as many rhymes as I thought it would.

The original near rhyme of "trouble" did not sit well, nor did the syllable count match up as that line was 12 syllables long. I went back to look at rhymes for buckle and focused on knuckle. I wasn’t particularly worried about the plural. I could easily change swash and buckle to swashes and buckles and still remain in my syllable count. So that left the body of the sentence to work on, and I simply couldn’t fit “baronial thrown weapons champ” in. So even though the contest Wynmarc won was for thrown weapons, not fencing, for the sake of the poetry I decided to shorten it to an unnamed contest. The information conveyed is technically correct - which, some would say, is the best kind of correct.

The rest of the words went together pretty easily. If a sentence had too many syllables I would winnow it down or switch phrases around until I got to the right amount. Arthur le Taverner helped me out as beta for a couple of the lines I needed to reshuffle to get the correct syllable count. It isn’t all quite iambic pentameter yet. I am still working on that. As much as I read about that meter, I am beginning to suspect that I need to attend or watch a class on it to truly grok it. I ended it with the couplet: Done today in this Our ethereal court The praises of Our Wynmarc all will purport This would normally have been where the date, event and location would go, but as it was an ethereal court I specifically did not to include the dates. I felt a little bad not being able to include them, but felt the ending couplet was sufficient to once again praise the recipient for this well deserved award. Sources used for this scroll were: Rhymezone, Thesaurus and some wiki entry browsing on Roman words and language. Went out at First Court of the Eastern Consules Tindal & Alberic at the 23:23 mark.

Sparky photo from Matthias von Würzburg

Raela a Bheithir - Award of Arms

There’s a buzz that’s been heard in Settmour Swamp

Of Someone due full circumstance and pomp

Raela a Bheithir, a cook and steward

Now an officer, and works herself hard 

Margarita,a queen most ingenious  

Trusts this award will not inconvenience 

For Raela, her Arms she is deserving
After all this work, We’ve been observing

Here Comes the Blog!  Do-do-do-doooo!
(With apologies to the Beatles)

Fiona approached me, looking for words for this scroll.  Her inspiration piece fit well enough into the Chaucerian time period that we decided to go with that.  

It had been a bit since I had tackled pure rhyming couplets and I was looking forward to it.

As a change of pace I decided not to start with Her Majesty's name, and instead started with a couplet referencing that the people of the barony had sent in the award recommendation.  

I ended up giving an individual couplet to each element of the scroll. It started to push the boundary of my word count.  I t ended up with exactly 100 words total.

The couplet I am most dissatisfied with is:

Raela a Bheithir, a cook and steward

Now an officer, and works herself hard

While it has the correct number of syllables and the words rhyme, I feel it is clunky.  But I can’t make everything perfect so I let it go.  Even with my dissatisfaction, I hope the recipient likes it.

Couplets I am fond of include:

Margarita, a queen most ingenious  

Trusts this award will not inconvenience 

I try to always include a positive adjective about the monarchs to convey their grandeur.  Not for nothing, I was pretty proud of the ingenious/inconvenience rhyme.

This scroll fell victim of COVID-19.  Mudthaw was the first event to be cancelled in 2020. Thankfully the calligraphy had yet to be completed and it was put on hold.  Three months later it  given out online at East's Ethereal Court VII hosted by Her Majesty Margarita. 
To accommodate the nature of an Ethereal Court, Fiona made the decision to simply cut out all of the time and place couplets in the scroll.

