Mi Contra Fa

Upon St Crispin's Day

Manolo the Shoeblogger reminds us that today is the feast of Sts. Crispan and Crispian.  Suitable to his blog, he includes a poem on shoemaking.  I suggest the following bit of repertoire instead:

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 - Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3

Initiation Ceremony

A gentle lady emailed Atlantia's listserv, the Merry Rose, recently, asking if anyone had a household initiation ceremony she might use as a basis for making one of her own.  Unable to resist sticking it in where ceremony and pomp are concerned, I wrote a reply, despite not belonging to a household nor having inducted anyone into it.  I will assume a ceremonial leader, the initate(s), and attendees.

I. Welcome and Invocation

The leader welcomes the initiate(s) and attendees and states the purpose of the gathering. 

II. The Initiate Is Informed

The initiate(s) are called forward.  The leader (or an assistant) describes the ethos and goals of the household and the duties, responsibilities and privileges of its members.  A brief history of the household may be included.

III.  A Pact Is Made

The leader asks the initiates if they understand their responsibilities, and the initiates reply with some version of "I do."  The leader asks if the initiates if they wish to join the household, and again they reply something like "I do."  Depending on the structure of the household, the attending members may be asked if they agree to accept the initiates and guard and train them, or the household's leader (may or may not be the ceremonial leader) may make the decision unilaterally.

IV. Tokens Are Given and Received

Some items symbolic of the household or of the pact are given to the initiates, and their symbolism explained to the attendees.

V. New Members Are Welcomed

The leader presents the initiates to the attendees as new members of the household.  There is cheering, hugging, ceremonial buffeting, whatever works for you.  If possible, a shared meal or refreshment should be offered.

An example continues below the fold:

Lyre Book Update

Yes, I am still working on the lyre book.  I have a fair number of songs written out, and am now working on text.  After that, I need some illustrations - either I'll sketch them or take photographs.

Two Commandments and a Golden Rule

I was preparing for a "Bardic 101" class last month.  In and among 40-50 minutes of "what is a bardic circle?"  and "how do they work?" and so forth, I came up with two bits of the Performance Gospel According to Teleri.  Here goes.

1) Thou shalt perform that for which thou hast passion.

Or, "Do what you love."  (This, is occurs to me, is another reason why we don't have much genuine medieval music in the SCA - not too many people have a passion for it.)

7/10s of your performance will be carried on your enthusiasm for what you're performing.  Technique and style matter, but not as much as you think they do, particularly in an informal bardic circle setting.  Whether you are crazy about the "St Crispin's Day" speech from Henry V or "The Scotsman," you should go with that.  If it's not SCA-appropriate, you may be in the wrong venue - consider a local coffeehouse instead. 

If you are in a group, or if you take requests, you may not love-love-LOVE every single piece in your repertoire.  That's okay.  But if you find that you really don't like most of what you're performing, or have no excitement for it, or that it doesn't stir you, you're performing the wrong stuff.

2) Thou shalt not apologize prior to performance, and only rarely shalt thou do so afterwards.

If you forget the lyrics, drop your bard book into the fire, drunkenly careen into a bystander, or belt out "Bend Over, Greek Sailor" at the Children's Bardic, you can apologize.  If you do something genuinely rude, or if you can't finish the piece your audience was enjoying, you can apologize.

Otherwise, don't.

Prior to a performance, it's an attempt to manage expectations.  You're telling them that you haven't practiced/aren't that good/are new/are sick/are drunk in the hopes that they won't criticize you too much.  Newsflash: It doesn't work that way.  They are there to have a good time. They want you to be good.  Help them to believe that you will be good, by projecting enthusiasm and confidence, and they will believe that you are good.  Even if you missed a stanza/went flat/were too quiet/were too loud.

Moreover: either you are good enough to perform, or you aren't.  If you are, do it and don't apologize.  If you aren't (because you haven't practiced or you have laryngitis or whatever), then don't.  Don't tell us that you're awful and then expect us to listen anyway.

After a performance, an apology doesn't help anything.  Chances are excellent that all those dozens of mistakes you made went entirely over the heads of your audience.  Unless you came to a screeching halt partway through, they either didn't notice or have already forgotten.  Calling their attention to it is counterproductive.  Act like you meant to do that and they'll think that you did.

