Mi Contra Fa

Kalevala Runo 3: The Singing Contest

My resolution to practice my harp again has mostly been working.  Keeping it very very limited in scope seems to have helped me actually do it.  So hurray!  Now to see if I can keep it up through the rest of the holidays.

My approach was to take one new period (or in this case, period appropriate) song to learn, and one of the ap Huw song structures to learn.  And the song I picked was "Vaka vanha Vainamoinen," from Lani Thompson's My Kantele Is My Teacher.  (I sneakily thought that a 5-note kantele tune on harp might then also get ported over to lyre.)  It's a Kalevala tune.

The Kalevala is the national folk epic of Finland.  It was collected and collated in the early 1800s.  No single singer ever sat down and performed the Kalevala, start to finish. Rather, Elias Lönnrot (the collector) gathered the songs of many poem singers and shaped them into a single coherent whole - sort of like what Thomas Malory did for the Arthur legends.  

Thompson helpfully included some of the lyrics for the tune - in Finnish.  I Googled them, and came up with... more Finnish lyrics.  But a touch of Google Translate helped me correlate the runo to John Martin Crawford's 1888 translation over at sacred-texts.com.  It appears to be Runo 3, about a young hotheaded rune singer who challenges the hero-god figure Vainamoinen to a musical duel. The translation isn't alliterative, like the original, nor rhyming, but it does scan in the original meter.  So I could sing it to the music that I have.

Now it also happens that I have The Kalevala Heritage, which contains old recordings of Kalevala singers (some were recorded on wax cylinders!).  And track 9, "The Singing Contest," is the same tune as the kantele tune I have.  The lyrics are not identical with the "official" Kalevala, but I'm not surprised by that.  Lönnrot included one "authoritative" version of the runo, but naturally it exists in different forms and lengths in the wild.

So I'm fairly well convinced that I've correctly matched the tune to the poem.  Next problem: Thompson gives three lines of a melody, each line 32 notes/syllables long.  Each line matches a Kalevala verse.  So I could sing three verses to the music I have.  Do those three verses have to all be part of a larger uber-verse?  That would really limit the ways in which I could cut down and re-organize this for performance.

Facebook to the rescue!  The Atlantian Bards and Performer's Guild page got me in touch with Hakon of Ponte Alto, who has also been studying Kalevala performance.  He said his impression was that you'd just keep cycling the verses through the available melodies, without worrying about matching groups of three verses.

After that, reading some of the liner notes to "The Kalevala Heritage" and also the notes on "From the Land of the Kalevala," I learned some more about the performance of the runos.  They were performed by pairs of singers, a master and an apprentice (more or less - a more and a less skilled performer).  The master would sing a verse, and the apprentice would repeat it - giving the master time to recall the next verse and possibly plan variations on the melody (as is done in other folk oral epic traditions, and I really need to write up my references for those). I listened carefully to my recording of "The Singing Contest," and it actually seemed like the three lines of music collapsed into one or two lines of music by the end.  I'll have to listen a few more times, but it may be the first verse Thompson gives was only sung once, at the very start of the runo (at least, by this particular singer for that particular performance).

Finally, lyrics.  The Crawford translation ran 16 pages when I put it into a Google doc.  I began cutting.  There was a definite tension - repetition is a huge poetic feature of the Kalevala, and yet repetitions are also the easiest things to cut!  I tried to leave a few in for flavor, but removed most.  I removed most of Joukahainen's lame attempts at wisdom (because that seriously went on for pages); I removed his mother warning him not to fight Vainamoinen; with sad heart, I removed the verse where Vainamoinen pretty much calls him a little punk and a bad driver, and to get off his lawn/road.  But after I got it down to 45 verses that I thought told the whole story, I went back with a razor and managed to get it down to 30.  That's about where my "Matty Groves" comes in.

Aaaand that's when I realized that this had gone well past "harp practice" and was becoming "major performance development project" and thought I should put up a few notes on what was going on. 

An Uncomfortable Realization

Or, The Moral Algebra of Performing 'The Scotsman'

Last Friday night, at the bardic circle at Battle on the Bay, there were several newcomers.  I thought, "What songs did I like hearing when I was new to the SCA?"  In the East at that time, "The Scotsman" ("A Scotsman clad in kilt left a bar one evening fair...") was so popular that within a year or two, it ended up on the "For the love of Mike, sing something ELSE" list.  I haven't heard it sung in a while, so I trotted it out.

As a joke, it's wonderfully constructed.  The blue silk ribbon sneaks in with nary a hint that it'll be a first-place award in the punchline.  It almost always gets a laugh.

