Mi Contra Fa

Practicing ap Huw figures

I've gotten started with Karen Marshalsay's Key Techniques for Harp, and have been promptly reminded of the value of regular practice.  I haven't been practicing much, I admit - maybe 15-20 minutes?  Most days, but not every day?  And yet, I am hearing audible improvement. 

The beginning figures in the book are very simple, and playing them as tune notes is not hard.  What I find more difficult is to use them as very rapid (yet controlled) grace notes.  I still can't just sit down and do it, but I can get it maybe 60-70% of the time instead of the 30-40% I started with.  Not bad!

I have somewhere - I think it's in Tess Knighton's Companion to Medieval Music - an essay by Benjamin Bagby on early harp, and how its music is described by authors.  I will be interested to see if it could be plausibly applied to the rapid-fire, almost buzzing sounds one can get via the ap Huw figures.

I also want to go find some YouTube videos on modern krar (Ethiopian lyre) players.  I wonder how quickly they can play? Personally, I can't get super-fast note sequences from my Germanic lyre the way I currently play it.  If those were artistically valued, that might be one reason why the triangular harp overlook the lyre the way it did.  (Or it's perfectly possible to play lyre very very fast, and I'm just not good enough!)

"Leather Baskets"

Sometime back during the "ZOMG RUSHES" mini-project, I looked up a translation of Aelfric's Colloquy.  I think I'd seen it referenced piecemeal enough times that I wanted to see the whole thing.  It's an instructional piece, and it refers to the duties and products of many kinds of people who lived and worked in Anglo-Saxon England.  This is what I found for the leatherworker:

http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/016.pdf
I buy hides and skins and prepare them with my skill. I make many styles of shoes from them, baskets and clogs, boots and buckets, bridles and harness, flasks and leather bottles, spurs and halters, bags and purses, not one of you would like to spend the winter without my skills.

Baskets?!  Leather baskets?!  This seemed... unusual but intriguing.  The Colloquy was written in both Old English and Latin, and I wondered what words, exactly, were being translated as "baskets" in the above.  The OE was easy to find:

Ic bicge hyda ond fell, ond gearkie hig mid cræfte minon, ond wyrce of him gescy mistlices cynnes, swyftleras ond sceos, leþer hosa ond butericas, bridelþwancgas ond geræda, flaxan, pinnan ond higdifatu, spurleþer a ond hælftra, pusan ond fætelsas; ond nan eower nele oferwintran buton minon cræfte.

But what do all those words mean?  Some websites gave various alternate translations, either word for word or the whole passage:

http://www.kul.pl/files/165/history%20of%20english/texts2009/aelfriccolloquy-translation.pdf
gescy - shoes
gescy mistlices cynnes - shoes of various kinds
swyftleras - slipper
sceos - shoes
leþerhosa - leather gaiter
buteric - leather bottle
bridelþwancgas - reins
geraeda - trappings (for a horse)
flaxan - bottles
pinne - flask, bottle
higdifaet - leather bottle
spurleþer - spur-strap
hælftra - halter
pusa - bag, scrip
fætelsas - vessels

http://eynsham-pc.gov.uk/documents/aelfric_teacher.pdf
I buy skins and pelts and I prepare them by my skill and from them I make various types of footwear, sandals, shoes, boots; leather bags, bridles, flasks, trappings, bottles, halters, spurs, scrips and purses.
Nobody wishes to spend the winter without my craft.

I finally found the Latin side and definitions of those words:

http://www.heathwood.org/myer/omnibus/Aelfric/Aelfric.pdf
Ego emo cutes et pelles, et preparo eas arte mea, et facio ex eis calciamenta diversi generis, subtalares et ficones, caligas et utres, frenos et falera, flascones et casidilia, calcaria et chamos, peras et marsupia; et nemo vestrum vult hiemare sine mea arte.

subtalares - simple leather shoes that do not cover the ankle
ficones - (possibly from fico ficonis) house shoes, slippers
caligas - a kind of leather stocking, esp. worn by bishops; caligae must be laced; cf. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 19.34
uter - a skin bag; wine skin, leather bottle
frenum - a bridle
falera - phalera-orum n.pl. military decorations (used on horses and soldiers)
flascones - a wine flask
casidile - a wallet, bag, satchel
calcaria - spur
chamos - snaffle bit for a horse
peras - pouch, halter
marsupia - a purse, pouch

So... no baskets. A variety of shoes and a variety of bags/pouches/bottles, plus horse gear.  And also two references for return visits to the Colloquy!