And a Golden Rule:  Anything short is fine.

I have been to long performances that I have loved, so I would not make brevity a commandment.  However, in general, if you are nervous or new or unsure about your bardic ability, do something short.  Scadians are a warm and polite audience, particularly when their patience is not taxed.  They will sit still for anything, provided it comes in under 3:30 or so.  Yes, even the most uneven novice attempt at a shaggy dog story will be given polite attention for the first 3-5 minutes. 

If you listen to people when they complain about bad performances at bardic circles, you will notice that the common theme is that something was not to their taste, and it was long.  It went on and on and on, they moan.  If you think you are losing or have lost an audience, wrap up your piece.  Better to bow out early than be remembered as That Bard, the One Who Droned On.

Google Penance: Acorn Poem

Many people looking for an "acorn poem" end up here, because I list the little poems I've written for Atlantia's newsletter as "Acorn Poems."  (The newsletter being "The Acorn," of course.)  This is an attempt at an Anglo-Saxon-style riddle.

A hard round thing    high above earth
I fall in the fall    found on the ground
Pleasing to pigs    precious hog-meal
I wear a hat    high on my head
Brown is that cap    covering brow
Come spring, I shed    simple headgear
Taller I stand    try to touch sky
Many years pass    til proudly I rear
High above earth    hard round thing falls

October Acorn Poem

War comes to end   warships sail home
For harvest time    and winter sleep
A new-crowned king   and queen so fair
Guard the high hall  from havoc and care
Share out gold rings    spoils of summer
Feast and make merry    amidst our loud calls
Vladimir, King!     Kalisa, Queen!
Will see us safe     to spring's warm days

Another Anglo-Saxon praise poem, celebrating the coronation of Vladimir and Kalisa.  It was supposed to be for the September Acorn, but I missed the earlier deadline (July 25 instead of August 1, because of Pennsic) so this went into October's issue.

For Jehannine de Flandres

Baroness Jehannine de Flandres is my husband's household-sister and friend of two decades.  He held the chuppah at her wedding; she brewed beer and wine for ours. We were told she was being put on vigil at River Wars in the East.  We were further told it was a vigil for her brewing Laurel.

As it turns out, it was for her Pelican.  But we didn't learn that until after we'd composed poems in her honor.

We'll write service poems for her eventual Laureling.

Long winter nights    white with hoar-frost
Dark and cold hall   comfort has fled
Sad are the men   strong-armed warriors
Fire gives light     but little cheer

Tearful the bride  at table in hall
Her wedding feast   frugal and mean
No horn of mead   honey-brew fine
Came to her hand    to carry in hall

Scop's voice is weak    withered his throat
Gold would he give   for a gladdening drop
Mead or good ale   either be welcome
But hall is dry    and harp-strings go silent

Lord does not laugh   on long bench he sits
Watching his bride    weep from her eyes
Sees that the spirits     have sunk in his men
Hears that the scop    can sing no more

Unhappy that man    no mead in his cup
Bee-gold in jars    benefits none
Without skilled brewster    brave-voiced woman
In cauldron makes magic    mix honey and water
Brings forth a brew    no better thing

Makes warriors bold    boasting begins
Men are merry    mirthful in hall
Dry-eyed young bride    horn brings to the scop
Poet drinks deep    prepares a new song
Glad-wood sings out    strings struck anew
Frost still without    but within, joy
Fellowship fine    friends laugh together
Holding at bay    harsh winter cold

Brewster's good work    wild dark tames
Grendel and dragon    denied at the door
No monsters enter    while mead sweetly flows
Pleasure and joy    poured into cups
Brewster's secrets    secure in her breast
Wise is the woman    such wonders can work   

Google Penance: Mi Contra Fa

"Google penance" is a term Carl Pyrdum of Got Medieval? uses to denote when he has written a post inspired by a Google search that brought a reader fruitlessly to his website.

For example, I get a fair number of hits from people looking for "Anglo Saxon riddle kids."  I actually have an article on Anglo-Saxon riddles for children posted, so that's a good hit.  But I also get people searching for "mi contra fa." 