So it was a little disconcerting when it came to me, all in a rush, that this is a joke-song about sexual assault.

Seriously. Swap the genders.  A drunk woman passes out, and two men look up her skirt and leave evidence that they'd done so.  That's not a joke, that's the six o'clock news.  And if it's not okay to do to a woman, it's not okay to do to a man.

But it's just a jooooo-oke.  Can't we make fun of anything anymore?

Did you know that over half of all sexual assaults in the US military are man-on-man?  Tea-bagging counts.  "Mushroom tapping" counts.  And, as rare as it is for a woman to report a sexual assault, it's even rarer for a man to. 

It's just guys being guys.

What, are you a wuss or something?

It was just horseplay.

Jokes like this are another way of signaling that sexual assault doesn't need to be taken seriously.  No big.  Betcha wish you hadn't been passed out, eh?  Rather be awake for that, yeah?

At least then you could have consented.

That's not the point of the song.

No, it's not. I don't think it's meant to do anything but make people laugh.

But 40 years on, it's getting clearer that really, it's not actually funny.  If the culture took sexual assault more seriously, maybe this could exist as a clear case of fantasy.  I know a joke whose punchline is "The American doctor thought for a moment, then took the American lawyer and threw him out the [airplane] window."  It's a Readers Digest joke, not all that great, and OMG it advocates murder!  Except not really.  In real life, there is no question that defenestrating people out of airplanes is not okay.

In real life, there are questions about whether or not some kinds of sexual assault are real or not.

OMG who made you the Song Police.

Nobody. I'm not the Song Police. I won't stop anyone from singing this. I won't even get up in their grill about "what you're really singing about."

But I think I've performed it for the last time.

Pennsic XLV: Bardic report

It was a good War for bardic for me.  I want to remember what happened, when, and what I learned, so I am writing it down.  I'm not going to brag, but I am going to note what I accomplished.

Saturday: I taught my 'Developing Historically-Informed Performance' class. It was reasonably well-attended (10-12 people?) and the students were engaged. Two people (including Master Efenwealt) told me they'll be stealing the class notes to teach students of their own.  Sweet!

Saturday night may have been the night Lord Richard Wyn requested 'To Put the Devil Into Hell.'  That would be the first time someone has asked me to do one of my period pieces, I think. Yay!

I stopped in to visit Mistress Dervila, who unfortunately and unfairly broke her ankle at War.  Her husband Thomas Drum-Maker and Baron Talorgen were there as well, and we had a bit of a mini-bardic for a while.  Along the way, I mentioned the Irish saint and the otter story I wanted to put together, but was having a hard time getting to gel.  She asked when the last time I read the source material was; I guessed a few months. She said that was about the right amount of time to get some distance from it, so I could re-imagine it as the story I wanted to tell.  What was the point?  I protested that figuring out the point was my problem, but after a few days of ruminating on it (with 'permission,' as it were, to deviate from the source), I feel like I'm making progress. So it was really very good and helpful advice.

Sunday: I did 'Beowulf challenged by the coast guard' for the Atlantian Royal Bardic circle. I used my lyre (not the harp, which I've practiced with more), and the sleeve of my red cote kept buzzing against one of the strings (which at least two people noticed).  Anyhoo.  Master Rhuaidhri suggested that, although many people at this circle got the reference and where this was from, and that it was really cool, I might want to go with a more visceral battle scene to grab the attention of the non-English majors in the crowd.  We spoke more on Tuesday, and he had very good advice on appealing to the kinesthetic learners in the crowd.  I respond well to images (I am hugely visually oriented) and also sounds, so that's where I tend to go.  But there are people for whom images are just a big pile of 'meh,' and they need to hear how things feel in the body.  "Show, don't tell," in other words, but a much more targeted take on it.

A lady performed a song she later told me was for the Gulf Wars War Bard competition.  Not being a fighter but rather a waterbearer, she wrote a piece from the point of view of a female camp follower, a medic.  She sang it as a fight song - fighting to save soldiers' lives - with as much passion and determination as any war song might have.  I got shivers.  We get some songs about service and kind deeds, but not generally ones that make it so outright heroic.  I hurried over afterwards to let her know how much I liked the song, and gave her the pin suite I was wearing.  Alas, kinda useless if you're not wearing 7th century Kentish, but I was out of other tokens in my bag.

I also took Magistra Fiona of Clare's class 'Introduction to Old English.'  Excellent class - not only did she hit the expected notes of how to pronounce which letters and such, but she explained some of the tricks you need to navigate the glossaries.  That's gold, right there.  I did not get to attend her poetry class, but I mean to email her to ask for the handout.

