Mi Contra Fa

Chalice: Eulogy

Eulogy is the word I'm looking for.  "Elegiac poetry" is wisdom poetry, apparently.  But it's sad wisdom, at least the ones I've read, so I had it confused.  ...no, wait.  "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"... bah, whatever an elegy or elegiac poem is, it is not a praise poem for a person.  That's the word I need, and it's eulogy.

We have some extant eulogies:

• The Funeral of Scyld Scefling, the prologue to Beowulf.  That was good king!
• Praise uttered about Beowulf after his defeat of Grendel and at his death
• A praise poem for Edgar's coronation, and a lament at his death. From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
• Project Gutenberg's Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  In it are eulogies for Alfred (1036) and Edward (1065) as well as the above for Edgar.  Unfortunately, the 19th century translator betook it upon himself to translate the original poems into rhymed couplets.  I find it hard to believe that I do not have a copy of the Chronicle, but I think that may be the case.  Perhaps it is time to remedy that.

These are all in "regular metre" according to Jeff Oplan in his Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry (1980); there are some other poems in the Chronicle in "irregular metre," whatever that might mean.

From Opland:

This group of poems [in the Chronicle], as far as we know without precedent in the written literature of the Anglo-Saxons, celebrates an event: they do not describe or tell the story of an event, but are produced on the occasion.  They treat people (usually rulers) who are in the public domain, people known to audience and poet alike; they apportion praise and sometimes blame (...), they celebrate the deeds and achievements of their subjects, as well as their characters, in an elliptical, allusive, non-narrative style.  They are, in short, eulogies, like those purveyed by Norse skalds and Xhosa iimbongi. (173)

Opland hypothesizes that the eulogistic form appeared (or reappeared) in England as the result of the Norse invasions and presence of Norse skalds (172-174).  If necessary, some skaldic texts could then possibly be pressed into supporting service, but we have a pretty nice list of Anglo-Saxon ones.

Primary Divergences from Authentic Evidence

• Rhiannon was not a public figure.
• She was not a war-leader or martial figure.
• She was not a man.  (There is an anti-eulogy to Modthyrth in Beowulf that may serve as a negative example for female eulogy.)
• Her virtues that I wish to eulogize may not exactly be the virtues of an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman.
• There appears to be no basis for dragging Greek allusions into the mix. (Although Opland notes that the scop who praises Beowulf, post-Grendel, alludes to Siegfried and another Germanic hero, so there is precedent for allusion.)

I don't think any of that is deal-breaking.  This is a genuine eulogy, and so it must capture my genuine feelings for the departed.  She and I were both, when you get down to it, modern people with modern values.  I can cast as much of that as possible in traditional language and imagery, but I'm not going to write a fake eulogy to fit period conventions.  The Hellenic additions are purely at the requirement of the competition, and it's very SCA to justify this as "My persona has poked around this Persephone legend and recast it in the terms of her own adopted culture."

Chalice: A long overdue memorial

You need to have two pieces prepared for Chalice.  Everybody does one; the winner of that round performs the second piece against the current Chalice Bard(s).  The second round does not have the research and documentation requirements of the first round.

As I mentioned before, the only Persephone-themed song I know is "Demeter's Daughter."  I first had this song from my friend Rhiannon Amante d'Epee (that's Rhiannon Sword-Lover, yes).  She was tall - six feet tall, as slender as an elm tree and with a great long mass of wavy dark hair.  She smiled and laughed frequently, and was a kind and open person.

She gave me my epithet, "the well-prepared."

She was ebullient, joyful and merry, yet not lacking in thoughtfulness,  foresight and compassion.  She was witty but not cruel, as wit can easily be.  She managed innocent charm and knowing sensuality in the same glance.  She was our Kore, picking flowers in the field in the springtime of the year.

And then, unexpectedly, it was autumn.

One of the tasks of the scop is to sing the memory of the dead. 

Book Review: "How to Read an Oral Poem"

So I lied when I said I'd be focusing on the Great Translation Project.  I was also reading this on the side, as background for Anglo-Saxon performance.

Foley, John Miles.  How to Read an Oral Poem.  University of Illinois Press, 2002.

