Erin Barker - Award of Arms

Freya, Fair goddess of the fruits of love

Like Margarita, Monarch of the East

From Forests of the Farmstead of the Brain

To the sole path Our Erin Barker is a treat

She quietly cares for Caer Adamant 

Moulding her stone of the mind-meadow 

Toward every task or mischief she takes on

We present a pursuer of renown 

A noble with Armed now and for always

*************SPACE FOR ARMS*************

Today! February Twenty Second

In Anno Societas Fifty Four

At Queen and Crown Bardic Championships 

And  Stringy, Scriby, Singy Thingy 

In Our kind Shire of Caer Adamant

COLOR CODED WORDS
KEY:
Red letters indicate alliteration 

Kennings used
Kenning translation 

Freya, Fair goddess of the fruits of love
Like Margarita, Monarch of the East
From Forests of the Farmstead of the Brain (HAIR)
To the sole path (FOOT) Our Erin Barker is a treat
She quietly cares for Caer Adamant 

Moulding her stone of the mind-meadow (HEART)

Toward every task or mischief she takes on
We present a pursuer of renown (NOBLEMAN)

A noble with Armed now and for always
*************SPACE FOR ARMS*************
Today! February Twenty Second
In Anno Societas Fifty Four

At Queen and Crown Bardic Championships
And  Stringy, Scriby, Singy Thingy 

In Our kind Shire of Caer Adamant

Word count 96

BOGGLE the 3 minute word game that keeps on going…

Wait, I mean BLOGGLE!
Nope, just BLOG

Magdalena Lantfarerin had done the calligraphy and Illumination with my words for Derrick Barker’s scroll. She approached me with the idea of doing matching words for his wife, Erin Barker’s, scroll. They were both set to receive them at Queen and Crown Bardic Championships AND Stringy, Scriby .... I happily agreed and we consulted with the other scribe. They also agreed to use my words and I set out to compose them.

In doing matching scrolls I use the same poetic form in both. In this case Not only did I use the Alliterative Verse and Kennings. I also try to keep the structure the same between the 2 scrolls.
I composed the other one with this structure:
Monarch
Kingdom
Name of the recipient
Blather about the recipient
Date and AS Year
Event
Hosting location
I followed the same order with the matching text. While this is the same basic information found in every scroll, in roughly the same order I did take pains to keep them absolutely the same in the matching scroll.

From Forests of the Farmstead of the Brain
To the sole path Our Erin Barker is a treat

With the Kennings for both hair and feet in the first 2 lines, I am essentially saying that From head to toe, Erin Barker is awesome. I felt this follows the Doc Brown school of thought; never use one word when 10 will do.

Pursuer of Renown 

This is a bit of a literary license. I particularly wanted to find a phrase to indicate the new nobility of the scroll’s recipient. I took the kenning for a nobleman and then redefined it in the sentence afterward so as to apply for lady. I was given no indication that this was someone who desired gender neutral pronouns, so I felt comfortable in making the adaptation.

Freya, Fair goddess of the fruits of love

I made up this kenning for the Queen. I chose to go with a goddess and defined this in the next sentence naming Margarita as Queen of the East. With the Fruits of love I am referencing both an aspect of Freya in the Norse Pantheon and it is an oblique reference to the event’s relative closeness to February 14th, Valentine’s Day.

Moulding her stone of the mind-meadow
Toward every task or mischief she takes on

This was a veiled reference to a mischievous tale involving embroidery and overalls. How she was learning new skills for the sake of fun joke with her husband,

She quietly cares for Caer Adamant

I love alliteration that doesn’t start with the same letter!

My word count for this scroll was 96, 10 above the matching scroll of 86 words. While I was matching the style of the scrolls, I was not particularly concerned with matching the word count. I still managed under a hundred words though!

Both these scrolls were a joy to work on, even as close as it was to my own preparations for A&S Champs. I liked the challenge of writing a scroll to match another one while still making unique and beautiful poetry.

For this scroll I used the following web pages:

Skaldic Project Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, Thesaurus.com, and Rhymezone.com

East Kingdom  Gazette: Court Report: Queen & Crown Bardic Champions AND Stringy, Scriby, Singy Thing

ETA: As of 9/29/2020 I have learned the original scribe I had been working with, had a Terrible Scribal Accident, and their work was most unfortunately destroyed. The scroll was passed back to the Tyger Clerk of the Signet without the words I had written. They had undoubtedly gotten lost in the shuffle. As of right now, The Tyger Clerk has attached the words to the scroll and it is going through the backlog scroll process.

