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Glötta Gillet
Nov. 28th, 2023 07:54 amThere is a cosy event arts and sciences themed event in the shire of Gyllengran that I enjoy attending, but haven't always made it to, because it is a long drive south from Frostheim. However, now that I live in Reengarda, it is only 4 hours driving time if the roads are good, one does the speed limit, and doesn't stop. However, as Glötta Gillet happens in late November none of these apply, so it was actually 5.5 hours travel time, including stopping for toilets, waiting for delays at a road construction zone, taking a confusing detour around a traffic accident, and stopping at a grocery store for some cheese and crackers for Keldor's contribution to the potluck feast (which was served too late in the evening for me to be interested in eating, so I didn't bother to contribute anything).
We had a pleasant trip to the event, listening to a couple of chapters in a good audiobook (Nästan bara rara djur av James Herriot), and we had fun poking around in the Drachenwald OP looking up answers to questions about which Royals have made what types of Peers when. (With the main question: had any of the unbelted Kings done any Knightings? Which they can, in theory, do, if a knight is willing to do the actual dubbing.) I know that in the West Kingdom OP one can click on the list of Royals, and then click on a couple to see every award they have given, but I couldn't find that option on Drachenwald's page, so instead I would look up the dates of the couple, he would remember the number while I went over to the OP "show all ____ award" and scroll down to try to find folk with the right date range (which is hard as that list is only sorted alphabetically) I also tried the straight OP list, which is sorted by date, and scrolling down to the bestowed peerages, but that misses folks elevated who have also reigned as Prince, Princess, King or Queen, since they would be higher on the list. I wasn't exactly consistent which version I tried for which royal couples, so we could have missed someone, but we didn't find any examples of an unbelted King of Drachenwald doing a Knighting, but it did make for a fun while one drives research project, especially as it included him sharing stories about the names I was fining.
(The question came up as our current Crown Prince isn't a knight, and, assuming he isn't knighted at an event between now and 12th Night, he will be the first unbelted King of Drachenwald in quite a while. The knights have only just had their first two elevations since the pandemic this year, and now it feels like it has been long enough that if there are additional folk who have made that transition in their skill it should be visible to observers by now.)
We arrived on site Friday around 21:00, and were pleased to discover that we had a luxury bed--the site is a scout building, with lots of narrow bunks on the top floor, a middle floor with the main gathering space and a kitchen, and on the ground floor are the toilets, shower, and one more room with two single beds and a fold-out couch bed. The autocrat gave Keldor and I the couch bed, which turns out to be rather comfortable, but the convenience of not carrying our stuff up three flights of stairs, and of having the toilets on the same floor was a welcome treat. This is the first time I have been on that site and not slept on the top floor.
This year many of the locals choose to sleep at their own homes, so it was mostly those of us who traveled from other areas who were on site Friday night. I was tired and went to bed before midnight, but Keldor sat up talking till 3 or 4 in the morning.
The theme for the event this year was scrolls, so there were a number of good presentations on the topic.
His Highness Valdemar explained the process from his point of view: from receiving recommendations and what kind of information should be in them, both to help the royals decide that yes, they want to give the award, but also to help the scribe write text that is relevant to the person getting the award, especially if the assignment goes to someone who hasn't met the recipient. He explained why they like lots of lead-time for the recommendations, and really want to know what events the recipient will be at, so that they have time to make the decision, get the information to a scribe, give the scribe time to do the work, get the scroll to them, or to the event where it is needed, so that it can be given to the recipient.
Áskatla did a lovely talk about her approach to doing scrolls, how she likes to personalize them for the recipient, starting with choosing a time period and location that suits the persona of the recipient, and then looking for period examples that feature motifs that seem to fit the recipient. She pointed out that she is particularly fond of matching the style of the art with the specific calligraphy hand so that the result is as authentic as she can make it. Then she asked how many in the room would care if the scribe mixed and matched styles of art and calligraphy from different time periods (the general consensus was that most people are so happy to get a scroll that they are ok with pretty much any decisions the scribe and/or illuminator makes). She pointed out that the most important things is practice, practice, practice. Each new scroll she does has a different style than the one before, so she is careful to spend the time needed to train her hand into the motions needed to get the letters looking like they should. As a result, each scroll she does involves several weeks of practice and planning the layout, but, thanks to all the preparation work, she does the scroll itself fairly quickly.
