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…

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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.