Marian Kirkpatrick - Silver Brooch

Today, the heralds will belt Our words out

Let awl and sundry of the East Kingdom know 
That We, Ryouko'jin, Demon King of the 
Three Heavens and Rani Indrakshi
Have heard of Marian Kirkpatrick,
Who punches out circlets and medallions
Leat-her be known for her creations 
And stand forth to receive the Silver Brooch
For she her skills burnish bright and 
Alinine with Our appreciation
We will not be suede from this decision!
Done in the strapping weather of May 28th
At the Wars of the Roses, AS 57
Barony of Concordia of the Snows

Wordcount 95

If BLOG isn't forever

And it's not the weather

Hand me my leather

The recipient had been written in for their leatherwork.  I went to their wiki to get some inspiration, and found that she liked to jump around in regards to her persona and garb of choice.  I reached out to their contact to see if I could glean some inspiration from their scroll.  The calligrapher and illuminator, Fiona, also requested I find out if they had anything that they’d like on their scroll, like a pet or a favorite color.  After much discussion and a photo of the recipient’s pup, I decided on leather puns - although I was very careful to keep it "safe for work," as it were. 

When writing a punny scroll I first go to the internet and google “subject puns.”  That led to 50 Hilarious Leather Puns (though fifty was a bit of a stretch, as they started repeating themselves very quickly).  

I then looked up the Leather Craft Tools List – An Overview and Leather Types. These provided me with a wealth of puns and words to play on.

When writing a pun scroll I will either start with the pun word and write the sentence around it, or write a regular sentence and try to change a word to fit a pun. In the end I wound up "hide"-ing nine puns in the scroll!

These definitions are largely for me and the words that I used that I wasn’t familiar with:

Belt - a band of flexible material, such as leather or cord, for encircling the waist.

Awl - Tool with a sharp metal point used for marking or piercing leather.

Herd - a number of animals kept, feeding, or traveling together

Punches - Used to make holes in leather.

Leath-er - the skin of an animal, processed.  Used as, “Let her”

Burnish - to polish leather 

Alinine - A type of leather,is dyed only with soluble dyes. Used for, “Align''

Suede - a leather made with a slight nap of short protein fibers.

Strop - Piece of leather, sometimes mounted to a board or solid surface, that is used to sharpen knife blades

This scroll was just a whole lotta fun to write.  A fun pun filled scroll is almost like a palate cleanser for me - especially when I am working on new and different verse forms, as I did with some of the scrolls going out just before and after Wars of the Roses.

Marian Kirkpatrick - Order of the Silver Brooch

Video by Arlyana van Wyck

 EK Gazette: War of the Roses Court Report

Naran Numuchi - Fountain (Atlantia)

Naran Numuchi's acclaimed and adored   

And shows preference toward arrows over sword

He’s been seen getting plaiting crafts begun

Threading string to a multitude of chord

Today His Majesty the King Cuán

With his Queen Signy under the bright sun 

That shines over Our Atlantian views. 

The Fountain is earned, and so it is done

At Coronation, AS 52 

In Border Vale Keep his esteem accrues 

We are pleased that he receives this award 

October 7th, We'll ever enthuse 

Wordcount 79

VERSE STRUCTURE COLOR KEY

AABA
BBCB

CCAC

A Naran Numuchi's acclaimed and adored   

A And shows preference toward arrows over sword

B He’s been seen getting plaiting crafts begun

A Threading string to a multitude of chord

B Today His Majesty the King Cuán

B With his Queen Signy under the bright sun 

C That shines over Our Atlantian views. 

B The Fountain is earned, and so it is done

C At Coronation, AS 52 

C In Border Vale Keep his esteem accrues 

A We are pleased that he receives this award 

C  October 7th, We'll ever enthuse 

INTERKINGDOM SHENANIGANS, BLOG-STYLE!!!

This is the second time I've gotten to sink my teeth into the Rubáiyát Quatrain. The scribe Hua Meilan put out a call for a wordsmith familiar with Persian writing in the 12th to 13th century. In 2020 I had written a Maunche scroll in the Rubáiyát Quatrain, by the poet Rūmī of 13th century Persia, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to work with this verse form again! 

This was my first scroll written for a different kingdom, as well as a backlog scroll.  Backlogs usually take a bit of research to find all the information required, but on the other hand, the deadline pressure is much less.  I had the award, the recipient and the event date. Thankfully, the recipient had a wonderfully full and detailed SCAdian Wiki entry. The Atlantia Kingdom Wiki and the Atlantian Order of Precedence page for awards were also an enormous help.   The Fountain is a non armerigious award, specifically for service to the kingdom.  The only note I had on why they received it was that they had, “made 100 kumii cords for kingdom awards.”

 

With that information at hand and my writing form chosen, I set to work.

I set up the page with my rhyme guide, and started filling in the blanks. I’d write one sentence, look up a number of rhymes, and start playing with the following sentences. It's like working on a jigsaw puzzle with words, and often I'd have to throw out completed sentences in favor of another rhyme.

I confirmed the pronunciation of the name of His Majesty Cuán ends in an “un” sound, which allowed me to use Sun/done/none as appropriate rhymes.

For the line where I named the award I originally used:

The Fountain is earned, above and bar none! 

However, something about “bar none” struck me as off. I decided that a side quest was in order to learn more about the phrase.

The wiktionary link didn’t give me the history of the phrase. Another source indicated the phrase was derived from stories of the American West of the 1800s, but had no citations to back that up. Writing Explained, and the Language Log indicated the first use of "bar none” was in a Victorian era novel.

 
Now, while I have used the occasional Victorian era words in scrolls, I try hard to avoid them, and so I chose the phrase, “and so it’s done.” That meant I had to go back and change two earlier lines. It takes a lot of juggling to get the rhymes and language choices to line up on the ephemeral paper.

A Naran Numuchi's acclaimed and adored   

A And shows preference toward arrows over sword

B He's been noticed getting plaiting crafts done 

He’s been seen getting plaiting crafts begun

A Threading string to a multitude of chord

B Today His Majesty the King Cuán

B With his Queen Signy under the bright sun 

C that shines over Our Atlantian views. 

B The Fountain is earned, above and bar none! 

And so it is done!

So my Second foray into the Rubáiyát Quatrain did not produce new research into the verse form itself - but I did get to compose a piece for a different Kingdom and examine and research the history of my own language. Totally a win, in my book!