Monday: Southwind bardic was this night.I read "The Saga of Fishflinger" early, cold out of my book, for the heck of it.  It got some laughs, but I got reminded why I shouldn't perform things I haven't practiced. I'm good, but I'm not that good.  The performance was adequate but not really skilled.  As the evening went on, the atmosphere got a little downbeat. There were many quite excellent performances of new material people had composed, but there was nothing for the audience to do.  So, after checking that this would please my host and Pelican, I did 'The Rattlin' Bog.'  On Tuesday, I learned that this effort had garnered me a nomination for sainthood. XD  The past two nights of bardic brought me to a new theory of Pennsic bardic:

The Internet and associated technologies have made it easier than ever for bards to write and share new material.  Bards who have written their own material, or learned interesting new material, are generally justifiably proud of this work, and they want to display/perform it.  Add to this a large bardic circle, where you may only get one or two chances to perform, at the largest event in the Known World, with many Notable People in attendance.  You will, naturally, reach for these pieces you've worked so hard on that you want to share.  And there is nothing wrong with that.

However, if you're one of the audience members who wants nothing more than to shout "MacIntyre!" at odd intervals, this is not going to be very entertaining.  More on this under Wednesday.

Monday was also Poetry Day in Artisan's Row.  I stopped by and chatted for a bit with Lady Katarzyna Witkowska (who was organizing it), Master Cerian Cantwr, and Master Olivier de Bayonne. It was good to finally put a face to Master Olivier's name.  The Known World Poetry Competition was canceled on account of mine being the only entry, but we sat and chatted for a while.  Lady Katarzyna requested a poem from those departing; Master Cerian warned us of the dangerous Polar Cow.  I recited 'I Drank of Mnemosyne,' which I had printed out from the replacement for Mystic Mail, so that I could perform it at the Depressing Song Competition.  Master Olivier gifted me a token, which greatly lifted my spirit.  The pieces I write for competitions frequently don't turn out so well (because they're written to spec rather than from the heart) so it was heartening that this one was well-received.

Tuesday: I ran through 'Mnemosyne' in my camp a few times, trying to see if I could get the music out well enough.  It didn't settle down to a single tune,  but it seemed to have a pretty solid musical idea that I was improvising on fairly well.  I waffled on whether or not to go ahead with it, but - I'm the one who wants to go toward improvisational music and even poetry composed on the instant.  Let's see how it goes!

 So I took the Pennsic Main Stage for the second time (I thought it was the first time, but no - I did my 'Beowulf' for the KW Harp Celebration last year) and improvised away. I had the lyrics in my hand, but only needed to consult them occasionally.  There were one, maybe two phrases where the music didn't land as solidly as I would have liked, but overall - I felt like it went very well.  I think I emoted and gestured without overdoing - easier on such a downer piece than the peppy ones, where I can get spastic pretty quickly.  I thought I saw at least one person wiping away tears.  A friend was in the audience, and afterwards, he asked if that was "Alzheimer's, but for the SCA."  So that aspect of it is getting through.  I made 4th place (in a field of eight or nine entrants)!  But even more squee-inducing - the 3rd place winner was a lady from far Lochac with a stupendous voice and fantastic presence.  She accepted the accolade, but couldn't take her actual physical prize on her return journey - so she turned and  gave it to me.  So very sweet of her.

Snake and coffin

 

I also learned an important lesson in discernment at the Windmaster's Bardic and Peep Sacrifice. 

Wednesday: Children's Fete. Two and a half hours of performing in a huge noisy barn. Master Rhuaidhri and Mistress Fevronia undoubtedly carried the afternoon with their amazing projection skills.  I think I managed some volume and managed to not destroy my voice. I really need to get some classes for improving projection and volume.

Wednesday was also the Bardic Symposium session where I was a panelist: Authenticity.  The two-hour discussion seemed to come down to Don't Be A Jerk, Stop Jerks from Jerking, and Lead By Example.  'Don't Be a Jerk' covers any and all performers who poop all over other people's performances - for being too period or too not-period - to make themselves feel better.  'Stop Jerks' encouraged bystanders who might be witnessing the Jerk in the process of pooping to step up and intervene.  And 'Lead By Example' meant that, whatever your feelings on performance and authenticity, you should do the thing you want to see done and do it so well it looks cool.

