Mi Contra Fa

KASF 2016: Documentation

My KASF 2016 Persona Pentathalon Display

Wulfstan Goes to War: Items belonging to an 11th century Anglo-Saxon thegn

It is time.

The bishop and the notable men of the county have assembled.  Wulfstan charters a nunnery, something his daughter has been petitioning him for, and presses his seal to it.  The bishop and the others witness it.

“As long as they are here,” he thinks to himself, and declares his intentions for the disposition of his worldly goods after his death. The bishop takes up a quill and writes what he says.  He reads it back, and the men agree it is a fair record of what they heard.

He had sent for a wandering scop to come this evening, to provide song and story for his distinguished guests.  He requests the old tale of Beowulf, the mighty hero who conquered an unbeatable monster.  A monster is coming to England, and he will need a hero's strength to fight it alongside his king.

In the morning, he departs.  His wife presses a small banner into his hands.  All made of gold and silk, it is a rich token.  “I am going to war,” he protests.  “A plain ensign is all I need.”

“Well, you know what this is worth,” she says.  “I will need for you to bring it back.”  Her eyes convey the gravity of this task.

“If God wills it,” he replies, and smiles for her sake.

 

KASF 2016 Report

There is just never enough time to see all the things!  It is always so inspiring and humbling to see the beautiful things the artisans of Atlantia can do.  His Majesty even admitted that they may have convinced 'this old stick jock' to take up some art as well.  

Performing Arts Demo

Lady Sophia the Orange arranged a PA demo to highlight all the various kinds of performance that happen in Atlantia.  I had been signed up for poetry (Beowulf + an original piece).  I whittled and trimmed my intro stuff to get down into my ten-minute slot.

Minutes before I was to go on, Lady Sophia quietly asked me if, perhaps, I might have something in the 'voice and instrument' category, as her performer for that had needed to cancel.  O.o   But the show must go on!  I dug 'Yo Me Soy la Morenica' out of memory, figured out where the notes were again, and led with that.  Considering that I have not practiced it in years, it came out okay!  (Objectively speaking, it was uneven and my accompaniment blew chunks, but I can't be too hard on myself as I had literally just minutes to practice it.)

Beowulf went well. So, so well.  The audience even laughed at my little ending ("...the distinguished one delivered this response... And we will have to hear Beowulf's reply at another time, perhaps after I have been given a drink!")  Feedback from the Penathalon judges in the audience was mostly on my vocal control, breathing and projection, and that was totally fair and dead-on.  I really feel like in the past year or two, I've finally discovered how to use my singing muscles correctly - but it takes conscious effort, and I hadn't been doing it for that performance.

And that was it, out of time!  So 'To Put the Devil into Hell' went unperformed, which considering that I think there were children in the audience, was probably just as well.

Persona Pentathalon

Beowulf - By far the best scores, as it should have been. It was  by far the best piece among my display.  Aside from the breath control, a third judge said that if I'd only included some work in Old English, she'd have awarded me all 10s.  I'd come to a similar conclusion in my documentation (which I will post later) - I need to understand how the Sievers types actually work in the original context before I can judge how to set them to music in translation.

Banner - Not too shabby!  The major objections seemed to focus on the high/low contrasts of humble linen and gold and silk.  The Maaseik embroideries were on a linen ground, but they also covered the linen ground, and I had exposed fabric.  So, legit.  One of the judges gave me contact information - she has resources for Carolingian goldwork she can share, and I want to take her up on that.

Will - I think two out of the three judges were far too generous on the quality of this one. It wasn't bad, but I don't think it was anywhere close to journeyman work.  Advanced beginner, maybe.

Seal - I got some very good advice from one of the judges.  He had some critiques on my docs - too many examples not directly related to my item.  Friday night, I'd even said to myself, "That should probably be an appendix," but I elected to sleep instead.  So, he was right on.  Also, good advice for future casting endeavors.

Quills - I had to laugh - one judge gave me a complexity score of 2, with a note hastening to add that this wasn't a reflection on me, it was just that quills aren't very complex items.  Totally true, and I appreciated the thoughtfulness of that little note.

Overall Reflections - Considering that I waited until a month before KASF to start, and that I did not want to stress myself out over it, I'm pretty happy with the results.  My display was much better this time, although I am questioning my decision to put my documentation in a folder rather than on the table with each item.  If I want to be 'in it to win it', I need to start much earlier and select categories that play to my strengths.  (Such as, do two performances.)

Speaking of performances - my Beowulf ended up being not in Category 5, Performance, but Category 7, Miscellaneous!  It turns out that the new judging forms just didn't fit it.  Vocal Song looked for elaborate melody - I didn't have that.  Instrumental Performance looked for complex tune - I didn't have that. Dramatic Performance assumed an ensemble, with costumes and props. Nope. Poetry was for original compositions - no.  I expect Storytelling would have assumed a complete story, rather than an excerpt.  Mistress Jessamyn was very sympathetic to my dilemma and suggested the Cat 7 solution.  

