Mi Contra Fa

Merovingian clothing

Where to start.

1. I recently discovered "my" colors, shades that really look good on me.  I wanted to refresh my garb wardrobe a little, to try and reflect this.
2. When I started in the SCA, I mostly wore shirts and pants.  I didn't want to be a noble lady, I wanted to be a swashbuckling adventurer.  I've received confirmation from  multiple sources that, when I do wear shirts and pants, I seem more myself.
   1. Masculine garb could be an option, but I also loves me my jewelry.
   2. Neo-Celtic was really big in the barony I joined in the 90s, and I retain an affection for plaids worn with a ton of amber.  But see #3 below.
3. I wrestle with "the only thing required is AN ATTEMPT at pre-17th cen clothing" and "when you know better, do better." 
   1. I don't judge people whose SCA interests are not clothes-related, and who buy something plausible from a merchant and call it a day
   2. But I also appreciate how far we've come in improving our costuming
4. I have a LOT of gear suitable for a 6th/7th century lady of Kent, which just so happens to be fairly close to the gear needed for a lady of the Merovingian Empire.
5. Reconstructions of Merovingian (noble) women's dress vary, but the presence of ornate buckles on the feet and mid-shins have led some archaeologists to reconstruct their gowns as calf-length, and worn with linen hose or leg coverings.  These may not be the best or most recent reconstructions, but I see European re-enactors sporting the look.

So my current plan is to use some of the fabric in my stash to make a calf-length tunic, and pair it either with one of my three existing caftans, or else I have some wool (in one of "my" colors... ish, the monitor lied to me somewhat) to make a second winter-weight one that fits better than the diamond twill.  (The fabric on that one is spectacular, but the cut and fit... not so much.)  I'll wear it either with gartered trousers or knee hose and see how I like the look.

I have some linen in a 'natural' shade that's cooler than I'd ideally like, but I think it'll be okay.  I have a silk tie with geometric patterns that I scored at a thrift store a while back - I think I may use it for edging the neck and cuffs, if I can turn it into enough bias tape for the job.

If I like the look, I can take it further:

Suvia's LJ post on extant garments

Suvia's blog with her Arnegunde reconstruction

A reconstruction of royal tablet-woven bands

Pictures from a trip to the museum where the Chelles relics are kept

Close-up photo of the silk from Bertille's burial gown. More pre-1000 textiles including the Bathild embroidery.  Home page of photographer.

Tablet-weaving pattern for the bands on Bertille's gown.

The utter ridiculousness of the measurements of Le Grand Robe

A recent paper on Merovingian graves and reconstructions (in French)

SCA paper on Merovingian dress, requires login

20-year old chapter from the Met on Merovingian brooches

1997 paper on... I don't know, it's in German, but the pictures are of reconstructions

From the Grez office of tourism, information on their necropolis and the Lady of Grez (in French)

SCA paper on the Princess of Zweeloo, sign in required

 

 

 

Pages referring to other folklore collections that include Scandinavian tunes:

https://moeticae.typepad.com/mi_contra_fa/2012/06/roland-more-help-from-sweden.html
https://moeticae.typepad.com/mi_contra_fa/2012/03/roland-wait-i-take-it-back.html  <-- this is the main one
https://moeticae.typepad.com/mi_contra_fa/2012/03/more-on-roland.html

Website with amazing number of sources on it worth another look later: http://www.germanicmythology.com/PoeticEdda/Voluspa.html

Asatru chant for Voluspa, does not use the tune I've found, unclear where tune came from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xisBERxHJ6g

1921 book, translations of some hattr, some sagas, and some rimur ballads.  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33471/33471-h/33471-h.htm

Website dedicated to a 19th cen Icelandic poet, includes some information on poetic styles (of his time, I think): http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody.html

Program from the 2018 Nordic Harp Meeting, with seminars/classes addressing a lot of the same things we're grappling with. Look up the instructors?  : https://nordic-harp-meeting.eu/wp-uploads/2018/10/Programme_book_NHM2018.pdf

Elementary school website, but contains some references to track down later e.g. Sean-Nos singing: https://www.downsjuniormusic.com/anglo-saxon--viking.html

Scandanavian folk music - analysis

Völuspá Text, from http://www.voluspa.org/voluspa1-5.htm

Ár var alda þar er Ýmir bygði,
vara sandr né sær né svalar unnir,
jörð fannsk æva né upphiminn,
gap var ginnunga, en gras hvergi.

OK, text again, with alliterating (and assumed stressed) syllables highlighted:

Ár var alda þar er Ýmir bygði,
vara sandr né sær né svalar unnir,
jörð fannsk æva né upphiminn,
gap var ginnunga, en gras hvergi.

The music from the 1780 French book:

Notes that correspond to highlighted syllables:

(F-G) F A
A A G
F F (maybe)
A G G

Notes:

All assignments of stresses are my best guesses, as I don't speak a lick of Icelandic.  Will have to ask Deirdre for help.