There was a second strain that ran through the conversation.  At first blush, it was the old 'fun vs. authenticity' problem, but Lady Lorelei of Skye clarified it. In addition to bardic being an art that we can re-create in a historical fashion, it is also a social function.  Like at the Southwind bardic, the general non-performing public wants certain things from bardic circles. If we stop providing them, we risk marginalizing the bardic community.  On the other hand, we are an educational organization, and as artists with an interest in historical performance, we want to do those things, too.  There was much talk of 'proper performances in their proper places,' implying that 'fun' and 'authenticity' have to stay in their separate boxes.

Nothing wrong with focused bardics.  But I think I'd like to see general bardics with better balance.  Old standards plus new art. The thing there is, this isn't like putting together an album or even a playlist for a singalong, where one person engineers the tempo of fast/slow, fun/serious performances.  You've got a mixed group of performers. If the circle is big and the performances are long, you get everyone pulling out their Most Impressive Piece, which will generally tilt the thing toward the serious and slow, and away from the Old Chestnut Standards.  Keeping it smaller and faster-moving, and you'll have more room for variety.

Thursday: The humidity was making the heat just unbearable, and I left War early. I had to cancel the Lyre Roundtable, which I regretted, but I was feeling pretty miserable.  In the car, I thought some more about St. Kevin and the Otter (currently entertaining a version of Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, or else a parable on the hazards of self-denial).  I was also struck with the thought to write a song about the frankly amazing ability the fighters (of all kinds) have to tolerate said evil heat and humidity.  I got a draft refrain figured out somewhere on I-79.

I'm icky and I'm sticky, I'm sweaty and I'm hot
The dew point's up to eighty and my energy is shot
Wearing armor in this weather is really no mean feat
Fighters, can you tell me, how have you beat this heat?

 

Beowulf at KASF

Huzzah for Lady Sophia the Orange, who arranged to videotape the entire KASF Performing Arts exhibition!

This here's my bit of Beowulf.  I got up my courage to watch it, and hey - I'm pretty good!  (Need to learn not to watch the harp so much.) The entire thing is worth watching, but if you click the video below, it'll start right at Beowulf.

 

Review - Viking Women: The Narrative Voice in Woven Tapestries

I do bardic and I'm starting to do textiles, so Lena Norrman's dissertation/book titled "Viking Women: The Narrative Voice in Woven Tapestries" certainly caught my eye.  It was an interesting, if sometimes opaque, read.  Amazon has it for $100, and I would say don't buy it at that price unless this is exactly the sort of thing you are interested in.  

What is in it:

• Chapter 1: Visual and Verbal Art: Orality, Poetry, and Representation in Classical Greek and Old Norse Narratives

This was sort of a discussion on weaving metaphors used to describe poetry, and weaving itself, and famous stories about weaving, and a lot of women's studies terms that were tossed around without any explanation.  She makes a case for weaving being a form of communication, even if all it is saying is, "I am a rich person wearing diamond twill."

• Chapter 2: Culture, Gender, and Storytelling

This and Chapter 3 are the real heart of the thing.  The basic hypothesis is that, since most women did not have a voice in the public sphere, they preserved their stories not in poems but in tapestries or embroideries.  The single biggest 'a-ha!' in the book is the idea that the women who wove the tapestries should be considered as much authors as the men who wrote down versions of the ancient oral poems.  These aren't just decorations - they are sequential art, like comic strips, and the artists have chosen which 'panels' to 'draw' to tell a particular version of a story.  Naturally the tapestry is preceded by the oral poem or tale, just as the written version is - but those oral poems exist in a (documentable) profusion of variants, leaving an artist plenty of latitude in choosing which elements to present.

• Chapter 3: Visual Poetry, Weaving Meaning: Micronarratives in the Nordic Oral Tradition

This is the author's interpretation of the Overhogdal tapestry as showing scenes from the Volsung saga and the Nibelungenlied.  I agree with some of her takes on the scenes - I thought it was Gunnar in the snake pit, too - but I'm less convinced on others.  A figure she supposes is Sigurd with his sword, Gram, is pretty clearly holding an axe, for instance.  

Between this chapter and the previous one, an idea is developed that masculine versions of these stories focus on gold, war, monster slaying, etc., while feminine ones focus on interpersonal dramas of love and betrayal.  Thus, some of the songs in the Codex Regius were, if not by women, then for them - an example of the poet tuning the performance for a particular audience.  It's an interesting hypothesis, although suspiciously in-line with our modern ideas about what men's and women's entertainments are like.  Men like blockbusters and explosions! Women like romance and period dramas!  And maybe they do, but women also like Star Wars and men also like The Godfather.  In an honor culture, betrayal is an inherently dramatic theme with resonances for men and for women.

