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!

Justinius Alexander Eternus - Silver Wheel

Her Majesty Margarita a cultured, Eastern pearl,
Studied Upstanding Philosophers of old, who once wrote,
We “do not know whether speed or endurance contributes more to the swiftness of their feet. No distance is so long that they will not traverse it in a short time; nothing can be so far ahead of [the tiger] that they will not immediately overtake.”
The same can be said of Our Justinius Alexander Eternus.
Like the tiger written about, he has been running since he was a Cub.
A burgeoning herald who speaks at every chance he can get.
Today joins the Order of the Silver Wheel.
Done this Day January 4, AS LIV at East kingdom Twelfth Night
In the Crown Province of Ostgardr

Words by Aislinn Chiabach
Text based on the writings of Solinus, Polyhistor

FRIENDS, BLOGGERS, EAST KINGDOMERS...

This was the last scroll I agreed to write before a much needed break after a busy fall season of events and projects. The scroll ended up being over 100 words, which I try very hard not to do. As I ended up using a direct quote from a Roman source, Fiona the Volatile, the calligrapher & Illuminator and I decided to keep it. This went out at East Kingdom 12th Night

The description of the award recipient was not all that detailed. The key pieces of information were: he had been playing at least since age 13; he had received his Tyger’s Cub and AoA; and he was an enthusiastic court herald, reading scrolls in baronial and royal courts.

All I could deduce from his name was that he had a roman persona. He has an East Kingdom wiki entry, but it is little more than a stub.

Since he didn't have a specific persona listed, I felt comfortable playing with the time period, so t first I looked into using a Roman or Italian poetic form from a different century. I looked around a bit online, but hadn't found a particular form before I got distracted by the midwinter holiday preparations.

When I revisited the scroll, I changed tactics and focused on that he was a tiger’s cub - which led me to focus on tiger. On a whim I googled “Medieval Treatise Tiger.”

The first hit brought me to The Bestiary Tiger - Sir Thomas Browne - a page filled with Roman and medieval references and illuminations of tigers. One quote, attributed to Solinus, caught my eye: “Nothing can be so far ahead of them that they will not immediately overtake."

The quote intrigued me as it contained a philosophy that seemed compatible with the service side of the SCA. I wanted to see if there was more to it, so I looked up Solinus on Wikipedia. Skipping down to the external links, I found Gaius Julius Solinus, the Polyhistor, English translation by Arwen Apps (in ToposText.org, from her PhD diss., Macquarie University, 2011).

This site was the gold that I needed.

The full quote is:
§ 17.4 A great space intercedes between the Arimphaei and the mouths of the river Oxus, which are held by the Hyrcanians. This people possesses wild forests, which are abundant in savage beasts, and teem with tigers. 5 Their remarkable speed and well-known spots have rendered this kind of beast famous. They shine with a tawny colour. This tawniness in interspersed with strips of black, and on account of the contrast, the whole is most becoming. I do not know whether speed or endurance contributes more to the swiftness of their feet. No distance is so long that they will not traverse it in a short time; nothing can be so far ahead of them that they will not immediately overtake.

I debated for a bit how much of the quote I wanted to use or if I was going to essentially filk it for the scroll. In the end, I chose to use the last two sentences, making only one change: I specified "the tiger" in brackets. I was safe to do so, since other parts of the piece made it very clear that tigers are what Solinus was talking about.

Since I was going with a heavy tiger theme in the scroll I got to play up that the recipient had also been a Tyger’s Cub. The only other piece of real information I had was that Justinius was an avid voice herald. I added a sentence each referencing these things.

Since I was not writing this in any particular rhyme or metre, adding the date, event and location into the scroll was fairly simple. At most I changed the phrasing to "Done this Day" a couple times to best work in the content before this.

As a non armigerous award I did not have to include a space for the recipients arms. I do find it ironic that when I consciously choose not to do a counted syllable, the scroll I am writing does not have arms in a strict heraldic language that I cannot take any liberties with.

To be included on the scroll itself, I include my SCA name and a little pronunciation key. For a very long time no Herald could seem to pronounce my name correctly. Writing: Aislinn Chiabach (Ace-Lynn Key-uh-bok) has appeared to help them pronounce my lovely Gaelic name (at least, it's helped them pronounce it the way I do).

