Category: SCA

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Pennsic 52

Ah, yes. Pennsic. It’s been a few weeks, and I’ve been re-integrating with the world. But I want to take some time to reflect on it at least a little.

Overall, my war was less busy than usual. I had been busy finishing the release of the Hold the Door Open album when the signups to teach had been going on, so I just accepted that I wasn’t going to teach classes this year. I still had other responsibilities. Thursday of Peace Week, I emceed our camp’s annual Chocolate Bardic. On Wednesday of War Week, I got to be a panelist in the Bardic Symposium session, “Home Recording and You”, which involved some great conversations. Just for fun, I did make it out to the Sunday afternoon Runestone Bardic for the first time in a few years (a little more on that later). In addition, I had three significant performance opportunities during war.

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Remembering Toki the Skald-maker

Toki Redbeard, also known as Toki Skaldagorvir (Toki the Skald-maker), passed from this life last Monday night. This is one of those seismic unexpected losses that shakes the SCA to its foundations. As far as we all knew, his cancer treatments were going well and about to wrap up.

This week has been a welling up of grief, stories, and remembrances across social media. Toki fostered and encouraged so many people, in the SCA and out of it, that his legacy is impossible to measure in this moment.

Peregrine, Drake & Toki at 100 Minutes War, 2021
Peregrine, Drake, and Toki at 100 Minutes War, 2021.
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bardic concert Pennsic SCA

Pennsic 51

So we’ve been home for Pennsic a little over a week, but Herself tested positive for Covid right after we got home, so we’ve been quarantining, and my head wasn’t in the right space to post yet.

Yes, there was a lot of Covid going around at Pennsic, much closer at hand for us than previous years. From opening weekend to middle weekend to packout, it was taking down good friends of ours left and right. Ultimately it got a good chunk of our camp. How it keeps missing me I’ll never know, but I don’t want to jinx it. Current mood:

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bardic filk SCA video

Maria’s Elevation (Bergental/BBM Yule & New Filk)

Saturday, Jess and I attended the Yule event for the Baronies of Bergental and Beyond the Mountain. It was a lovely chance to get to see people one last time before we pack it in on SCA events for the winter (and the corresponding COVID surge, which of course is already on the rise). We were primarily there so I could deliver a commission:

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A&S Journey general SCA

Order of the Maunche (100 Minutes War)

On Saturday, my family and I attended our first SCA event since the summer: Hundred Minutes War (and EK Novice Day), a fighting event sponsored by our local Shire of Rusted Woodlands. It was a fuller “family” contingent than usual: both of my teachers, Peregrine and Toki, joined us (the three of us have never been in the same place at the same time the whole while that we have been formally working together), as well as some of our Caer Cinniuint family, including the illustrious Rowan de la Garnison (who, along with her fellow matriarch Meirwen uerch Owein, had recently invited me officially to join my wife’s household).

It turned out they, along with some other dear friends, were there for a reason beyond the glorious late-fall day of fighting, or the several vigils and elevations that were scheduled. During court, their Majesties Ioannes and Honig called forth the Order of the Maunche. His Majesty Ioannes explained to the assembled populace that the Order was in fact short its full complement as he wandered into the aisle, and stopped in front of me with a mischievous grin.

For context, this is the highest Arts & Sciences award the East Kingdom offers short of a Peerage.

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SCA

The Ravager of Rhapsody (Bjorn’s Retreat)

Last weekend was Bjorn’s Retreat, my first in-person event since the pandemic began last year (and the kingdom’s first except for Crown Tourney last month). While we were all masked even outdoors (thank you, your Majesties, for your laudable caution and concern for the health of the populace), it was still delightful to be at an event with my family, and get to see so many old friends in the flesh.

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bardic Competition First Bardic War SCA SCAatHome

A call to EK Performers

To all the performers of the East, greetings!

(TLDR: Sign up to perform for your kingdom! C’mon, it’ll be fun! But take a moment please to read the long post anyway…)

This is a strange time we are living through together. The first warmth of spring, and for many, the first traces of hope. Hope that the day is drawing ever closer, when we will once more be able to gather together, embrace, and share companionship, song and story at an in-person event. Even now, we do not know just how many months more that will be. It’s tantalizing and at times maddening, no?

And as we wait, lo, this spring brings a bounty of opportunities to put our performance and research skills to the test, in service to our kingdom. (All of them remote! More time in front of a webcam instead of a fire! Will it never end?) As your kingdom’s Bardic Champions, it can be a little awkward asking for people to sign up, particularly since these events ended up scheduled so close to one another. And yet, this is the calendar we face, and the kingdom needs the support of its performers now.

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bardic concert First Bardic War general SCA

The First Bardic War (Upcoming)

On January 23 of this year, there was a wonderful Zoom concert called the Journeyman’s Concert hosted by the Midrealm, where I had the privilege to perform. This is coming to be known as The Concert that Started a War, because the couple dozen or so folks attending or performing in the concert, had a conversation that catalyzed the upcoming First Bardic War.

At the center of that conversation were Hilla Stormbringer of the Midrealm, who was one of hosts of the concert, and Laila al-Sanna al-Andalusiyya, former Queen’s Bard of the East, who had been performing. TLDR: There were a lot of Atlantian bards invited to a Midrealm event. The word “invasion” was used, followed by a discussion of holding the Atlantian bards for “ransom”, and the boast that if the bards of the East and Atlantia banded together, they could take over the known world… Within the hour, Hilla had posted in the SCA Bardic Arts group that she had instigated an “interkingdom incident”, and people were discussing a full-scale War event.

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bardic Competition SCA SCAatHome

EK Bardic Champs: 4/24

Grim and I have been the East Kingdom’s Bardic Champions for just over 11 months now. This has been, it doesn’t bear repeating, a most unusual year–but even as we speak, our A&S Champion counterparts are conducting the competition online to choose their successors, and we have announced our plans to do the same.

The next East Kingdom Bardic Championships will be held on Saturday, April 24 (click for details). Performance is, indeed, the best suited activity for a virtual competition of practically anything we do in the SCA. (Click here to check into the Facebook event. The YouTube livestream will be here.)

Grim and I are looking forward to hearing from entrants (note per the event page: You must email us 2 weeks in advance, so that we can plan out the competition day with a sense of how many competitors we have.

We will be holding an online tech check a month or so out before the event, so participants have a chance to verify that their setups work for live online performance. The participants will be on Zoom, and the audience will be able to watch it live-streamed on the East Kingdom’s YouTube channel.

We will share further updates as it approaches.
In service,
Grim and Drake, Sovereign’s and Consort’s Bards

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bardic SCA SCAatHome

Looking back on Coronation

The East Kingdom had our first virtual Coronation on Saturday, August 15, when Margarita De’ Siena completed her unprecedented and eventful reign, and Magnus Tindal and Alberic von Ron Rostock became the new Consules of the Eastern Empire. Grim as Sovereign’s Bard, and I as Consort’s Bard, asked their then-Highnesses what, if any, service we might provide to add to the ceremonies they were planning. As luck would have it, Tindal had a number of thoughts that played well to my strengths, and one that provided Grim and me a joint opportunity.

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