On the other hand, if the author's reading of Overhogdal is at all right, the women in the tales (Brynhildr, Guthrun) are featured prominently.  Certainly when I first read those legends, it was the role of the women (Guthrun in particular) that caught my attention and inspired my art.

• Epilogue: Saint Birgitta and Gendered Verbal Performance in the Scandinavian Middle Ages

A short epilogue about a 14th century holy woman, who wrote about her visions and was revered as a teacher.  She is held up as an example of a woman speaking in the public sphere, but needing to claim authority direct from God to do so, and some of the negative reactions that got.  Oddly, not compared to, say, Hildegard von Bingen?  Julian of Norwich?  Feels like someone on her committee wanted it added at the last minute.

• Bibliography!

I am unreasonably excited about the bibliography.  In Chapter... 2? 3? there's a discussion of the few women in the sagas who are public poets.  I have been wondering if such existed, and now I have a roadmap to finding them.  There's a further wealth of primary sources (sagas and poems to read) and secondary literature covering the intersections of narrative, performance, textiles, and women's studies, which is an area I'm finding myself very interested in.

All told - I don't regret my purchase, but it's a lot of money.  This is pretty much exactly the wheelhouse I find myself in these days, so it was worth it to me, but if your interest isn't quite as focused - Interlibrary Loan.  

This is not a good book if you are looking for detailed information on how to make tapestries like Oseberg, Overhogdal, or Skog.  It is not a detailed analysis of any of them - even on Overhogdal, she focuses on the 'micronarratives', the small scenes placed among the larger procession of animals.  It's a book about storytelling, when the stories happen to be told as tapestries.

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.

 

Authenticity and Me, 2016

Yesterday, my blog analytics showed me a few hits to an old essay of mine, "Authenticity and Me, 2001."  Now, I chose to put that essay up on this site in 2008-ish, so a slightly more recent past-me approved it, but I still get a slight knot of anxiety when I see something like that.  Holy cow, that was 15 years ago!  What if I was young and dumb?  What did I say?

So I reread it, and I'm relieved to find that I think I still believe it's mostly true.  In summary: I wrote that period bardic performance is awesome, but it would be a shame to have no bardic performance at all, if we insisted on Only Period Performance.

That's pretty much the SCA's strategy, after all.  Make "an attempt at pre-17th century" whatever - garb, food, gear, entertainment - and you're good.  We welcome the novice, the curious, the dabbler, and the people with strong interests in one area but not another.  We are a big-tent organization, and it's one of our strengths.

I think I have only one real update to add since 2001.  It's important to understand why modern folk performance has such a hold on the SCA at large.  My hypothesis: All of us live in the modern world, and we are soaking in modern music.  It is used by everyone from advertising jingle writers to pop musicians to movie score composers to hymn writers to Broadway shows to elicit emotional response.

Now go ask some Scadians why they like bardic circles.  A substantial fraction will say something along the lines of "it offers a moment of transport" - it elicits a feeling of being long ago and far away.  This is what we imagine the Middle Ages to feel like.  We want the entertainments at the bardic to conform not to what the Middle Ages were, but - as we are fond of saying - the Middle Ages as they should have been.  (Or perhaps how we imagine them to be.)  We want to hear SCA hymns, songs of praise to the values of courtesy, honor and chivalry upon which our Society is based.  Or SCA anthems, songs uplifting our kingdom and the people who dwell there.  And most importantly, we want these things to be presented in the musical language that knows how to touch our hearts.

And that is  a modern musical language.

I love period music and period performance.  I do think there is a path that can tread between these two goals - period performance and pulling modern heartstrings - but it's difficult to find and to navigate.  It's already hard to write a song that resonates strongly across a kingdom; it's even harder to write that song in a period style. This is why modern performance remains so extremely popular, and why the bardic arts lag so many others when it comes to progress towards period. 

Even cooking, which is also a matter of taste, has stepped up its game enormously since I joined the SCA 20 years ago.  We learned to value medieval flavors and textures on their own merits, and as we ate these foods together in community, I suspect they began to acquire their own socio-emotional significance.  Still, I doubt very many people ask for a Tart in Ymbre Day when they need comfort food.

I don't say any of this to discourage period performance or to write it off as impractical.  I encourage it and practice it.  However, once I realized why modern performance remains so popular - because it fills an important emotional need - I became much more at peace with its dominance.  When period performance can feed that same emotional, or even spiritual, hunger, then it has a chance of assuming pride of place.  Until then, it's a pleasant educational diversion or interesting background music - but it will not be the song of our SCA lives.