This scroll needed to also include the original author of the quote. For this I was a little bit stumped. How should I attribute the quote? As listed above I had the name of the author as well as the scholar who had translated the piece from Latin. This was above my pay grade. I turned to Master Ryan MacWhyte, for his opinion. He told me that he has used the phrase, "Texet based on the writings of…" whenever he has used a direct quote of an ancient or medieval writer. With that solution I went over the words one last time before sending them off to Fiona.

When she read them, the first thing she focused on was the opening line where I had written, "Her Majesty Margarita a cultured, Eastern Queen."

Fiona suggested changing "Queen" to "pearl." She was right - it certainly fit the flow of the words better than reiterating her title would have.

Finally I will point out the one in-joke that I included in the line which reads: "Studied Upstanding Philosophers of old." Upstanding Philosophers is an oblique reference to Mel Brooks' movie, History of the World, Part One, in which the following exchange occurs:

Dole Office Clerk: "Occupation?"
Comicus: "Stand-up philosopher."
Dole Office Clerk: "What?"
Comicus: "Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension.”

Even if someone doesn't understand the reference, the words are still completely relevant!

And, not for nothing, coalescing the vapors of human existence is a little bit of the wordsmith's job. It is my job to sift through the information that I have been given about the award recipient and put it into a small, yet pleasing essay of their attributes.

Unofficial Court Report of East Kingdom 12th Night

Isabel de Kerbriant Award of Arms

Queen Mauguritte, such that some called daisy
Looks over the East Her eyes not hazy
Of the many shoots in Our meadow
Children of the East, Like flowers bud; grow 
To them We have naught, but great affection,
Today one is subject to much inspection
An Eastern bloom with thorns and soft petal
Grown strong with wit, thorn and stubborn mettle
Isabel de Kerbriant, Our subject true
We have watched over the years as they grew
Here in red and green; an ember aglow 
We are happily moved now to bestow
Upon them arms to be worn by them alone
**********SPACE FOR ARMS*********
An adult now, in Our eyes, we do condone
Isabel begins this adult adventure 
At Yule XLI and Baronial Investiture
December 14, AS fifty four
With fine folk and fine feast found ever more

Word Count 144

Daisy, Daisy give me your Blo-og do.

I was thrilled that Magdalena Lantfarerin tapped me to word this scroll. I have known Isabel since they were a baby and as such I was very comfortable asking their mother Sabine de Kerbiant for her input on Isabel’s AoA. Sabine gave me a wealth of information, including some of Isabel's favorite poems and books.  As it happens, I ended up using none of that information whatsoever.  That’s the way of it sometimes.

Instead I turned to Chaucer himself.  I was focusing on the Queen’s name of Margarita.  It has always amused me that of the myriad nicknames for Margarita, such as Maggie, Marge, Margot, Maya, and Rita, the list also includes Daisy - which sounds completely out of place, until you realize that Marguerite is simply Spanish for Daisy.

On a whim I googled, “Chaucer Daisy.”

The poem “The Daisy,” From The “Legend of the Good Woman” came up, and in one of the first few verses is the phrase: “Soch that men callen daisies.” This gave me the direction of the scroll.

In a modern English translation of the poem, the line translates to, "Such that men called daisies." But since Isabel had requested gender-neutral, they/them pronouns, I changed the line to, “Such that some called daisies.” I also tried to use a lot of gender neutral words in the scroll as a whole, even words that did not refer to the recipient. In the end, the only gendered words in the scroll ended up being those referring to Her Majesty.

Another Chaucer quote I used was, “To hem I have so great affection,” which became, “To them We have naught, but great affection.” This fit best within the context and syllable count I had chosen to use.

The last line directly influenced by Chaucer was, “these floures white and rede," which inspired me to include the Baronial colors. In the scroll, the line became, “Here in red and green.”  The last part of the line, “an ember aglow “ was an oblique reference to the Barony of Bkhail’s  salamander arms.

All in all, I was very happy with how the words came out, though the scroll veered far from where I started. 