Derrick Barker Award of Arms

A Linden of Linen, Our Lovely Queen
Margarita’s pleased for this merry meet
Here in Eastern lands, that we hail as home
One Derrick Barker wearer of war-garb
Lifts glittering brow-stone that leans toward leather
Highest mind-board in art and arms he has
At this time attains the Award of Arms
*********SPACE FOR ARMS***********
Here To be held by him and he alone
Done on February 22nd,
Anno Societas Fifty four
At Queen and Crown Bardic Championships

COLOR CODED WORDS
KEY:
Red letters indicate alliteration 

Kennings used
Kenning translation 

A Linden of Linen (WOMAN), Our Lovely Queen 

Margarita’s pleased for this merry meet 

Here in Eastern lands, that we hail as home

One Derrick Barker wearer of war-garb (ARMOUR)

Lifts glittering brow-stone (EYE) that leans toward leather
Highest mind-board (COURAGE) in art and arms he has

At this time attains the Award of Arms

*********SPACE FOR ARMS***********

Here To be held by him and he alone

Done on February 22nd,
Anno Societas Fifty four
At Queen and Crown Bardic Championships 

And Stringy, Scriby, Singy Thingy
In Our Hearth-Ship (HOUSE) Shire of Caer Adamant

BIBBIDI BLOG-IDY BOO!

Magdalena Lantfarerin tapped me to write the words for a Norse scroll. I was at the time in a crunch of preparation for the Queens and Crown Arts and Sciences Championships, and this scroll was to go out at Queen and Crown Bardic Championships AND Stringy, Scriby, Singy Thingy. Exactly one week before A&S Champs! Therefore I decided to use Old English Alliterative Verse rather than one of the more complicated Old Norse metres.

The scroll is done in 10 syllable alliterative text as found in Beowulf, with 5 kennings.

In choosing a syllable count for this piece I looked to the text of Beowulf directly, and found there is no set number of syllables per line. I found an analysis of the work Scansion and alliteration in Beowulf Chris Golston and Tomas Riad that stated, “Since over 90% of the lines in Beowulf have more than the 8 syllables Sievers wants us to find, with fully 60% at 10 or more syllables, pruning is industrial in the Sievers paradigm.”

I chose to make the lines 10 syllables long as a sort of average of the 2 statements and managed all but 3 lines.

Lifts glittering brow-stone that leans toward leather 11
This is one of the lines that included a kenning, and I had to work the alliterative text into the line. While I could be content with only 2 words of alliteration, I really prefer 3, so I chose to leave the extra syllable. Besides, it is very easy to slur the word “toward” when reading it.
This becomes the moment when the composer of the work wishes that they could consult the herald who would read the scroll out loud. I very often try to give notes to the herald, and if I do, I can only hope that the scribe sends them along with the scroll and that the herald has the time to read them. Court can be a desperately crazy time.

And Stringy, Scriby, Singy Thingy 9
This was a direct continuation of the line above it and the full name of the event as it appeared in the event announcement. I couldn’t figure out how to add an extra syllable and didn’t want to. The name itself was alliterative! I didn't have to change a thing.

In Our Hearth-Ship Shire of Caer Adamant 11
This was the final line of the scroll and continued the location information of the lines above it. In retrospect, I realize that I could have dropped the “In” and let the sentence start with “Our.”
I hate it when I revisit something and realize a simple solution to what had been a thorny problem, but alas, that's the way of such things - especially when you are creating art that you plan on giving away to someone else!

Lines that I particularly like are:
One Derrick Barker wearer of war-garb
Obviously “One” doesn’t start with a W but it does have the same sound. Alliteration is for sound, not for letters, so it worked just as well.

A Linden of Linen, Our Lovely Queen
I love the sound of this opening sentence; it’s veritably lilting. The majority of it is the Kenning: Linden of Linen. The Kenning is for simply a woman, not a Queen, but as discussed in some other scrolls, many things can be used as Queen and I mentioned her rank at the end of the line. To say that out loud is extremely difficult.
That phrase alone is what prompted me to include a warning for the scribe to give the herald: “This contains a few tongue twisters and the Kennings may have odd phrasing.”

I kept the word count of the scroll to 86 words! Under 90 words is rare for me and I have been working on my tendencies toward wordiness.

For this scroll I used the following web pages:
Skaldic Project, Scansion and alliteration in Beowulf Chris Golston and Tomas Riad,
Thesaurus.com, and Rhymezone

ETA: 3/1/2020: In retrospect, I am very glad that I chose to use the Alliterative Verse of Beowulf, rather than the Dróttkvætt metre. It was at Q&C A&S Championships the very next weekend that I discovered the error that I had been making in the metre!