Mi Contra Fa

Poem for Novice Court

Read by the heralds for their Majesties, their Highnesses, and their Excellencies of Storvik and Dun Carraig as they processed into court:

TRM:
Make way, warriors and wardens of hearth
A black wolf walks wartime protector
Horns call to battle  on hot dry plains
Hall is well-kept  by Kirkepatricke, queen
Do them all honor!   Offer your swords!

TRH:
Valiant our prince Vladimir his name
A fierce warrior  who fights for the Wolf
When war has come  Kingdom defended well!
Princess Kalisa   proud are her people
Of fair gem so rare Raise up your voices!

Storvik:
In sails Storvik  with strength of old oak
Novices trained   for terrible war
Rise for Rorik   respect to him show
Know ye Janina   Noble ring-giver

Dun Carraig:
Dun Carrig comes  clear them a way!
Challenge our hearts  have they this day
Hail brave Erwin  Hardy man, he
Mary Isabel   Matchless our mistress!

Due diligence

So, I admit that I quite threw together my documentation for the "Seven Virtues" poem.  Basically, "This is Old English verse.  See my reference.  These are the allusions.  They are from primary sources.  It's on-theme.  The End."

Well, it occurred to me that I should be able to answer a question like, "Is it in good Anglo-Saxon style to be writing this how-to advice column in poetry?  Can you give evidence for similar didactic works?"

Now, what's our first rule?  Read, then write.  I didn't do my reading before my writing.  I shouldn't have expected to find anything even remotely like the poem I wrote.  All I was really hoping to do was "due diligence" - actually going to the Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus, making sure this wasn't like anything else there, and then acknowledging that in my documentation.  Just to show, more than anything else, that yes, the thought had crossed my mind.

Meet the Precepts.  They are exactly a list of virtuous behaviors the wise man will teach his son.  This could be the prototype for "Seven Virtues," except that it doesn't use allusions to history or mythology to make its cases. 

Holy cow.  This kind of backwards-justification stuff isn't supposed to work.  It's crazy that I found something so close to what I ended up writing.

Hurray for due diligence!

Victories at the Melees

In my capacity as Poeta "refers to herself in the third person" Atlantiae, we had three entries into the englyn milwr challenge.  I'd prepared fifteen tokens (Welsh poetry tied up in little scrolls) so clearly I was hoping for a few more.  But it was on the order of the response to the other bardic challenges of the day and, even better, the quality of the entrants was great.  We had a gentle for whom it was his very first public performance of his poetry - and it was a fine poem!  I told him he should do it more often in the future. 

Personally, I answered the bardic challenge in honor of the king, on the theme of inspiring warriors to battle.  I sang "To War!," a marching song I composed nearly spontaneously on the field at Pennsic.  It is dead, dead simple and meant to encourage non-bards (e.g., fighters) to participate.  It goes like this:

To war!  To war! [My unit] goes to war!
(Insert a brand new verse here), [my unit] goes to war!

(Repeat until you've marched to where you need to be, or you're bored with it)

I've sung it with "Atlantia," "Storvik" and "Blackspear" variously in the "my unit" spot.  Verses can range from the typical ("Our shields defend the kingdom," "Our spears are sharp and wicked") to the humorous ("My armor's really sweaty," "I can't see in this helmet") to the totally off-topic ("The sheep are getting nervous").  Roughly 7 syllables, roughly iambic, but whatever. No rhyme needed.

Not only did the populace join in on the repeating parts, but they contributed verses, too!  (His Majesty kicked in the sheep example, even.)  So happy!  Vivat for the brave people of Highand Foorde, willing to extemporize in public!

Sapphire Joust Report

We had three really outstanding entries into the romance competition.  Yaakov HamMizrachi entered a true Pennsic tale of miraculous restoral based on Orlando Furioso.  Sir Axel brought by a yarn in Kalevala meter which was convincingly what a Finn might write if told about European romances and asked to give it a go.  And our winner, Metylde the Cunning, produced over 4,000 lines of Middle English (with side-by-side modern translation) to give us The Marshalles Tale, a Canterbury Tales-esque story-within-a-story inspired by the Amicus/Amelius romances, but with her own interpretation of their themes.

We have some seriously awesome poets in Atlantia.

Sapphire Joust: The Knight of the Sword

The Knight of the Sword is a moderately obscure bit of Arthuriana featuring the redoubtable Sir Gawain.  It has two main episodes, the Perilous Bed and the Maiden and the Hounds.  (Both episodes are found with different protagonists in other works; it's sort of early TV Tropes.)  Three years pass between the end of the Perilous Bed and start of the Maiden and the Hounds, and it looked like a perfect spot to insert a "new fragment."

Except... this is a moderately obscure work.  I'd have a decent chance of being able to start something off with "Not long after Arthur pulled Excalibur from the stone" and have everyone know what I was talking about.  "Not long after Sir Gawain married the maiden of the Perilous Bed"?  Not so much.

