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.
