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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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.

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

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