Battle on the Bay Report

• The Pop-Up Mead Hall was not a great success.  We were hardly in it at all; set-up and tear down were not awful, but not insignificant.  We did entertain Lady Patricia for a bit!  But most of the day was running around with the kid. 
• It was definitely not worth the stress over trying to assemble the -bleeping- folding stool the night before.
• I think a minimal gear approach will work better in the future.  I noticed many gentles came with just chairs or stools, and sometimes a third folding stool and a small platter.  Unfold stool, rest platter, instant small table for cups and such!
• I should have brought the beanbag from Owlsherst.  A&S entry paperwork needed lots of rocks.
• Had to leave before A&S entries got any feedback.
• 'Storvikmandius' was well-received!  A few people got the reference and liked it.  I was brought into court as the "wise woman."  Since two fighter jets overflew just as Baron William was being accused of something, I made a reference to the ravens of Odin. 
• Then Odin's other four ravens overflew during my recitation.  We had a bit of a laugh at that.
• The kid was overall very well behaved.  He required a lot of attention and didn't want to participate in children's activities, but aside from wanting to crawl into/under/around the barn, he was really good.  He authorized!  Aaaand then he got bored and wanted to leave.  I left - he'd been very patient with Mom doing a lot of boring things that required him to stand still and be quiet (like sit through court) and I wanted his first real event to be a good time.

Storvikmandius

When our seneschal Lady Devin announced the new baron and baroness of Storvik, Badouin and Griele, she said that they would have "vast shoes to fill."  I've written poems for each baronage that's stepped down since I arrived in Storvik, and that line served as the inspiration for my poem for William le Younger and Sorcha Crowe.  It is, for the first time, not an alliterative poem.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and footless shoes of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
On a pedestal these words were shown:
"Sorcha and William, before you these two stand
Baron of Storvik, and its Baroness most dread
Of these two, let all good and honest men sing
No palace built, nor our barony's borders spread
No roads nor lofty monuments beyond compare
But deeds well-done that put heart on wing
Helpful hands, shining smiles rare
Spirits bright and large, so long display'd
These shoes will fit the humble feet of their heirs
Step in, o pilgrim, that your worth be weigh'd."

Cheese Report

I'll get back to music soon, I swear...

Reading an article on making modern almond milk, I wonder if the commercial stuff has all the nut-bits strained out? The medieval recipes just said, "Grind, soak, grind, curdle," so all the nut-bits would have been left in.  That might be why my yield is so low.

Almond Milk Cheese:

• Put 3 pints almond milk in pot, added ~1 tsp salt.
• Heated to 180 F, removed from heat
• Added 1/4 c. red wine vinegar, stirred; added another 1/4 c. vinegar.
• Strained through cheesecloth, hung up to drip ~30 min
• Transfer to bowl.  Drizzle with honey, incorporate, taste.  Add a smidge more salt and honey. Mix, taste.
• Cover with plastic, seal bowl, store.
• Yield about 1/3 - 1/2 c.

Cow Milk Cheese

• Put 2 quarts cow milk + 1 c. heavy cream in pot, added ~1 Tb sea salt
• Heated to 180 F, removed from heat
• Added 1/4 c. of apple cider vinegar, stirred, let sit. 
• Got antsy, added a little more vinegar.
• Let sit 10-15 min, poured into cheesecloth-lined strainer.
• Took a long time to get most of the whey out.
• Wrapped it up, left it in strainer in bowl and set in fridge overnight
• Transferred to bowl this morning, tasted.  Wow!  The cream makes a huge difference - when I made this back in 2001 or so, with just whole milk, it was sort of crumbly and dry in the mouth. This is rich and creamy!
• Slight apple cider vinegar aftertaste, not unpleasant.
• Not sure if I want to serve it plain, or add honey, or add garlic/scallions. 
• Yield around 1 - 1.5 c.

Headless Chicken Imitation

• Discovered Smile Herb Shop in College Park carries a variety of herbs mentioned in my sources.  Got an ounce each of meadowsweet (mede-wort), plantain, nettles and mugwort.  Not sure what I'm going to do with them.
• Made up the rest of the almond butter.  About 1/3 c. butter from 3 pints milk.  Still bad yield.  Same mild, milky taste, but less cheesecloth flavor this time.
• Made up the fresh cheese. May have used too much vinegar. It's taking forever to drain.  Smells weird.
• Got the second volume of Ann Hagen today.  She says beor was probably cider, not beer! Interesting.
• Vivat Sophia of Orange, who asked the Merry Rose if there would be early period performance at BotB.  Why, yes!  Yes, there will be!
• Investiture poem finished, sent to their incipient Excellencies.  Need to format it nicely and print copies. Do I have spare document frames rattling around? ...yes! I bought a ton of frames for Kingdom A&S last year!
• Still have to make the child garb.
• And finish my documentation.