KASF: Bumpy bits

Bone Flute: Not working.  I got the soundhole shaped pretty well, but maybe too small.  Put in a wax fipple.  Goes 'fffffp.'  I don't know what's wrong, and the cow bone is really thick and takes forever to shape.  Maybe sheep would be better (but then I have to clean it and saw the joints off).

Quill: After two turkey quills going great, the goose quill goes all splintery and crappy.  Meh.  Using a turkey quill to do the will.

Will: About half done and going okay.  My calligraphy is not the best.  Accidentally put the wrong name down, but I may be able to scrape off some letters and redo.  (I've already scraped off one mistake and done over, so that works.)  I used my bone folder, a compass and straight edge to blind rule the pergamenata.  

Seal: I have all the parts, now just waiting for the weather to be slightly warmer and not raining/snowing.

Banner: Documentation updated.

Beowulf: Documentation update in progress. Need to review the material itself.

Trial by Fire Event Report

First event ever with both kids! And we camped!

Kid Lessons

• Bring more toys
• Plan some activities
• Forget about feast if the kids aren't going to eat it. Family dinner.
• 5-gal bucket makes an acceptable nighttime potty
• Soak the marshmallow sticks in water for an hour before roasting
• Consider cots for both so the one doesn't end up curled in a ball in the downhill corner of the tent
• Make sure the electric lantern has a nightlight setting; if it doesn't, get one that does
• Flashlights for everyone

New Canvas Tent Lessons

• Use rugs or something to protect floor
• Canvas doors do not keep bugs out
• Elder Son can get positively frantic about bugs.  He handled several bug-related incidents well, but I was very worried he'd wake up in the night and see a 1/2" long black beetle crawling on the tent wall by the light of the nightlight, and just scream bloody murder.
• The hanger that friction-fits onto the center pole is the best thing
• Fold in quarters, not thirds, and roll over it to squish out air before rolling it up
• Hammer in tent pegs well, as they really seem to like to trip people and rip garb
• Get a rope loop for mallet to pull pegs; also consider small sledgehammer instead of plastic one
• Family of four plus canvas tent plus other comfort gear (e.g. chairs) does not fit in our car. 

I am going back and forth on whether or not we want to use the canvas tent at the next event.  On the one hand, it was very cool and comfortable to be in, and I like it a lot.  We are going to take two cars (in addition to kids and regular gear, there will be donations for the Storvik Yard Sale - it will not fit in one car), so we should have the space for it.  Still the bug thing though.  The desire to instill what they are calling "grit" in the kid by not making his path overly smooth wars with not wanting him to go into a phobic fit if something crawls onto his face.

Bardic

At Pennsic, Meisterin Johanna had made a remark to the effect that I seemed to perform a lot of stuff that's tonally the same.  I grant that I do my humorous period stuff a lot, because I'm trying to sell people on period stuff, but I do have other pieces.  So I did "Matty Groves" and "Yo me soy la morenica" in addition to "To Put the Devil into Hell."

Post-Event Kit Maintenance

I patched the hole the tent peg tore in my gown with a bit of linen and lots of thread.  I did satin stitches over the raw edges of the tear.  I also sewed up the shoulder where the seam was coming undone.

Also put the chape on my protege belt!  Been pretty productive for a fairly exhausting day.

Pennsic Report

It was a good war.  A bit odd for me - not one class given or taken!  But a good war.

Food Experiments Report

Bread: There are beehive ovens popping up all over Pennsic!  I was aware of at least three.  I did not get to the open Bread Day at Aethelmarc Royal, alas.  My own bread went fairly well.  I brought King Arthur bread flour, and it made a huge difference.  The loaves baked up much higher.  Loaf One sat directly on the coals and the bottom burnt to a crisp.  However, it was easy enough to cut pieces off, and it was tasty.  

Fresh baked bread at Pennsic

Loaf Two used foil balls inside the Dutch oven to elevate the springform bottom.  It rose so high it touched the lid, burning the top slightly.  The bottom only had a few scorch marks and was largely edible. Morgan felt this one was not as good as the first, although  I couldn't tell a difference.  Loaf Three used large (2") foil balls to support the oven above the coals, and this seemed to work the best of all.

I learned from Meisterin Johanna that when you thump bread, it should be on the bottom of the loaf.

In all cases, I used more coals than the recipe book called for - essentially, ALL the coals I used for the preheat.  I did arrange them in open circles, to prevent a central hot spot, but I did have ~15 on the bottom and ~30 on the top.

