Rulers of the East, postulate
Of Our land, shores and Our isles
As the wolf We’ll hunt for miles
For the gentles as yet unseen,
And call Our Order to conviene
Silver Crescent is effort bent
With services to document:
Edward Talbot of Panther Vale.
Does all the things, beyond the pale
The list’s long for he’s not been slow
His shire’s head, running the show
Tailor of all financial threads
A spider of ephemeral webs
Stewards and he watches the gates
All this labor just illustrates
Perseverance that won’t tire
Burns with steady inner fire
We read his arms at this event
Azure, a wolf rampant between in chief two axes palewise respectant, a bordure argent
Edward they’ll always represent
Granted at East Kingdom Twelfth Night
A celebration full of light
On this day, January 8
AS, LVI - Celebrate
Our new Silver Crescent. We’ll regale
In this, Our Shire of Panther Vale
When I was given this scroll to write, the artist had yet to pick a time period nor did they have an inspiration piece in mind which gave me a bit of free rein on the number of words I could include. I went directly to the recipient’s wiki to see if they had any details on their persona. Thankfully they did: “11th century Englishman living along the borders of Northumberland, England and Scotland.” Some furious interwebz searching later and I found that Anglo-Norman Literature fit his persona and was heavily influenced by French octosyllabic rhyming couplets.
Once I picked the rhyme scheme I tossed around the idea of breaking the scroll into sections of 4 couplets each all with the same rhymes. Not a particularly period practice, but it would have been a challenge for me. As it happens the first word I tried rhyming with was “Honig'' and after 4 lines of that, I yeeted that idea into the sun. (Though I was surprised I found as many words to rhyme with Her Majesty's name!)
I decided to turn my focus on finding a good word for searching/hunting in “coursing,” which inspired “hawk'' and led to Goshawk to fit the syllable count.
Followed by:
This was to set the perspective of Their Majesties searching for new members of the order, which would be followed by the award, the recipient, their accolades and finally the event information.
Those two verses sat there for most of this process until I came to the arms verse:
We read his arms at this event
For the first time, I noticed the recipient had a wolf in his arms! I tossed out the falcon imagery and started rewriting the second couplet ... which didn’t seem to fit my scheme or perspective and felt heavy handed and awkward. Finally I moved the couplet referencing the Emperor and Empress to the first line. This did the trick! All of a sudden the wolf references, allusions, and perspectives made sense.
Of Our land, shores and Our isles
The final version of the opening couplet:
Leonette D’Angely, the Calligrapher and Illuminator, had specifically requested either a B or an H as the opening letter. Switching the names of Their Majesties fixed that, although I checked with her before placing the Queen's name before the King's.
In a departure for me, I introduced the award before the recipient. It suited the flow of the narrative:
For the gentles as yet unseen,
I wasn't kidding here; I did start a long list of the recipient’s accomplishments. I wasn’t given a word limit, so I had the opportunity to play.
This is my favorite couplet. I have waxed philosophic before on how much I dislike what I call a “resume scroll” - a mere list of the recipient's victories or careers. For the most part it's boring to listen to. It's one of the reasons I often turn to period poetry. The recipient’s write-up said they were their group's exchequer and that they worked in the Kingdom Webministry, hence the spider reference. The rhyme of threads followed. Usually I end up using sewing rhymes and references for someone receiving an Arts and Sciences award - I was tickled to use it in reference to the financial side of the SCA.
While not as clever as the preceding couplet, I used this one as a transition to the conclusion of the accolades portion of the scroll.
This is an allusion to the wolf symbology. Wolves are known to travel long distances at a steady pace without tiring. I felt that symbolized the recipient's service. For all the rearranging I had to do to achieve the correct allusions, I feel it was 100 percent worth it, even if it's fairly subtle to read.
The last three couplets were relatively easy to rhyme, and the rest of the words practically filled themselves in.
The final couplets were the only ones in which I exceeded the strict octosyllabic rhyme scheme, but it was necessary to convey the meaning I needed.
I am gaining more understanding of metric feet the more I work with them. That is an evolving process, and I find that working within a composition helps more than trying to read about it.
East Kingdom Twelfth Night **Canceled**
Went out at Ethereal Court of Their Royal Majesties Ioannes II and Honig II
March 17th, 2022
At the 2:00 - 3:24 marks respectively