 

The Daisy

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400)

OF all the floures in the mede,

Than love I most these floures white and rede,

Soch that men callen daisies in our town;

To hem I have so great affection  

Unofficial Court Report: East Kingdom Twelfth Night

Margot de la Mer - Award of Arms

Perchance one has not heard of Our Margot
An Easterner with penchants for throwing
On the field, We have seen her eyes aglow 
Excited by how her skills are growing
She’s been present with no signs of slowing 
Newly steeped in the ephemeral arts 
Immersing herself with facts, suns and charts
Margarita Our Magnificent Queen
Knows the beat and heart of this Eastern Land
Feels the yearning by us all to be seen
would see flames of aspiration be fanned
Our will is done, Let none misunderstand
We’ll fulfill the desire of the heart
This award is just the place to start 
Today Margot de la Mer receives Arms
They are hers and will never be ignored
An accolade that will not raise alarms 
Today, in these Baronies, much adored
December seventh, AS Fifty Four
We’ve recognized a brilliant Eastern Jewel
At the bright BBM/Bergental Yule

Word count 145

Photo by Fiona the Volatile 

Key Rhyme Royale 

ABABBCC 

Imperfect syllable count notation

Heraldic Language

A Perchance one has not heard of Our Margot

B An Easterner with penchants for throwing

A On the field, We have seen her eyes aglow 

B Excited by how her skills are growing

B She’s been present with no signs of slowing 

C Newly steeped in the ephemeral arts 

C Immersing herself with facts, suns and charts

A Margarita Our Magnificent Queen

B Knows the beat and heart of this Eastern Land

A Feels the yearning by us all to be seen

B would see flames of aspiration be fanned

B Our will is done, Let none misunderstand

C We’ll fulfill the desire of the heart

C This award is just the place to start 9

A Today Margot de la Mer receives Arms

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

B Her cleverness will never be ignored

A An accolade that will not raise alarms 

B Today, in these Baronies, much adored

B December seventh, AS Fifty Four

C We’ve recognized a brilliant Eastern Jewel

C At the bright BBM/Bergental Yule

Little Bunny Foo Foo, hopping through the Blog-Blog!

Fiona was planning a gothic style scroll full of bunnies. The recipient’s husband specifically mentioned her love of rabbits.

 I perused the poetry from her Northern France/Norman persona’s time period and found they primarily used the Rhyme Royal that Chaucer introduced to the poetic world.

Rhyme Royal verse is 7 lines of 10 syllables in a  ABA BB CC rhyme scheme; it does tend to exceed the usual hundred-word limit that I try hard to keep to.  With Fiona’s knowledge of the larger word count, and her request that I begin with the letter P, I got to work.

I am proud of this scroll. 

I managed to keep the date and appropriate places within the rhyme scheme and syllable count. Though I did change the ABC rhymes each verse to accomplish this. The scroll was filled with references to the recipient's service accolades, in the poetic cadence; something I aspire to in every scroll I work on.

At 145 words this definitely ran longer than my current limits for an Award of Arms, but I kept my scribe/illuminator informed, and Rhyme Royal was the appropriate choice for the recipient’s persona.

Volatile Scribing

EK Gazette Unofficial Court Report

Barony Beyond the Mountain/Bergental Yule

This post under construction

Ysemay of Ynys Y Gwaun AoA

 

Laymen! Nobles! Good folk of this Great East!
A raucous clamour rises from the people’s lips

Determined to lead Queen Margarita to
Ysemay of Ynys Y Gwaun from Ruantallan
Yay, her barony knows of her toil; the
Silent work she does, now to be shouted!
Ensuring all know what she calmly does
Minding the barons and baronesses
And her quiet labor for all around
Ysemay’s now in the Order of the silver wheel

Done this day, November 30, AS LIV
At the East Kingdom University & Ruantallan Investiture

Calligraphy, wheel and illumination blocks within the calligraphy by Embla Knútrdottir

The rest of the illumination is by Carmelina da Vacarri

I chose to go with an acrostic poem.  The acrostics spelled out 'Lady Ysemay' To emphasize her new title.  

Word count 86

East Kingdom University and Ruantallan Baronial Investiture

Unofficial Court Report – East Kingdom University and Ruantallan Baronial Investiture

Ellice de Valles - Order of the Laurel

 Under gabled arches

Breathing the scent of lemon balm 

Tired ones from the line of march 

Find rest in the sun dappled calm 

Flowers blooming and grass down-pressed 

Creating succor and comfort for those much stressed 

Our Ellice de Valles, 

Spends her days building small havens 

Modest gardens with vined trellis 

Homes for nightingales and ravens 

With beds for multiple flowers 

Herbs and climbing ivy decorated bowers  

Margarita the Queen 

An Eastern bloom in the sun 

Has walked the tiles of the green. 