One-Pot Stews: My Eadric the Potter bowls worked great!  I did a (canned) chicken stew with fresh onion, carrot, potato, sage and parsley, and it was super-delicious.  Also surprisingly good was the bean dish - cannelloni beans, tomato paste thinned with enough chicken stock, onion, garlic, chopped summer sausage, and I think more parsley.  The Italian-accented shrimp and grits was the least good, but I still ate most of it - canned shrimp with lots of garlic, onion and some summer sausage (standing in for bacon) sauted in a lot of olive oil in one pot (on the Coleman stove - the others were done on coals) and then polenta cooked up and grated Parmesan cheese stirred in.  Put shrimp on top of polenta, stir in and serve.  The canned shrimp sort of shredded into a onion-y, garlicky protein gloop with occasional grits of sand.  There was too much polenta.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good, either.

Espresso: I am currently of the opinion that a 2-cup espresso maker is the ideal camp coffee maker for one.  Strong coffee, fast!  Not so good if one were brewing for an entire camp.

Lunch Salads: Several days, I made salads of cold chopped stuff.  I brought a jar of "Sun of Italy" marinated mushrooms, and one of kalamata olives, and they were worth three times what I paid for them.  'Shrooms, olives, cannelloni beans, sausage, sharp cheese, and basil made a filling lunch.

Ice: For future reference: When it was warm-to-hot, the little cooler needs one 7-lb bag of ice per day. It was just big enough to hold a quart of milk, some bits of cheese, my yeast, and some leftovers (unused onion, beans, sausage).

Eaten/Uneaten:
Used up: 4-6 oz cheese, 1 summer sausage, 1 jar each mushrooms and olives, 1 can beans, 1/2 small can tomato paste, 1 onion, several carrots, 2 cans chicken, 1 can shrimp, ~6 garlic cloves, 1 'juice box' chicken broth, 1 quart milk, 1 lb. hazelnuts, 1/2 bag Post Shredded Wheat, 1/3 can Melitta coffee, most of a 5-lb bag of flour, yeast, salt, pepper, fresh herbs, 1/2 c. oats, cinnamon, 1/2 c. polenta, 3 snack bags of Cheez-Its.  Plus assorted snacks from Cooper Store.  1 32-pack of water.

Brought home: 1 can black beans, 1 can corned beef hash, 1 'juice box' vegetable stock, all the bulgur wheat, the rest of the oats, polenta, and bread flour, all the lentils, all the canned fish (sardines and anchovies - not brave enough to try them), unused coffee, cereal, extra lb. hazelnuts.  The other 32-pack of water.

Verdict: Overpacked on grains, but all told - not bad! Particularly pleased the cheese - which was carefully measured out as "whatever is in the fridge the day we leave" - lasted.

Special note: I never used the honey, and the ants found it.  Ziploc!

Camp Life Experiments Report

Bowl and Pitcher: THIS WAS THE BEST.  Simple, effective, not messy.  The sump was close enough that I just emptied the bowl each time, didn't use the slops bucket.  For modern hygiene purposes (e.g., hand washing after every bathroom trip), the sink with running water was easier/better.  But this worked well for morning/evening wash-ups in my own space.  Also good for washing the veggies!

Camping Pad: The Exped MegaMat 10 LXW only needed topping off once - the patch held all war.  (Huh, I didn't realize they had a 25" wide version.  That would have probably been enough for me.)  It does need a natural fiber layer between mat and me - a sheet did not cut it, so I used a folded-over length of wool.  One layer of Army blanket would do it.  The fitted sheet didn't really stay well-tucked, and the top sheet kept pulling up.  I think I should make some items with elastics to secure them, and/or which are sewn to each other.

Sleeping on the floor still works, but it is starting to get old.  A cot or rope bed might be something to look into.

Washing:  The microwave bacon tray made a reasonable washboard.  I only did a load of small items; this War wasn't sweltering, so I was able to re-wear big garments without stink.  Bras, I rinsed out in the shower each day, and that seemed to work.  It wasn't that much work, and I would do this again as a way to pack smaller.

Cooler Covers: Reed mats were meh.  Wooden hidey-boxes would look the best, but fabric covers (with that shiny insulation stuff?) would pack the best.  Or go Full Cariadoc and go without.

Stuff!: I could have left at home: mazers, glass drinking horn, cow drinking horn, 1 cloth drape (of 4 brought), RenFest chemise, violet tunic that doesn't quite fit, 1 or 2 fewer small baskets, most of the veils, some of the kitchen utensils

The pop-up and zero-g chair took the most space in the car, along with clothes; however, they contributed greatly to my comfort at War, and I am glad I brought them.  Kitchen stuff and fire stuff took the next most space; I can probably skinny that down, but not by more than 10-20%?  (Linkage to single-burner butane stoves and single-burner propane stoves. Only one burner on the ancient Coleman really works anyway - the other's more of a warmer.)