The book also has an associated website.

I'm of two minds on this book.  From an SCA point of view, it's a very readable introduction to studies in oral poetry.  No real surprise - I believe it was developed by Foley as a textbook for an undergraduate class.  It uses a variety of examples, from Homer to slam poetry, to make its points.  Of especial value to the Scadian performer will be the introduction to three major ways of studying oral poetry - performance theory, ethnopoetics, and immanent art (which encompasses the more famous and mechanistic oral-formulaic theory) - as well as applying these techniques to what Foley calls "Voices from the Past," our surviving manuscript copies of poems that were (mainly or in part) oral works.

It is an introduction, though, and anyone looking for a detailed "how to" on bringing Beowulf or Roland to life is going to be disappointed.  It does have a very extensive bibliography, though, so you can find the works that do have these more in-depth treatments.

Also, the book makes good points about the shared vocabulary necessary for oral performance to work.  If I look at you and say, "Once upon a time..." you instantly access a shared "register" of the fairy tale.  You expect a certain pattern in what follows; variation within limits.  Regrettably, we don't have immediate access to the registers the old poets were working in. If I begin to describe a sea-voyage to you, you don't instantly expect the five parts of a sea-voyage that the Old English poets used to construct that scene.  We can try to learn these registers, but as SCA performers, we probably shouldn't expect our audiences to know them.  At least, not until we've been performing in them long enough that they learn they by experience.  But until then, some of the force and power of the traditional forms may be lost.  It's another argument for finding ways to hybridize modern and medieval performance, to present authentic material in an appropriate style but still access the audience's available registers.

I had two main problems with the book.  The first was that the tone was a little too informal sometimes, almost a little too contrived.   Maybe the sense of contrivance came from the set of ten maxims which Foley invented.  They mostly conveyed good and useful points, but why did he have to call them *proverbs* (sic) instead of, oh, maxims or dictums?  Or even "proverbs," with air quotes?  What's with the asterisks?

The second was more of a frame of reference problem.  This book is written for (and possibly by) non-performers, for academics studying oral poetry.  There's a great and healthy emphasis on the need to experience oral performance to really understand it, but this is preaching to the choir for most of us.  There's a sort of wonder that techniques like musical scoring could be used to transcribe a performance that includes music, or that has a sense of musicality.  Some of the major points that the author dwells on are things that are common practice for performers like ourselves.

All in all, it was a good read and a nice introduction.  There are some good lessons to learn in it.  I'm actually glad I read it before the seminal Singer of Tales; I could easily see myself thinking that oral-formulaic theory was the be-all and end-all of oral composition.  (It just fits too well with my engineer's mindset.)  But except for the bibliography, I doubt that I'll be going back to it much.  This could have been a library loan.

Chalice: Preliminary poking around

Another possible theme has presented itself: Persephone as peace-weaver, a wife given to create harmony between two warring families.  Except... it's kind of the reverse of that, isn't it? Zeus orders her to be given back to Demeter, and it's only because she's had the food of the dead that Hades has any claim on her at all.  I could do it, but it would be a significant inversion of the traditional story.

Classical mythological references in Anglo-Saxon literature: Solomon and Saturn (original text here).  And that's dicey; Saturn is apparently a Chaldean prince (read as: sorceror), not a Roman god.  Other classical models to appear in Anglo-Saxon literature but I'm not finding a vast trove of mythological references anywhere; we're talking medical guides and philosophical treatises for the most part, with Apollonius of Tyre thrown in.  I find it notable that in Deor's catalogue of horrible things, there are no Roman/Greek stories, just Germanic ones.

Wife's Lament pages.  Will return later to analyze structure of poem.

The Wanderer Project.  Ditto.  Another Wanderer.

Searfarer.

Readily-available charms are for sickness or blighted fields, not finding lost objects.  Might be able to do something with blighted fields.  Do I have a book of A-S charms at home?

Consult "Shield-Maidens and Peace-Weavers" book on depictions of motherhood.  Wealtheow jumps to mind, as does Grendel's mom; seem to recall an evil wife/mother from one of the parenthetical stories in Beowulf.  There's the interpretation of Wulf and Eadwacer as a lament for a lost son. 