Summer's End Schola Report

I had a lovely time up in Owlsherst.  They even gave me an embroidered beanbag!  (Okay, that threw me.  I think it's meant to weigh down papers on tables outside - actually a very useful thing to have in the SCA! Keeps them from blowing away.)

A very large event had gotten re-scheduled for the same weekend, so it was small.  Still, I had about 6 students for the Research class and 3 for the How-To class.  (Of those three, two were Bardic Laurels who weren't exactly in it because they needed it!  But they did give me very positive feedback, saying my examples, analogies and metaphors were all very good and gave them new ideas about old performance problems. Huzzah!)

I took a class on Iberian music and got a fabulous handout from Mistress Sol la Cantor, and learned some fun new songs in Maitresse Linette de Gallardon's song swap.  I shared my 'Roland,' and she and Sol shared theirs!  We'd actually worked up translations of the same thing in parallel.  Linette and I spoke about including the Holy Pork Chop song in her next Scadian Singalong book.  Also Huzzah!

I'll get the handouts for both classes PDFified and upload soon.

PERIOD HONEY BUTTER?!?!

Almond honey butter, but still!

I got a new book: Libellus de arte coquinaria: An Early Northern Cookery Book.  It contains a 13th recipe for almond butter that is very similar to this one that Gode Cookery cites a different, later source for.

That's in Manuscript K, the earliest of the four that contain versions of Libellus de etc.  MS Q is a little later (have to check the date) and it says to add honey to the resulting almond butter.

OMG OMG OMG.  I'm not even a culinary arts person and I'm like WHOA.

I bought some commercial unsweetened, unflavored almond milk (because I am lazy and also not a culinary arts person) and I plan to try making the butter this weekend.  FOR SCIENCE.

UPDATE:  So, uh, that's a thing.

In texture and in flavor, it is nothing like butter.  It is much more like the new cheese you get if you do that heat-n-acid trick with milk.  Only with a vague nut taste.  Plain, I did not care for it at all.  A very small touch of honey gave it some character.  Not like honey butter at all, really, but not a bad spread.  Still, seems awful wasteful.  2 c. of almond milk (roughly) reduced down to a thumb-sized ball of almond 'butter.'  1-2 Tb? 

Since I have the rest of  a half gallon of almond milk and no other plans for it, I may turn the rest of it into honey almond butter and bring to BotB as an A&S curiosity. 

An Anglo-Saxon Lunch

Getting ready for Battle on the Bay, trying to decide what to bring for daytime munchies.  Based on available foodstuffs as described in Ann Hagen's 'Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink.'

• Whole wheat bread 
• Butter
• New cheese (make like queso fresco, with apple cider vinegar rather than rennet)
• Plums
• Parnsips (maybe)
• Hazelnuts
• Boiled hen's eggs (maybe - we'll see how much cheese there is)

I plan to have mead to offer visitors, and water for hand-washing.  Since I plan to bring my young son with me, no alcohol for me, I think - so water to drink as well.  Or maybe... some sort of water+honey+spice drink to stand in for the mead?

Miscellany

Working on class notes for 'Summer's End Schola' up in the East.  Research for Performing Arts and Never Apologize: Do's and Don't for Bardic Performance.

Got the lights from my friend!  Have to figure out where to put them in the basement next.

Found an old issue of the Folk Harp Society Journal that my harp teacher gave me at our last lesson (a year ago) - had her article on ap Huw figures in it.  I practiced my thumb choke and short plait tonight, because what's the point in keeping old articles around if you don't use them?  Also read the article on ergonomics and worked a little at getting my seat at the right height.

Briefly pondered the applicability of harp figures from 1600 (the ap Huw manuscript) to a time 600-700 years earlier.  Then wondered if assuming they didn't use any similar figures was any better.  Perilously close to "well since we don't know how they did it" territory, but I think different - I'll have to ponder it some more and see if I can't write up something sensible about it.

So - I took a quick look to see if there was a website I could post to introduce the curious to ap Huw.  Unsurprisingly, Bill Taylor has an awesome article about it.  (Unsurprising because he also has an awesome recording of his interpretation.)  More surprising (to me) was a book I had not heretofore seen by Karen Marshalsay, Key Techniques for Harp, which is supposed to teach the ap Huw figures.  And zoom, I have plonked down my $40 to get a copy. (Note for the interested: The book is 20 GBP.  When it says "Post to UK/Europe/Other Destination" and gives 25 GBP, that's the total price - 20 GBP for the book and 5 GBP for shipping.  Which is way more reasonable than I read it at first!)