The raised grass bed she sits upon 

To better hear the tinkling brook 

Peacefully situated, tucked off in this nook  

Under bower florals

Her garden pleasing Our senses

We heed the call of Our Laurels

With no fear of consequences

We welcome Ellice de Valles therein

Our Order of the Laurel, her role to begin

word cunt 193

Come into the garden, Blog, (with no apologies whatsoever to Alfred, Lord Tennyson) Lada Monguligin approached me to write a scroll inspired by the Codex Manesse, also known as the "Great Heidelberg Book of Songs." I decided to match the codex with the Minnesang, Middle High German Love Songs found therein. I quickly found the basics of the minnesang, the stanzas, the metrics and the rhyme schemes, but I couldn’t find a standard syllable count for each line. In desperation I found an actual excerpt in German and asked my husband - who studied high school German - to break down the syllables for me. From there I chose to go with 6/8888/12. The 8888 appears to be variable judging by different poems in the codex, but the 6 syllables in the beginning and doubled to 12 at the end of the stanza seemed to be fairly regular. I used a stanza of 6 lines with an ABABCC rhyming scheme, a standard alternative to iambic pentameter used in the minnesang. Syllable Count/Rhyme Scheme: 6 A 8 B 8 A 8 B 8 C 12 C Once I had the meter down, I took my inspiration from the gorgeous garden the recipient made and displayed at Pennsic, which I had the opportunity to view in person. This made the scroll a joy to write. I tried to convey the point of view of the populace, as if they and HRM were enjoying the garden. I also took great inspiration from Under der linden by Walther von der Vogelweide that is found in the Codex Manesse itself. Under gabled arches This is directly inspired by the first line of the poem: “Under der linden.” I tried to write the scroll from the top down, starting with the arches and ending with the grass under the feet of attendees. Breathing the scent of lemon balm In reading Ellice de Valles' write up of the garden, I saw she had included lemon balm, an herb not found in medieval gardens, but an important herb to her. So I made sure to include it by name in the scroll. Tired ones from the line of march Find rest in the sun dappled calm This is an allusion to the fighters at Pennsic coming off the field and seeing the beautiful garden before them. Flowers blooming and grass down-pressed This references a line from Under die Linden, “Flowers crushed and grass down-pressed.” While this did clutter my top to bottom scheme for the flow of the composition, I liked the imagery of down-pressed grass in a garden. Creating succor and comfort for those much stressed The conclusion of the opening stanza summed up what I felt was the recipient's goal in making the garden. Our Ellice de Valles, Spends her days building small havens Modest gardens with vined trellis Homes for nightingales and ravens With beds for multiple flowers Herbs and climbing ivy decorated bowers I hope the strong rhymes of Havens/Ravens and flowers/bowers outweighs the weakness of Valles/Trellis. I used nightingale here as it was mentioned by name in Under der Linden. Ravens, while not necessarily known for their beautiful singing voices, did fit the rhyme scheme perfectly. Margarita the Queen An Eastern bloom in the sun I couldn’t resist the opportunity to reference that the Queen’s name means daisy, by calling her an “Eastern bloom.” Has walked the tiles of the green. The raised grass bed she sits upon To better hear the tinkling brook Peacefully situated, tucked off in this nook The rest of this verse mentions features found in the garden. Under bower florals Her garden pleasing Our senses We heed the call of Our Laurels With no fear of consequences We welcome Ellice de Valles therein Our Order of the Laurel, her role to begin This verse introduced the Order and the award. Furthermore, as We name Ellice de Valles a member of the Order of the Laurel with letters patent, to wit: Per pale azure and argent, an owl and in chief a heart counterchanged. Concluded this day of November 16th, AS 54 At the St. Eligius Arts and Science Competition In the Barony of Dragonship Haven Here’s where I abandoned the poetic structure entirely to get the information required for the scroll, including the heraldic latin of her arms. I always feel when I tackle an uncommon rhyme scheme that I should put a note on the scroll for the herald. I've even warned heralds in person at events. Scrolls are a collaborative art form, and the voice herald who reads a scroll is an often forgotten member of that team, as important as the calligrapher or illuminator. At this particular event, St. Eligius, I was involved in the competition all day and couldn't get to the herald in time, so as I recall the herald stumbled a bit over the words. But I was fortunate enough to watch the scroll being read, and I treasure that special moment.

Photo by Sitt al-Gharb ha-niqret Khazariyya, aka Hrefna Spákona

Unofficial Court Report: St. Eligius Arts & Science Competition