Chalice of the Sun God: Rematch

Chalice of the Sun God is a Ponte Alto event that encourages the formation of "Chalice teams," composed of (if memory serves) a heavy fighter, a fencer, an archer, an A&S person and a bard.  There is also a sort-of separate Chalice Bard competition.

I went to my first one two years ago and was... surprised when I got my judging sheet back.  The theme had been "Celebration" and I had done "In Ducli Jublio." After all, "it's period!"  My documentation consisted of giving the manuscript the song was preserved in and its dates. I thought it had gone pretty well.  The scores, though, were based not so much on performance as they were on research.  It was the first time I'd seen a bardic judged to more typical A&S standards, and it was a bit of a shock.

Last year, the Spud was only five months old and we weren't up for the event.  This year, I'm thinking rematch.  Now that I know what the judging criteria are, by heaven, I can give them what they are looking for, and plenty of it.

The theme is "Persephone's Story."  The only song I know on that theme is the one that starts "Picking flowers in the field, in the springtime of the year" and is a very modern (or postmodern?) take on the tale, in which Persephone goes willingly with Hades.  I'm thinking a more traditional take on the story, as befits a period piece.

I'll do it in an Anglo-Saxon style, which suggests several possible themes:

• Persephone's lament, styled after the Wife's Lament and Wulf and Eadwacer, in which a woman is exiled or held captive.  I've done an original translation of Wulf and Eadwacer and have plenty of existing research and documentation on it.
• Demeter's search, after one of the traveling poems (The Seafarer, The Wanderer, Deor).
• Hades's initial abduction of Persephone, complete with his boasts about his kingdom and power (somewhat after Beowulf).
• The whole bloody tale as an epic, after Beowulf and Judith.

The lack of battle scenes make me lean away from epic and more towards one of the elegiac forms.  After seeing what the Anglo-Saxon poets did with Judith, I don't think this story would scream "write me as an epic!" to them.  There's no place for swords flashing and looting tons of treasure from Hades's storerooms.  Demeter's search, her self-exile from Olympus, and the winter that follows her would resonate with them; so would Persephone's captivity, away from the hall-joys of Olympus.

Hee.  It'll be fun, casting the Greek elements in an Anglo-Saxon style.

A-S Performance Class: Outline

Introduction
Five minutes of Bagby's Beowulf DVD.  Highlight sections of recitation, chant and song, with and without lyre, if possible.

Words
Extant Old English poetry topics: epics (Beowulf, Judith), war (Battle at Maldon, Finnesburgh Fragment), love (Husband's Message, Wulf and Eadwacer), laments (Seafarer, Deor), hall-joys, riddles, gnomic verse, boasting, praise, religion

Extant Latin poetry topics: Riddles (Aldhelm's); would have to research others

But even the OE topics contain most of the favorites of the SCA.  "Rough and ready" feeling to many of them fits well with Atlantia's warrior ethos; the love poems aren't at all like High Middle Ages stuff.  Call out differences, features; but recall that this isn't the "how to write poetry" class.

Recitation
Go slow.  Let the stress patterns roll like waves and don't rush them.  If you are used to singing, practice, because there's no meter to keep your timing in line.  Usual basic rules of performance (posture, projection, enunciation, body language) all apply.

Music
Non-metrical structure of poems gives three options: Through-compose, improvise, or compose for your stresses and fill in as needed.  Must work on the last idea.

Instruments
Lyre: Has benefit of being physically found in period graves.  Also shown in later iconography.  Have Hucbald's tuning (which Bagby doesn't use, BTW).

Harp: Has benefit of being common SCA instrument. Shows up somewhere 8th-10th cen, nail down date if possible.  Ambiguity in word hearpan.   Present some theories on harp vs. lyre debate.

Wind: Can't talk and blow at the same time.  Extant finds tend to be bone flutes, wooden box panpipes.  Suggests less formal "noisemakers" for everyone, not precisely tuned instruments.  If re-creating with modern instrument, would go with wooden (or plastic) fipple flute, not recorder or pennywhistle.  Pennywhistle better than recorder, though.

