Category: SCA

Quick added item: In keeping with Duchess Caoilfhionn’s request to me to get the song out there, I printed out lyrics sheets for “We Are the East” at yesterday’s bardic circle, and we sang the song together. Everyone there knows that the song is intended to be shared with any who wish to learn it, as a people’s anthem for the kingdom.

One of the participants asked today online if there was a downloadable version. Yes. I’ve uploaded it now, and added a link to the song page. Please share freely. You can check out the YouTube video to learn the tune (I will upload a version to Soundcloud when I have the opportunity).

A couple of notes for May:

1. We will be hosting the next EK Southern Region bardic circle at our home on Sunday, May 15, from 2 to 7 pm. To get our street address, either email me at ericnjb at gmail dot com, or go to the Facebook event page and check off that you’re interested or planning to go. (I’ll send a group private message with the details a few days before the circle.)
2. We’ll be at the Wars of the Roses (Concordia) Memorial Day weekend. I’ll be teaching a new class on how Elizabethan written works reflected attitudes about women (inspired by my reflections from back in March), and [see below] performing in the Roses bardic competition (the theme is “bawdy”–I’m working on a piece).

Hope to bump into some of you at one or both of these events.

[UPDATE: Preparing the class above is taking longer than I’d hoped, so I’m withdrawing it from Roses. I do still plan on teaching it at Pennsic.]

So before I do the deep dive for Saturday’s competition, I want to take a moment to reflect on the inspirations I found there. Some people I want to recognize:

• HRM Caoilfhionn, who started off the day of performances by sharing an original song she had written. Others had heard it before; I hadn’t had the opportunity. It was magnificent work, and she sang it beautifully. There was something incredible about seeing that we were performing for a fellow practitioner of our art, and I am hopeful that she will consider exploring it further when this reign ends. The other thing Caoilfhionn always brings to any event is the way that she models gratitude.
• Aethelflied Brewbane, who stopped flying under the radar…and just flew.
• Martyn de Halliwell, who always reminds me how much fun it is to perform, and lets his audience in on it.
• Lilie Dubh, who came prepared to exhibit for round one only, but was invited back to compete in round two. And who pulled out a piece she knew and did it. (Our bards, they rock. They rock so hard.)
• Mistress Alys Mackintosh, who, when their Majesties explained that my new award was totally off the cuff so they didn’t have a brooch or a scroll on hand, said (standing behind them in her new Queen’s Bard regalia), “But we do have words!”, and proceeded to spin off an extemporaneous oral scroll text for me that would do any herald proud. (Wonder where she learned that…) A bard should always have words.
• My wife Jessa, who has supported me through my exhaustive prep process (more on that soon), and who showed up this weekend exhausted and sick…and still never stopped smiling at me, giving me a gentle touch on the shoulder, and telling me “You got this.” As long as I got her, she’s right.
• My son Spencer, also not feeling 100% but game to be there for Daddy’s thing, and able as always to just find his friends and have a good time, and tell me he believed in me. Little did he know he would get his moment too. We couldn’t see his face as he was getting his Tyger’s cub, but her Majesty (just managing to hold it together) kept mirroring back his expressions of mixed shock and delight for us. The boy isn’t hard to read. And he’s amazing.
• Master Magnus Hvalmagi, who I was able to briefly talk to during his vigil, who has always modeled for me making excellence in this Society look effortless and joyous. I was glad my praise touched him, and his words of wisdom got me right back. So glad to be in this with you, bro.
• Mistress Zsof, who’s been there for me this whole time, and modeled what it was to be on for her new apprentice when required: during our apprentice ceremony, and speaking for the Laurel at both elevations (having stepped in to read another Laurel’s words for Magnus’s at the last minute). I kept wanting to catch someone’s eye and whisper: “That’s my Laurel.” (Okay, I might have done that once.)
• Finally, our friend Erin (Sváva Ansvarsdotter), who finally brought herself, her daughter Bera, and her significant other and his boy, to an SCA thing as she’d long been promising to do. The big show made for quite the first event to take on, especially with a toddler. Apparently, she’s thinking of going skald. (Yessss! Once you go bard, you never go back.)

You guys are shining examples of why I come to these things.

As they say on Food Network, some days you just get outcooked. However, I am as happy as I could possibly be having left without a champion’s baldric. I faced the East’s very best, made it to the finals for the first time, and gave the best performances I had in me. In the end, there were honors enough to go around. I am Zsof’s apprentice, my son is now a Tyger’s cub, and my new anthem for the East Kingdom was a smashing success. (So much so that their Majesties pulled the rug out from under everyone and surprised me with an impromptu award of the Silver Brooch! Definitely feeling the love.)

Don’t get me wrong. I really wanted to win…and I’m delighted for the two that did. Lady Aethelflied Brewbane, the new King’s Bard, and Mistress Alys Mackintosh, Queen’s Bard, truly brought it. The best of a day of inspired performances all around.

Seeing Magnus and Suba get their well-deserved elevations was icing on the cake.

I love the hell out of this kingdom. I’m glad I got the chance today to tell it how I feel.

After we get home, I plan to post a pretty detailed post-game analysis, laying out the day, how I prepped for it, and possibly video. (While I may not have won, I have the satisfaction of having gotten thisclose, so sharing my process could be of value. Besides, my Laurel told me I have to.)

Now that Mistress Zsof has announced it publicly, I can safely say it here: On Saturday, at our kingdom’s bardic championship, I will formally become Zsof’s apprentice, having served as her student for a little over a year. (In SCA language, she will go from being “my teacher” to “my Laurel”.) To the rest of the SCA, and especially the bardic and Arts & Sciences communities, this is an indication that Zsof and I have agreed that our period of study is working out to our mutual satisfaction, and that we both wish to make the relationship formal and long-term. There will be a brief ceremony at the event, at which time I will be allowed to wear the green belt of an apprentice. (For those unfamiliar, certain other belt colors also indicate particular status: yellow belts indicate a protegee, someone learning service under a Pelican, red belts indicate a squire, who is learning chivalry from a Knight, and Knights themselves wear a white belt.)

In addition, I am looking forward to my good friend Magnus Hvalmagi being elevated to the Order of the Laurel, and my student-sister Suba Al-Hadid being elevated to the Pelican. (Fun with detail and nuance: Suba is studying performance peer-like qualities from Mistress Zsof, not service, so she will continue to be Zsof’s student after she becomes a Pelican, if they so choose. Magnus, however, will cease to be Master Toki’s apprentice on becoming his Peer, since the Laurel is the track Toki was training him for.)

All this is, of course, in addition to the actual bardic championship itself, in which I will be competing. I’ll be checking in next week to share how it all plays out.

[UPDATE: Zsof has let me know the green belt will not be ready on Saturday, so she’ll be providing me with a different symbol until it’s done.]

[UPDATE: Corrected Suba’s field of study with Zsof.]