I think I have two options at this late date:

1) Expand on the "Branwen seeks a cure" idea I used to sell this contest in the first place.

2) Write a 100-ish line version of the Perilous Bed episode (the original runs hundreds of lines).  It's a bit bawdy, which makes it a more appealing performance piece than the Branwen, unless I come up with some interesting ideas for that one.

Back to work

Ongoing project: Lyre tunebook.  It's slow-going, but it's going.

Upcoming Poeta stuff to get done:

Sapphire Joust: Should I write something? Clearly I can't enter my own competition, but I could exhibit.

Highland River Melees: Need to get tokens together.

Novice: Need to write heraldic bling

Pennsic: Need to find deputy for Known World Poetry

Birthday: Need reasonably-sized epic of Early Storvik history, in suitable (Norse?) meter

Personal Research stuff:

Learn to use the video recorder to make YouTube lyre tutorials

Make some more audio clips for podcasts.  Should do "Wulf and Eadwacer," post to lyre list.

Englyn Milwr

Poeta Atlantiae is sponsoring a challenge at Highland River Melees.  Since the event theme is Wales and warriors, the call is going out for the soldier's poem, englyn milwr, a Welsh form.

How do you write one? It's very simple!

This is a verse form for me!
Of lines, there only are three.
Meter is totally free.

Each line must have seven beats.
End rhyme will make it quite neat.
Englyn milwr, short and sweet!

It is known as soldier's rhyme -
Themes of war are quite sublime.
Let's write some - it's a good time!

Performer's Revel Report

Fun as always!  Heard many nifty new things, including a song about the Children's Crusade that should come with a content warning for young mothers and/or pregnant women.  We had some attendees who had come from afar, including Sir Axel from the south of Atlantia and Rathlaed duNoir.  (Well, when your hosts are Clam Chowder, I guess there's a certain pull...)

We had I'd say a good half-dozen entrants for the Poeta Spring Challenge, which we followed with the maypole.  Six dancers and nearly as many singers!  It was fun, and much more coherent than the Guppy Gala demo.  Still lacked something of the frission it seems like it ought to have, probably because we were all over 30, mostly married, and a little self-conscious about the whole thing.  I also neglected to psych people up to flirt. I'd still like to see it done with a high school/college crowd.

I did get to speak with Baroness Janina about Ye Olden Daies, and I have my nugget: Storvik's first seneschal and baroness divided those duties between them by coin toss.

Personally, I did all right.  "To Put the Devil Into Hell" was quite well-received, and "None Suffer" started a brief discussion on the nature of the pilgrims (Baron Igor picked up that if they were eating white bread and wine, they weren't especially ascetic...).  I trotted out "By Your Side" for I think the second time in public; a little wobbly at first, but it went fine.  I tried Bertran de Born again; people left the room.  Oh, well - I think I do well by it, but it's just a weird-sounding song.  More gratifyingly, I read the "Saga of Fishflinger" on a lark, during a lull when folks were snacking and talking, and heard a few "Sssh!"s because folks realized they wanted to hear it.  And after the room went on something of a gypsy jag, I hauled out Beggars to God.  Little wobble in the first verse, then my voice caught up with itself and it went very well.

After listening to a large number of minor key narrative folk songs on various popular tropes, though, I admit I'm tempted to try a few Scadian versions of Title of the Song.  Title of the War Song, Title of the Irish Song, Title of the Magical Song...

Performer's Revel!

Storvik hosts a small, friendly event called Performer's Revel.  It's at a member's house.  We sit, we perform, we eat an awesome dinner.  It's great fun, and it's this Saturday.  We have once again been able to score a visit from Nana so that our childcare is taken care of - the Revel is not so great for the easily bored under-twelve set.

As Poeta, I'm sponsoring a challenge on the theme of Spring.  I'll be giving out tokens to all who participate - I'm thinking about 2' of trim to make a fillet and a flower.  It was just going to be flowers, but then what do you do with them? Well, with a fillet, you can wear it.  The hard part will be sticking to my guns about having it be recitative.  Personally, I think the distinction between poem and song is artificial, but it's there.  And people who don't sing may feel that they're at a disadvantage vis-a-vis those who do.  (And there's something to that.  A tune can cover up defects in versification.)

As the owner of a maypole, I'll be bringing that along.  A large group activity isn't the norm for the Revel, but if there is an event in Storvik where I think it would have a good reception, this is the event.  I need to print out the lyrics for Official Month of Maying, Maltese Cuckoo and May Pease.

I'm looking forward to giving "To Put the Devil Into Hell" a wider audience, trotting out the Holy Pork Chop song again, and possibly debuting The Shining Time of Spring.  (It might be a good lead-in to the maypole.)  I have half a notion to try and whip the Bertran de Born into performance shape, but it's really close to the event at this point.

KASF 2009 Event Report

This will go long, so it's behind a cut.  As noted last night, I had a great time and learned a lot, but I wonder if I could have used my time better.