Now, if they're looking for this blog, that's a good hit.  But if they're looking for information on the tritone, they are out of luck.  I have a whole site named "Mi Contra Fa" and I never once explain what it means.

For this oversight, I do Google penance.

It's pretty simple in this case, since there's a Wikipedia article that summarizes most of the relevant information and debunks the "devil in music" thing at the same time.  "Mi contra fa," or "the note mi played against the note fa" is the tritone, an augmented fourth or diminished fifth, the interval between (for example) F and B.  It's dissonant - really dissonant - and it was considered good musical practice in the Middle Ages to avoid it.  However, we don't have a single scrap of evidence to support the idea that people really believed that playing it summoned the devil or was an act of evil.  It just sounded nasty.

Now, someone out there is going through their "Do, a Deer" and wondering how in the world mi and fa can be an augmented fourth apart.  Do, re, mi, fa... that's a major or minor second, right?  They are right next to each other!  In what world does B follow F in a musical scale?

In the world of hexachords, and even then, not directly.  Medieval musical theory wasn't based on octaves and major and minor scales.  It was based on hexachords - six notes long, rather than the octave's eight - and modes.  But yet, the octave was recognized as the perfect interval.  How did you compose music if your 'octave,' this hexachord thing, didn't contain the octave?

You switched hexachords.  There are three of them, see, each one patterned "tone-tone-semitone-tone-tone."  That got you, in a world of mostly diatonic instruments:

CDEFGA
FGA(Bflat)CD
GABCDE

Now, when you sing "Do, a Deer," you don't necessarily know what key you're in, right?  You do know that the tonic, the base note that structures the piece, is going to be "Do."  That's its name, no matter what note you're actually singing.

The same is true for each of the three hexachords.  If I'm in the natural hexachord (the one starting on C), C is do.  if I'm in the soft hexachord (the one starting on F), F is do.

Note that in the natural hexachord, F is fa.  And in the hard hexachord (the one starting on G), B is mi.

Mi contra fa - augh, the tritone!  There it is!  And that's why in the soft hexachord, the only one that would naturally contain an F and a B, the B is flattened (or softened, and hence the name of the hexachord).

Birthday Poeta Report

The "Legendary History of Storvik" competition was as successful as the Sapphire Joust one.  We had three entries, all excellent:

• A runo from Sir Axel's Atlantiavala concerning the Assessment Battle in '81, between Storvik and Sacred Stone.  Most historical, and in a northern European (although not Nordic) meter.
• An edda from Lady Swannoc about how Storvik was formed and populated by maggots-turned-to-men from the rotten hand of the giant Storverk.  Very much rooted in Norse mythology with a staggering number of allusions and kennings, although related in the style of an English translation rather than in metered verse.*
• Another edda from Master Igor about Sir Volodimir of Cambion's battle with and consumption of the Midgard Lobster up in Carolingia.  Sprinkled with modern allusions but applied some kennings and did use fornyrðislag meter.

A panel of judges consisting of her Majesty Queen Kalisa, her Excellency Baroness Janina and myself, after much gnashing of teeth, settled on Sir Axel as the winner of the day's prize.  But Baroness Janina had on hand some handsome stoneware mugs and goblets we offered to the other two performers in view of their excellence.

No, seriously.  Atlantia can really write itself some poetry, folks.  I'm not just tossing around "excellent" because That's What You Do.  As a perfectionist, authenticity geek, poet and performer, I was Seriously Impressed.  (All three poems were performed aloud for the judges, with Master Igor doing a stunning Sir Axel impression.)

I darted off-site for an hour and a half to make copies of all of the entries and put them into nice report covers.  All the contributors got/will get a copy; the office of Poeta Atlantiae will keep one; and the others were passed out to Storvik's baronage, past and present.  The poems were recited again at feast.

For the record, I generally dislike feast performances, but court was too busy.  I think they were as well-received as a feast performance is likely to be.

*I still often feel like medieval poetry should sound like free verse, because I've read so many free verse translations of medieval poetry!

My first comment spam!

"not a very nice love dances a lifestyle waive thank style good."

It's... it's almost like a demented haiku.