I am having vague ideas of multiple smallish A-frame canvas tents - one for adults, one for kids, one for gear? - and a tarp.  Have to see what can fit in a reasonable footprint.  Then we have a camp that's modular for our family - just me (one tent), me and Husband (sleeping tent + gear shelter), entire family (+ kid tent).

A&S Report

I was pressed into service to calligraph a poem for a young lady being taken as a squire.   First time I've actually used calligraphy for anything other than practice! (Or a really short dedication.)

Bardic Report

Beowulf: Crammed it all back into my head in time for performance on Wednesday at the Harp Symposium.  I felt it went really well!  I also did it, in parts, at the Atlantian Royal Bardic, and for Master Dolan Madoc of Calontir, in camp.  He had participated in other readings of Beowulf in the SCA, so one of my camp-mates brought him over to hear me.  In return, he told a wonderful story of William Marshall.  We really need more tales of history, and of the big period legends.

Southwind Bardic: We had a really great bardic in camp.  Yaakov kicked it off with his long-form story, which was very well-told and a lot of fun.  Then around and around we went.  We had everything from tales of Ye Olden Days in the SCA to some filks to period stuff to original compositions.  I got to take... 4 turns?  Which was enough that I didn't feel stifled, and not so much that I felt like I was running roughshod over it.  

Atlantian Royal Bardic: Great performers!  Most splendiferous site at War!  (See 'Their Majesties' New Camp,' below.)

Known World Poetry Competition: I got the days confused and thought this was on Tuesday, not Monday, and so missed it.  Master James informed me that he really liked my entry, but it lost by 4 points.  Considering how lousy my documentation was, I think that's fair!  Poeta got 4 entries, which sounds like a number similar to what I got when I did it, back in 2009ish.  Why can't poetry get more traction?

Known World Harp Symposium: Enjoyable as always.  Mistress Linette did a great job of wrangling the scheduled performers and the ad hoc sign-ups.  We had pure instrumental music, accompanied song, wire and nylon harps - and one great carbon-fiber harp! - and my recitation.  Some of the performers snuck in a bit of education/lecture, too.  Mistress Fevronia did 'Queen of Air and Darkness,' which I remember hearing at my first Pennsic.  Still gives me shivers.

UnLove Songs: At the Southwind Bardic, one storyteller commented that "the theme of the evening seems to be love."  And I thought about it, and no, it wasn't.  It was "Women as Reward" pieces - women who marry a man so he doesn't die of love, women handed out as prizes by their fathers.  (And I don't except myself from this theme, as I did 'The Perilous Bed,' wherein  the maiden is given to Sir Gawain by her father.)  So I think I want to write something poking at this.

Their Majesties' New Camp: We camped across from Atlantian Royal, the most glamorous and ornate encampment at War.  Knights in full regalia guarded the gate, which stood, turreted and tall, with archers upon it for defense.  Within lay carefully planned paths through a garden sprung up as if by magic, with picture-perfect pavilions flanking it.  An enormous camp kitchen housed a long trench of a fire, over which entire hogs and legs of beef turned on spits, while six Laurels prepared subtleties to amuse the eye and the tongue.  A full staff of heralds, trumpets in hand, announced each visitor flawlessly, with their complete and most accurate title and name, no matter where in the Known World they hailed from.  Before the thrones, perfectly well-behaved children, adorable in their tiny garb, played merry games while a consort of musicians played the songs of long ago.  Wandering minstrels recited poems and told stories, each a masterwork, neither too short nor too long, neither too dull nor too unseemly.  All this, and more!

You saw it too, didn't you?  Of course you did.  They say that such wonders could only be beheld by those true to the spirit of the Society, so I am sure a fine gentle such as yourself looked upon these marvels with a glad heart.

Oh yeah. This is gonna be a song.

Personal News

For my work as Storvik Chronicler, I was recognized with the Opal at Royal Court.

More importantly, on Tuesday evening, Meisterin Johanna accepted me as her protege.  

This might seem somewhat odd, as it did to me when she first suggested it.  After all, I do more art than service, I think.  But I am not looking for a Laurel.  Not because I think I have nothing left to learn - far from it! - but because I feel confident charting my own path on the voyage of learning it.  She proposed a more general mentoring relationship, and as I find much admirable about her, I thought it best to accept.  

I deeply, deeply hope this does not bother any of the other Peers whom I respect and admire.