Line 1: Not really sure if 'Ar' is stressed or not. It looks a lot like a pickup here.  Aside from that, the two stressed syllables have half notes.

Line 2: Does the "sv" in "svalar" alliterate with the 's' in 'sandr' and 'saer'?  The two plain s-words take half notes, svalar does not.

Line 3: The French rendered "ne upphiminn" as "Neu-phi-min", and it has the most complicated mapping of notes to syllables in the piece, of course it does.  The French has 3 syllables with 6 notes; the Danish has 4 syllables (I think) to assign to the six notes.  I am guessing that the half-note (an F) is what is properly assigned to the stressed syllable.

Line 4: All 3 'g' words take half notes.

Looking at just the words that alliterate AND take half-notes, I get:

F A
A A
F F
A G G

So if this is a 'melodic outline', to be filled in as the unstressed syllable arrangement requires it, it's on a per-stanza basis, not a per-line basis.  Which makes sense, because singing the same melody over and over and over for each verse is already a lot; if it was the same melody for every line, it would be ridiculous.

Interestingly, the final note corresponding to a stressed syllable is a G - the key signature is a B-Flat, so F Major.  If this were the usual final note, I'd say, yup, Dorian mode!  As it is, the piece actually ends on an F.  F also seems to play an important structural role, much more than I would expect if this were really a Dorian piece.

The B-flat actually gets played in the second line (second syllable of 'sandr' and the 'ne' that follows) so, if this was accurately recorded by the collector, it's not a Lydian mode piece (where the B would be natural).

The range is from E to B, a fifth, which fits with other things I've read about epic songs often having that sort of very narrow range.  Also fits on either a lyre or even a kantele.

Interim working scratchpad - Scandinavian folk music

_{Nordic Harp Meeting - Tune Archive Iceland - links to several songs with medieval lyrics, tunes collected later}

_{Songs of the Vikings - interesting book}

_{Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, vol 2, page 397, 1780 - start of the chapter on Scandinavian music} 

_{Images from the Essai:}

_Voluspa:

_Havamal:

_{Harold, Prince of Norway:}

_Lilia:

_{I did the thing where I was reading and not taking notes - somewhere in a recent trawl, I came across YET ANOTHER reference to a 'basic melodic pattern' that underlies an oral epic poem, in one of these alliterating countries.  Must track down.  I have been getting the strong impression that Kalevala works the same way - there's really just one basic tune that has variations.}

Anglo-Saxon Drinking Song Lyrics

SCORE.  A thousand thanks to Kalara Zrinyi, who posted a link to a story on wassailing, which in turn contained a reference to a song allegedly sung by Harold Godwinson's men on the night before the Battle of Hastings.  It referenced Cecil Sharp, who in turn referenced Wace.

Caveats:

• Written down by an Anglo-Norman
• At least 100 years after the Conquest
• In a document chronicling William of Normandy's righteous ascent to the throne
• Which is now lost, and all surviving copies would have been scribed by Frenchmen who would have no idea what they were looking at when they transcribed the Old English

I am willing to accept all those caveats!

Original, per Sharp:

Bublie creint e weissel
E laticome e drinchheil
Drinc hindrewart e drintome
Drinc helf e drinctome

He translates this as:

Rejoice and wassail
Let it [the bottle] come and drink health
Drink backwards and drink to me
Drink half and drink empty

I am suspicious that "drin to me" is "drink to me" and "drinc to me" is "drink empty," but it does make more sense that way.

 

ap Huw Measures: Cadences

There are 24 measures of cerdd dant in the ap Huw manuscript.  Looking at them today, wondering what the various punctuation marks might mean  - . and : and ) are used - I noticed something else.  Many, but not all, of the measures have sub-elements that are 4 'digits' long.  The ap Huw uses a binary tablature, with 0s and 1s corresponding to something like one measure of "away" or "home."  So I've been practicing mak y mwn hir, 1111 0000 1010 1111 0000 1011, as six lines of four-bar melody.  The actual melody is improvised, drawing on the "home" notes when there's a 1 and on "away" notes when there's a 0.* 

*With two caveats: One, I don't think I've got the notes sorted correctly into "home" and "away" bins yet, according to the Bragod website anyway.  Two, I definitely use the "home" or "away" note on the stressed notes of the measure, but maybe not on the unstressed.  I use the "other team" as passing tones or such.  Dunno if that's exactly right, but considering that a lot of the ap Huw ornaments sort of require it, I think I'm OK.

ANYWAY the point of the post is: Although there are 24 measures, if you look at the last four digits of each pattern, there are only 5 cadences in use:

1111

1011

1101

0011

0001

That seems like a useful thing to know!  Possibly also misleading - for example, while there is no 1001, there is a 10001.  Looking only at the last four digits may not be the right call when universally applied.  Still, I thought it was worth noting.