Went Out on 7/19/2020 a East's Ethereal Court VII  at the 26:00 mark

Unofficial Court Report: EK Ethereal Court 7

Magnus Wolfhunte - Court Barony

 East! Pure elk-sea’s expanse 
Eyes those We should explore 
Mighty Margarita
Marveled Queen, glorious 
(Most men know this)
Guard and great champion
Good advisor, trainer
Magnate Magnus Wolfhunte
Metal weaponed waner
Here his helmet-peg heightens
Higher rank, honor due
Baron bequeathed today
Bright skies for his debut 

Counter-ermine, a fer-a-loup, three wolf's teeth issuant from dexter and three wolf's teeth issuant from sinister argent

Worn by worthy Magnus
Where’er he may travel
This new thoughtful grant
Therefore: ne’er unravel 
Here in hard-won 55th 
Anno Societatis
We barely steer the wake-elk
Your poise we ask, grant us
On My own, We’re  pleased for 
Our very glad kinfolk 
any modes of kith and clan
More found for love to stoke

Word count 122

Color Code Key
Kenning and [translations]
Even lines rhymed
Heraldic latin
Direct quote of the Karveli Runestone
Dróttkvætt Alliterations

East! Pure elk-sea’s [land] expanse 

Eyes those We should explore
Mighty Margarita
Marveled Queen, glorious 

(Most men know this)
Guard and great champion

Good advisor, trainer

Magnate Magnus Wolfhunte
Metal weaponed waner [warrior] 

Here his helmet-peg [head] heightens

Higher rank, honor due

Baron bequeathed today

Bright skies for his debut 

Counter-ermine, a fer-a-loup, three wolf's teeth issuant from dexter and three wolf's teeth issuant from sinister argent

Worn by worthy Magnus

Where’er he may travel

This new thoughtful grant

Therefore: ne’er unravel 

Here in hard-won 55th 

Anno Societatis
We barely steer the wake-elk [SEA]
Your poise we ask, grant us

On My own, We’re  pleased for
Our very glad kinfolk [MANKIND]

Many modes of kith and clan
More found for love to stoke

Back in BLOGGING and ain't it grand?

Let the good times roll!

After I discovered my error in the Dróttkvætt metre at Queen and Crown A&S I went back to my sources to teach myself how to do it again and I discovered something new.

 From Skaldic Project: “dróttkvætt, ‘court poetry’, the most common metre used in skaldic poetry, comprising stanzas of eight hexasyllabic lines, regular alliteration and hendingar (skothending) in odd lines and aðalhending in even ones)”

I found a new source that described it even better: Viking Archaeology Home Page

In other words: odd lines don't rhyme and even lines do.

From the Viking Answer Lady: “there is usually a marked syntactic division at the end of line four to make the whole into two balancing halves.” 

In the scroll for Magnus Wolfhunte, I chose to show this in more than one way.

For the even lines, the "hendingar," I chose to rhyme the second and fourth, even lines of the couplets. The "hendingar" of the 6th and 8th lines would also rhyme together, but not rhyme with the first 2 couplets. 

 For this particular scroll, I also chose to separate them in an additional way. In the first verse I added a quote from an extant text, and the second I used the language of  the recipient's arms as the stylistic break. This isn't quite in keeping with the metre, but it made sense stylistically since the arms had to be included. 

East! Pure elk-sea’s expanse 

Eyes those We should explore 

In the first sentence I used a kenning of ‘of the pure elk-sea, ’ - which means land.  I used elk again later in the scroll, meaning sea.  I liked the synchronicity of using similar kennings for land and sea.

Mighty Margarita

Marveled Queen, glorious 

This couplet is a good illustration of my process in creating the dróttkvættmetre. I originally wrote the introduction to Her Majesty as: 

The Queen, This Margarita  (7)

Thought and speech, wholly for us (7)

Not only was there an extra syllable in each line, I also wanted a descriptive word for the Queen, so I came up with “mighty'' which fit. Thus the stanza changed to:

Mighty Margarita

Marveled Queen, glorious 

But I forgot that it had to rhyme with "explore." In the end I decided to go with it, but in retrospect, “heretofore'' would have worked reasonably well. 
Hindsight is a pain in the tukas.

(Most men know this)

This quote, in the transition between the 4 line breaks, was taken directly from the Karlevi runestone in Oland, c. 1000 AD: “most men knew that.” I thought to change it to be gender neutral (“Fine folk know this”) but there was no request for the scroll to be gender neutral and I favor using direct quotes from period source material where I can. 

