I LOVE Red Mountain Mead Hall. It is the loveliest site I think I've ever been to - a log hall with a great stone fireplace in the Virginia mountains, above a running stream. The event itself is pretty old school - very laid back, a lot of good fellowship, with a schedule that's more of a suggestion than anything else. And, while I loves me a day jam-packed with classes and demos and activities neatly slotted into place, so everyone gets their thing without stepping on each others' toes, it is very nice to just sit next to a big fire and relax for a day. It's also been cold (early spring in 2017, late fall in 2018), which is novel for an SCA event with a significant outdoor component. (Yes, there are others. I haven't been to them. And it's uncommon.)
Hall-Joys
Therefore there is no man so proud-minded over this earth,
nor so assured in his graces, nor so brave in his youth,
nor so bold in his deeds, nor his lord so gracious to him
that he will never have some anxiety about his sea-voyaging—
about whatever the Lord wishes to do to him.
Neither is his thought with the harp, nor to the ring-taking,
nor to the joys in women, nor in the hopeful expectation in the world,
nor about anything else but the welling of waves—
he ever holds a longing, who strives out upon the streams.
----- The Seafarer, lines 39-47, trans. Dr. Aaron Hostetter
If you sat through Brit Lit in high school, you probably read one or more of the Old English "elegiac" poems like The Seafarer, and had to write an essay on the contrast between sea-faring life and life ashore (with bonus points if you could articulate how this is extended to life on Earth vs. in heaven). And if you've ever come inside from a miserable, cold, raw day outside, you have an idea of what the poet is going on about.
It's another level closer to go from a cold, raw outside to a warm inside that's filled with people, laughter, good food and drink. And which happens to look not unlike you might imagine a Saxon lord's hall to look. To experience that was a 'magic moment' for me.
On this Veteran's Day (Observed), I feel compelled to note that a few moments or even hours outside compare in no way to the old seafarer, on his ship for days or weeks, or the modern warfighter, deployed for months. I'm not claiming that experience. It was just a step up from my previous experience.
Cold-Weather Camping
The cabins are unheated shelters. I have used tents both times I've gone, because... if I'm going to sleep in the cold, I'd rather have privacy!
Know Your Gear
I had to put up my tent in the dark for the first time in a couple decades. It went smoothly, actually, because I've put the tent up many times. (Also, I realized in time that if I set the flex poles down, I would never, ever find them again. So I inserted each after it was assembled, instead of assembling all three and then inserting them.)
Gear Plus-Ups
Faolan's headlamp looked mighty useful. A tall pole from which to hang the lantern would have helped. A small, light LED light with a hook (to hang inside the tent) would also be welcome.
Stress-Testing the Sleeping Bag
I used my 4" mat, the ExPed MegaMat. I didn't use the wool pad that I use when I dress it with sheets and blankets - the mat is insulating, and the pad is mostly to promote circulation. With a sleeping bag, the bottom layer allowed air to circulate between me and the mat.
The first night, it was supposed to get down to 35 F or thereabouts. I slept in wool socks, bike shorts, sweat pants, a T-shirt, and an overshirt (which regrettably only had 3/4 length sleeves). I crawled entirely into the bag (which also kept the lights from the hall out of my face) with my CPAP hose as a snorkel. I woke up early in the dark of the morning because I was too hot. I removed the outer shirt and sweat pants and unzipped the side of the bag. Ah, perfect.
The second night, temperatures were to fall to the low 20s. I downgraded the sweats to thinner exercise pants, but otherwise burrowed in the same. From the waist-down and ankles-up, I was fine. Despite shoving some clothes into the bottom of the bag, my feet were chilly (but not so cold I couldn't sleep). The drafts coming in from the top of the bag, though - those made my bare lower arms uncomfortably cool. I alternately tried to pull other blankets into the opening to plug it up, or toss them over the opening to cover it. At one point, I used a light piece of wool as a sort of wrap in the bag. These techniques worked well enough, and I slept okay. Definitely did not unzip the bag!
Extra Blankets
I brought the wool pad, my plaid wool blanket, the furry blanket, and the aforementioned light wool wrap. I ended up only really needing the wrap, although the furry blanket was nice to snuggle with in the hall. Also, I used it as a cloak going from the hall to my tent, and WOW I felt no cold except through the soles of my turnshoes. That fake fur is super warm!