Word-Hoards and Improvisation
How to move towards spontaneously-composed oral performance

Atlantian Fall University Classes

I'll be teaching two classes at Atlantian U in the fall: the Research and Documentation class, again (tweaked a little) and a new one on Anglo-Saxon Performance. 

The performance class will have to be largely hypothetical, but we can go through some of the different performance modalities (spoken, chanted, sung), the instruments (lyre and maybe harp) and tunings for them, and the role of improvisation and so forth.  Should be a hoot.

Book Review: "Performing Medieval Narrative"

I have still not been able to lay hands on this book (someone keeps checking it out of the UMD library), but I've found a review of it online here.  Typical of these scholarly anthologies, it contains a bunch of essays on some really, really specific topics.  Section 4, written by actual performers, looks to be the most immediately useful to the SCAdian storyteller/narrator.  That is not enough for me to shell out $95 for the book, and I will continue to wait for it to reappear in the library.

GTP: Non sofre Santa Maria

Original lyrics.  I'll be using the liner notes from my Martin Best Ensemble CD for a non-poetic translation.  The lines in the linked page are long; if I were breaking them up by musical phrases, I'd cut them in half.  Then you get, for rhymes:

ABA'B for the refrain (A = Maria and A' = romarias)

CD ED FD GB for the verse.

I will almost certainly not be able to sustain that for all five verses; I don't know what sound I could pick for "D" so that I could find fifteen useful rhymes.  I expect I'll do as I did for "Morenica" and use a different "D" rhyme for each verse, but try to tie each one to the refrain with the same "B" rhyme.

I'm also not going to worry so much about preserving the exact sense of the lyrics this time around, because this isn't a lyric; it's a narrative, a story.  The precise images are less important than the overall story and its impact, which appears to be meant to be humorous.  In outline:

Nine pilgrims are going to Mary's shrine.  They stop at an Inn for dinner and order nine steaks.  While the steaks cook, they pray.  While they pray, a serving girl steals one of their steaks.  Sitting down to eat, they find they are a steak short, and again pray that it will be restored to them.  And lo!  They hear a knocking sound from a traveler's trunk, open it up and discover a steak dancing around inside!  And they took the miraculous steak to the shrine and hung it before the altar on a silken thread.

Seems a shame they didn't eat the steak, since one assumes that's what Mary gave it to them for.  It's what's for dinner!

Fame and Fortune

A passing observation:

When I call to mind some of the well-known bards of Atlantia or indeed, of other kingdoms, most of them have some particular specialty or style that I associate with them.  Indeed, observe these (somewhat dated) vitae of Atlantian bards.  Many of them call out to those specialties.

Not that any of these gentles is limited to those specialties.  I think of Yaakov HaMizrachi as a storyteller, but he sings and composes poetry as well.  Efenwealt Wystle is well-known as a funny, funny man, but he writes serious love and war songs as well.  Ruaidhri an Cu brings to mind Elizabethan-styled works in a Scots accent, but of course his repertoire is larger than that - and he heralds a mean court.

But there is something to be said for being "the one who does X," if recognition is your goal.  Advertisers call it "branding," and I don't know if they took that term from cattlemen or not.  But it serves the same purpose - it marks something out.  To sell something - whether it's soap or your performance - your potential customer has to know what it's good for.

So what are you selling, and who is your market for that?  I wouldn't recommend trying to "sell" anything you don't like to perform.  The widest market in the SCA, by far, is the traditional music one.  It also has the largest number of "sellers" singing in it, and you'll need to establish your brand quite cleverly - perhaps by using an instrument, singing with a partner, or even just maintaining a distinct persona.  But if you're not interested in traditional music - or at least, not interested in making it "the thing you do," accept that you're pitching to a smaller market.

That's okay.  And there's nothing wrong with trying to "grow" your market - trying to bring your specialty into the SCA mainstream to increase your adoring audience.   A more specific specialty will probably get you faster name-recognition - "Hey, it's the hurdy-gurdy guy!"  - even if it doesn't bring as much popularity.