Quick thought on the Oseberg staff

KASF report later, but before I lose this -

The Oseberg staff, which may be a Seiðr staff, was split, had a channel carved out, and then glued and bound back together. Why?

That modern practitioner uses the staff to beat a rhythm on the ground. I don't know if she based that on the famous Eric the Red passage or not, but - some of the metal staves have jangly, dangly bits.  Maybe hollowing it out gave it a soundbox of sorts, making it more resonant when used in some fashion?  Tapped on the ground, or hit with a stick, or...?

KASF: Wax on, wax off

I made sealing wax last night.  All hail good experimental design.

Bleaching the beeswax was fairly successful. One day on the counter in the window, and one day on the porch in full sun, got it to a nice ivory color.  Good enough.

I boiled up a pot of water with my empty can floating it it - trash double boiler. I pressed aluminum foil into the top of the Plah-Doh canister lid to create molds for a wax round the size of my seal.  (Probably should have used the entire lid, so that it was slightly larger than the seal.)  Molds were not really reusable - peeling the wax out pretty well destroyed them.

Wax into can; it melted. I poured out three white rounds, then added the madder lake pigment from the Guild of Limner's.  I added a dash - 1/8 tsp or so - and didn't think it looked red enough.  I tried to add a little more and added a lot.  On the plus side, the two red wax rounds have a spectacular deep red color.  Looks just the same as commercial sealing wax sticks.

I measured on a kitchen scale one ounce of powdered pine resin, then added beeswax until I had three ounces of stuff.  All into the pot, which still had a smidge of red beeswax.  It all melted together, and I poured it out into new molds.  This batch was distinctly pink.

Once cooled:

Peeling the beeswax out of the foil is a bit tricky, and sometimes bits of foil had to be scraped off, but no big deal.  The wax is actually fairly stiff.  Warming it with body heat didn't seem to soften it enough to take a good impression, so I will try later today with a candle or other heat source.

The resin-tempered wax is a gooey, sticky mess.  Maybe Georgia pine resin has different properties from medieval European pine resin.  But the resulting mixture has a consistency close to Silly Putty.  It stuck to the mold, and when separated, pulled in taffy-like strings.  There is still goop stuck in the seal I will have to melt out.  I haven't even tried getting it out of the molds, but I imagine it'll be a disaster.  I am so glad I made a 'basic' set of beeswax rounds first!

KASF: Sealing wax

I popped down to UMD's McKeldin Library this morning to take notes on a book about medieval English seals.  It mentioned that the earliest wax seals were beeswax and mostly white, with one brown one (may be discolored green or red) surviving. Later (doesn't give a starting date), resin could be added.

Wait, wait.  "Mostly white"? I bought beeswax pastilles, and they are uniformly yellow.  Did "white" mean "uncolored"?  I Googled "how to bleach beeswax."

Yeah, apparently you can easily bleach beeswax by leaving it out in the sun, thus turning it white.  The process should take 4-7 dayshttp://beemaniacs.com/beeswax/bleaching-beeswax/, depending on how much sun you get and how strong it is.

WISH I'D KNOWN THAT LAST WEEK.

I've got my pastilles in trays now, sitting in our sunniest window.  Not sure how bleached they'll get between now and OH MY GOD I HAVE TO GET EVERYTHING PACKED FOR KASF but we'll see.

I want to make several batches of wax:

1. Plain white beeswax
2. Red beeswax
3. White beeswax + resin (2:1)
4. Red beeswax + resin (2:1)

 

KASF: The final week

Banner, quills, and will are 98% done.  All I need to do is figure out how I'll be displaying them.  (Like, I should make some index cards with samples of the writing from each quill, and probably bring ink so judges can try them if they like.)

A trip to the library tomorrow morning, a batch of sealing wax, and a final revision to the documentation puts the seal to bed.

Beowulf lags.  I need to practice it with the harp and the chanting, and decide exactly how much of it I'm going to do.  And then, the documentation. I started it yesterday, and... oy.  Little hard to summarize ten years of learning into a short article.

Writing Display - which will be a PSA in support of A&S/Chronicler teaming - has a sketch, but I have to actually generate content, print it out, and slap it on the foamcore.  Should happen this weekend.

I've had a great time doing this.  As in 2014, I found Pentathalon to be a great motivator.  I got more done in a month than I generally get done in several. It gives me a reason to do the things I've been meaning to get around to doing, like the calligraphy, and a reason to try things way outside of my usual practice, like the casting.  IMO, I've already won.

DOUBLE WOOHOO

I first did my Beowulf performance at Chalice of the Sun God in October 2014. So the performance is just over a year old. 

In that year, I've been poking at a musically-enhanced version - sort of singing/chanting in a liturgical recitative way.  And I feel like it's really coming together.  But - can I authenticate it?

I have not been hitting the books over this.  I have been educating my ear by listening to good recordings for ages, but that's hard to document.  And I know better than to backwards-justify stuff.  But I thought it was worth a look, to find the right words to describe what I was aiming for.