Spinning notes and flax

I have been working on my spindle.  It's just a dowel with a large glass bead on it (low whorl).  Version 1 had a notch cut into the top, like the Oseberg spindle, and that worked if I wanted to do a half-hitch.  But I'm intrigued by all the medieval spindles that are just long and pointy at the top - no notch, no obvious place to secure a half-hitch.  I went back to 15th Century Spinning and worked a bit more at trying to copy her technique.  I think I get it - you loosely hold the spindle between middle and ring finger, while thumb and pointer finger spin it.  Now the need for a tapered top becomes clear, as the 0.25" dowel did not want to spin easily between my fingers.  I whittled it down and did a little supported spinning - I will need practice before I can spin it between my fingers but not drop it.

I had the opportunity last week to stop by the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown (formerly the Yorktown Victory Center).  They are rebuilding the whole facility with a grand opening in the spring, but I did get to stop by the colonial farm for the flax processing demonstration.  (They also have a pig butchering-and-salting demo on Thanksgiving weekend, which would be really need to see!)  The flax processing had six steps.  (These are mostly notes to myself and my own memory - if you are reading this, you can Google "breaking flax" or "scutching flax" to see the equipment that's used.)

• Harvest, followed by drying
• Retting (rotting, essentially) in water
• Drying again
• Breaking.  This was the first demonstrated step.  The breaker is a wooden gizmo about waist height, hinged at one end.  The colonial-garbed docent first crushed the flax stalks between two flat surfaces at the open end of the breaker to crack the outer material. He said some people skip that step, but he thinks it's effective.  Then, he laid the flax stalks across the "teeth" of the breaker and slammed the handle down.  Lift, pull the flax a little towards himself, slam. Lift, pull, slam.  Lift, pull, slam.  Then he turned the bundle of flax around so he could smash the ends he'd been holding.  
• Breaking results in exposed flax fibers and a bunch of crunchy stalk bits.  The scutching board is next - a flat, vertical wooden board.  Hold the flax against the board and use a dull wooden scutching knife to scrape down, removing the worst of the crunchy stalk bits.
• Finally, the hackle. It's like a big toothy dog brush.  The docent liked to lay the flax through the teeth at about a 45 degree angle, but then pulled straight back towards himself, so that the fibers pulled more strongly against the teeth.  Just as you would do for long hair, he did the tips, then a little up from the tips, the half the bundle, and so on.  The short flax fibers and crunchy bits caught in the hackle are what he said are "tow," lower-quality flax that can be spun for lower-quality linen.  In his hand was the long-staple flax for making good linen.  And I got to take the flax home!

Only weird bit - the docent told me that linseed oil was toxic, so you had to be careful with the retting water and handling the linen itself.  Now, it does not surprise me that water which has had plants rotting in it isn't healthful to drink, but I thought traditional spinners often ran the flax over their lips to wet it?  Well yes, perhaps, said the docent, but it isn't good for you.

After I left, I remembered that oil-rich flax seeds are sold as a health food.  So I did some Googling.  Linseed oil is perfectly safe in normal doses.  Yeah, if you take a megadose of supplements, it can have some bad side effects, like doing straight shots of oil tends to have on a body!  The museum oddly does not have an email contact address, so I think I will write them a short note thanking them for the experience (it's a really cool museum and re-construction!) but also pointing out that maybe they should double-check that part of the docent script.

Class notes from the vault

Just discovered I hadn't ever posted the Writing Research Papers class notes. Here they are!

Seiðr staff: Green sticks

I should note that my experiments with the dry wood weren't a total wreck.  The machete actually followed the curves of each stick pretty well for a foot or so.  I suspect it hit a knot or something, which deflected it up to the surface of the wood.

I hacked down a slender green branch today - off of a Rose of Sharon shrub.  Bushes are, if I recall correctly, wood-y, but not wood.  But it's growing in my yard, and so legal for me to bend, fold, spindle or mutilate as I please.

This went much better!  I split the 24-30" stick from one end to the other; I'd say it was maybe 1/2"-3/4" at the base and 1/4" at the tip.  Each half bent away from the blade like a cartoon character's hair being split by a sharp sword.  I wonder if the 'organic cord' wrapped around the original was a way of clamping it as the glue dried? It's going to need it.

I took it upstairs and got out the wood chisels.  What a mess.  I removed some material - without destroying anything, even! - but there were little shreds of wood fiber getting everywhere.  I don't know if this is a function of: this is a shrub; this is green; I have cheap chisels.  I haven't thrown the sticks out, but I am setting them aside as I look for a hardwood wand.

(Speaking of wands - I remembered that Harry Potter wands are also wood, which seems like it would have to be split - maybe hollowed slightly? - to accommodate the various hairs and feathers and whatnot that go into them.  Interesting!)

I am also wondering if maybe I shouldn't do a poem or story (dead tree edition, if this is a static A&S competition) rather than a seiðr staff.  I mean, that would be the smart thing if I wanted to potentially win.  But but but I can document a magic wand.  I kinda want to do that.

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.