I am now confident enough in the sleeping bag's capabilities that, next time, I may bring it as the back-up and try to sleep under blankets.
Extra Garb
I was only in garb for a few hours Friday night, so I just wore the same outfit again on Saturday. I didn't need the other outfit I had brought, BUT. It would have been easy for me to have slipped in the mud or frosty leaves, dumped water on myself, or had some kind of mishap that would have left me dirty and/or wet and cold. So I think having the extra outfit was a good idea.
Handicrafts
I spent a lot of time on Saturday working on the fur-lined hood UFO (UnFinished Object). (It was so cold that I did not feel comfortable bringing a harp. Should have brought a whistle, though.) It's scraps left over from the furry blanket sewn onto a thrift store wool scarf. Faolan pointed out, correctly, that I would have been better off sewing the scraps into a rectangle, and then sewing the rectangle into the scarf. (I was sewing each scrap in separately, which resulted in some weird wrinkles and empty patches.)
I left it as a cap with long tails. I have another scarf I can use to make it more hood-like - I will experiment with pinning things together and see how it looks.
Another nice thing about Red Mountain is that it gives me an opportunity to wear warm garb like this!
Bardic!
Always a bit touchy, feeling out a group's unspoken policy on bardic performance. Friday night, the vibe was "let's sit around the fire and talk." Saturday, after the feasting was done but before the plate-clearing had happened, a lady got up to sing. Faolan and I looked at each other when she was done - was it an open floor? Or were we still in "feast" territory, where you don't generally want to put too many performances right after one another?
Within a few moments, an Isenfiri gentleman got up to tell a story, and then he formally opened the floor to performance. Faolan and I each did one piece until we saw others taking seconds. I did the first five minutes of Brynhild's Tale (from disobeying Odin to Sigurth leaves her hall). On an inspired whim, I changed the opening sentence, much to the better. I had been doing "Brynhild was a valkyrie, handmaiden of Odin, chooser of the slain." It is now, "She stands before Odin, defiant." Much better hook - who is she? Why is she defiant? What's Odin going to do to her? Also has the benefit of cutting about 30 seconds of exposition.
There was vocal disappointment when I cliffhangered. The second round of performances went much more quickly - not as many people took seconds - and someone asked if I intended to finish the tale that night, or if I would make them wait until next year. I did the rest of the thing, all 15 min or so of it, in a go. I paused at each break point to check that this was their wish, and it was. I made some efforts to be more effective with my gaze-catching and audience interaction, but I think I moved around too much. I need to work on being still, and moving only for effect, rather than having motion be a default. Pacing is distracting.
It went over very well. I got more comments that I have in a while. (Doubly gratifying - I'd opened with "Hild (The War That Does Not End)", which was the audience favorite at Pennsic. This time, they all liked the piece I'd actually worked on, so yay.) I think I will write them down elsewhere, so this post doesn't feel too self-congratulatory, but one thing is worth noting as a performance evaluation. One lady, as I finished the tale, looked... shocked? Displeased? Unsettled? I caught her eye, and she said, "That's it? That's how it ends? That is not okay!" She wasn't angry, I don't think, just sort of disbelieving. I think the problem is in part the nature of the tale, but my ending is also pretty abrupt and the closing words are not very strong. It needs some kind of closure, I think, for the audience.
It could also be the 'problematic' nature of the piece. The third act violence is kicked off when Brynhild tells her husband that Sigurth slept with her by deceit, prior to their marriage. This is a lie. But her husband believes her.
In August 2018, at Pennsic, this was just the typical sort of thing you see in a medieval story. In November 2018, after the Kavanaugh hearings, it's, ah, fraught. "Women are lying liars who shouldn't be believed!" is NOT supposed to be the moral of the story. If I had to assign an Aesop-like moral to it, it would be "Don't make promises you can't keep," or "Pursuit of honor is pursuit of death" or something more aligned with a critique of the morals of the warrior-culture that birthed the tale.
My version ends with Brynhild stabbing herself, asking her maidens to die with her, telling her husband that she lied, and then pledging to be with Sigurth in the afterlife before dying. The "she was lying" thing gets dropped like a bomb just before the end, and that is probably not the best way to frame the end of the piece. I will have to work on it.
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