I pulled down Hoppin's 'Medieval Music' and started going through the Gregorian chant section.  And there were the eight psalm tones.  (It blows my mind that my childhood church used thousand year old music for the psalms, but Psalm Tone 8 - that's it, that's what they used.)  And the seventh...

The ...crap, incipit? introit? the starting part... of the seventh psalm tone was exactly the cadence I was using.  Granted, I was using it as a closing, not a beginning.  But still!  I'd accidentally re-created the same melodic motif.  And the cadence from Psalm Tone 7 was close to the... crap, median? the middle intonation part that keeps the tenor from being too boring... I was using.

I'm not totally church-authenticable - I do a sort of secondary drone down by tonic sometimes, and I think may be in A minor rather than mixolydian mode.  (My chanting tone is D, which is mixolydian, but my final wants to be A, I think.  Mixolydian's final is G.)

BUT HOLY AMAZEBALLS I COMPOSED SOMETHING IN A VERIFIABLE PERIOD STYLE BY EAR.

I am pretty pleased with myself.

WOOHOO

IT WORKED

 

The S in Sigillum is a little wonky, but it doesn't even show much in the impression. It isn't perfect but I LOVE IT.

KASF: Casting seals - Now we wait

The Play-Doh Original

The copy of the seal made out of Play-Doh seems to be working all right.  It cracked a bit on the front and a lot on the back - shrinking as it dried.  I think all the incised lines on the front helped reduce cracking there.  I tested it in the Petrobond and it made a pretty good impression.  Some of the finer lines on the letters got sand stuck in them, and I used files to try to widen them.  Dry Play-Doh sort of files all right.  I also filed the surface a little, taking off various petrified crumbs of Doh.

Making the Impression

I tried two ways of getting the impression in the Petrobond:

1. As I saw on the Internet, put the original face-up on the bottom of the mold, put sand on top, press hard.  Flip over, remove original.
2. Place loose Petrobond into the mold, press original face-down into it.  Press additional sand around edges. Remove original.

Both had similar problems: Sand sticking in the finer lines, and the edges crumbling as I tried to remove the original.  It was slightly easier with Method 1 (because the edges were more firmly packed).  So after several attempts, I got an impression that looked mostly okay.

Doing the Casting

I took my camp stove out back, placing the mold (on some scrap wood) next to it.  I put on safety gear: jeans over my leggings, steel-toed boots, heavy leather work gloves, a wool coat, and safety goggles.  Stove on, pan with ingot on stove.  I held the heat at low to medium for a while, not wanting to over-heat the pewter.  (The antimony separates out when you do that.)  Nothing happened and nothing happened, so I turned up the heat. Instantly, the ingot began to melt.  It happened pretty fast, actually, and then I poured the metal into the mold.  I didn't use the casting ladel I bought - it was far too small.  I overpoured - the surface tension kept the metal from running over the surface of the mold, but it's bubbled out the back. sigh.  I didn't do any tapping or shaking of the mold, so hopefully the metal got into all the spots it needed to.

It's out back now, cooling.

Doubts

This was never going to be a 100% authentic piece, as lead-free pewter was never a thing.  But now the entire process has become modern - Play-Doh, Petrobond.  My seal is not, in the details, a good replica of an original - my letters, for instance, are 'Arial' sans serif linework, whereas the originals tended to have triangular cross-sections and serifs.

I mean, I'm glad I'm making it, because I think seals are cool.  But is this a good Pentathalon entry?

Game birds roasting on an open fire

Doing my usual shilly-shallying about my entries.  Is the casting too modern?  (See next post.)  Should I cook instead?

What I would cook: roasted small birds and flatbread, based on the Bayeux tapestry:

Possibly flatbreads cooked on a grill or griddle

Meat chunks and small birds on spits on some sort of firepit

 

I've experimented with cooking flatbreads already.  Ann Hagen has some good information on bread and its preparation.  There's a reference to kneading dough, although I have to wonder if the high-moisture "mix and let sit" method is more practical for cooking for literally an army.  I could do both, not hard.

I looked up 'roast chicken over campfire' to see about that.  Everyone said, cut holes through the spit and use a skewer to secure the meat.  Made sense, but I didn't see it in the picture above.  But then I looked at the other picture of bird-on-a-stick in the tapestry:

Skewers!

Skewers, right through the legs!

The other thing that bothered me was that the cooking image shows the skewers nearly vertical, not horizontal like I'm used to seeing spits.  But - beer can chicken!  People do roast chickens vertically.  Some people think it's a better way to do it.  Certainly seems sensible, logistically - put your meat on your skewers, stick them in the ground in front of the fire.  No needing to find dozens of Y-shaped branches and set up giant rotisseries for the camp.  Makes serving easier (as shown), lets you pull the done ones when they're done, and let the others keep cooking. 

I'm looking into possible poultry now.  I'm thinking game birds - quail, partridge, squab.  Although it's not impossible (or even unlikely) that invading Normans could have knocked over someone's henhouse.  If the birds are the same scale as the hand in the image above, quail might be too small. (But they'd cook quickly and be adorable!)