Guard and great champion

Good advisor, trainer

This is about the only language that explains why the recipient was given the award. Norse metres make anything sound amazing, even when you have but few details to go on.

Magnate Magnus Wolfhunte

Metal weaponed waner

In this couplet I both introduced the name of the recipient and included the first Kenning: Metal weaponed waner. The Skaldic Project gives the translation as "diminisher of metal weapons." For the alliteration, I needed the sentence to start with an M. So I found "waned" as a synonym for diminished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here his helmet-peg heightens

Higher rank, honor due

I changed this kenning around specifically to fit in the kenning format of A-A---/A-----

I don’t think that going from Peg-helm to Helmet-peg changed the meaning any.  The couplet is still 7 syllables long.  While I found other words that could have stayed within the syllable count I liked the added level of alliteration.

The second line introduces the award that is to be received.

Baron bequeathed today

Bright skies for his debut 

This couplet names the award and I put in a bit about the weather.  Usually mentioning the weather in a scroll is poetic license.  In this case, Ethereal Court actually was held in beautiful, clear weather, as can be seen in the recording.

Counter-ermine, a fer-a-loup, three wolf's teeth issuant from dexter and three wolf's teeth issuant from sinister argent

In this, the second verse, I used the heraldry in the same place that I used the extant quote in the previous verse. Like the first verse, the language is different and not found in the dróttkvætt metre. Heraldic Latin is a requirement for scrolls, so I was glad I could add it in a manner that made sense with the poetry.

Worn by worthy Magnus

Where’er he may travel

This new thoughtful grant

Therefore: ne’er unravel 

I used two full couplets to say the traditional, “To be worn by them and them alone.”  And as it’s a Court Barony that comes with a grant of arms, I got to use “grant.” Sometimes the earliest of lessons stick the hardest in your brain!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here in hard-won 55th 

Anno Societatis

This  was my first scroll written in the time of COVID-19, so some of the scrolls' requirements were waived. I was given the option of omitting the event date and location, or just giving the year. I felt the year was important to identify this period of strife and distance the East Kingdom and the whole world is going through.

 "Hard-won" conveyed the feeling of triumph through adversity that I was going for, even though the extra syllable breaks the metre.

 The next line was "Anno Societas," the Latin phrase we use to convey the year of the Society. I had to abandon the careful alliteration and syllable count  of the metre to include it, but it's not a phrase to play with.

 I did however set up a rhyme for Societatis with  “grant us” in the following couplet. Sometimes with scrolls you give up one aspect, but are able to keep another.  In the rare times that I can fit rhyme, syllable and alliteration (or whatever combo the poetic structure calls for) I value it all the more! 

We barely steer the wake-elk 

Your poise we ask, grant us

Here in the last stanza I repeat “elk” in a similar kenning to the first stanza.

The second line of this couplet needs to rhyme with the second line of the next couplet, to complete the stylistic break between the 2 parts of the 8 line stanza.  Unlike the other 2 stanzas there is not an extra sentence of any sort between the 2 sections.

Many modes of kith and clan

More found for love to stoke

I wanted to end the scroll with emphasis on our mutual love for our friends and family that bring us together in the Society.  Although we are necessarily distant during this COVID time, we are still together in whatever form we can be. 

This scroll felt like I was jumping back into the deep end. I was fixing past mistakes and learning new levels of nuance to the Dróttkvætt metre.  Even as I wrote this blog I noticed new ways that I could improve.  And as with the previous scroll that went out with an error in it, I certainly hope that the recipient will forgive me and enjoy what they have.

 

In the course of writing a scroll, the wordsmith has to make exceptions to the rules of the poetic form. A scroll has a certain amount of information that has to be given. Language evolves. I certainly hope that in composing this scroll I managed to replicate the Dróttkvætt metre more accurately than my previous efforts.  I continue to add nuance and details as my understanding of Norse poetry grows.

Magdalena Lantfarerin, Illumination and calligraphy

Went out at an East’s Ethereal Court VII  39:06 mark to 40:25