The after lunch presentation was by Ermina, who took us on a lovely slide show showing a variety of different styles of calligraphy and illumination used through the centuries and across a variety of locations, and discussed their similarities and differences, how to find examples, and tips for how to make your own layout by mixing and matching elements from the surviving manuscripts and different approaches to doing so.
Topics of size and scale were also discussed during one or both lectures. During and between the talks people worked on their own projects--some practicing calligraphy, some doing sketching, and a few of us doing sewing or nålbinding instead, and there was a good mix of time for chatting, looking at what others were doing, and for listening to the talks.
Then it was time for evening court, where his highness presented a couple of well deserved scrolls, one Gyllendeband, done in a simple and elegant and beautiful style, the other a LjusOrden, done with elaborate, beautiful, super personalised portraiture of the recipient and the arts he does, and both were admired after court.
The feast was a pot-luck, which had a good mix of types of food available, and it seemed that everyone found plenty to eat, combined with much pleasant conversation. Later in the evening we sang a bit, and I wound up heading to bed around midnight, while others sat up talking at least a couple of hours more.
On Sunday we stayed on site and helped with cleaning (and more pleasant conversations) till it was nearly done, getting on the road at noon. We took Torunn with us as far as Umeå, which made the trip home very enjoyable, with lots of good conversation. Then we stopped by the shop that sells fish and pet supplies, where Keldor picked up a few new friends for his aquarium and we bought some treats for the cats, then we did some grocery shopping, and continued on northwards, getting home around 17:30.
We had the energy to put away some of the things from the event, but the sad (but not unexpected, given that he'd been fighting cancer) news out of Uma of the death of Ingemar, one of the founders of the shire who has been active there for 30 years, was enough to subdue our energy levels such that we didn't do the super-efficient put everything away already on Sunday, like we did for the last event.
We had hoped to head back down to Uma yesterday (Monday evening) for Ingemars Minnestund (Remembrance gathering) for the Shire, but mother nature didn't cooperate. Keldor left work early, so that we would have plenty of time for the drive down, but it was snowing and blowing so much that the 35 minute drive took him well more than an hour due to low visibility and slippery road conditions. We looked at the forcast for how much more snow was coming that evening and decided that it was better to stay home and light a candle in his memory than to risk our lives to gather with folk. This was probably a wise decision, and the storm has only increased--looking out my window I can see the neighbours house through the blowing snow, but beyond that is a grey wall. Keldor choose not to risk driving in to work today, and I am glad that he did.
I, however, work from home, so now it is time to close this and continue with my thesis writing--it is coming together, I have finally found an elegant way to summarise the LA-ICP-MS results for all the samples in a way that makes it easy to compare them, yet doesn't take too much space, so that section should be done today or tomorrow (I hope--it would be lovely to have time to go back and clean up everything and do basic editing after I have written everything that needs to be included, and before I have to submit it at the end of December).
We had a pleasant trip to the event, listening to a couple of chapters in a good audiobook (Nästan bara rara djur av James Herriot), and we had fun poking around in the Drachenwald OP looking up answers to questions about which Royals have made what types of Peers when. (With the main question: had any of the unbelted Kings done any Knightings? Which they can, in theory, do, if a knight is willing to do the actual dubbing.) I know that in the West Kingdom OP one can click on the list of Royals, and then click on a couple to see every award they have given, but I couldn't find that option on Drachenwald's page, so instead I would look up the dates of the couple, he would remember the number while I went over to the OP "show all ____ award" and scroll down to try to find folk with the right date range (which is hard as that list is only sorted alphabetically) I also tried the straight OP list, which is sorted by date, and scrolling down to the bestowed peerages, but that misses folks elevated who have also reigned as Prince, Princess, King or Queen, since they would be higher on the list. I wasn't exactly consistent which version I tried for which royal couples, so we could have missed someone, but we didn't find any examples of an unbelted King of Drachenwald doing a Knighting, but it did make for a fun while one drives research project, especially as it included him sharing stories about the names I was fining.
(The question came up as our current Crown Prince isn't a knight, and, assuming he isn't knighted at an event between now and 12th Night, he will be the first unbelted King of Drachenwald in quite a while. The knights have only just had their first two elevations since the pandemic this year, and now it feels like it has been long enough that if there are additional folk who have made that transition in their skill it should be visible to observers by now.)
We arrived on site Friday around 21:00, and were pleased to discover that we had a luxury bed--the site is a scout building, with lots of narrow bunks on the top floor, a middle floor with the main gathering space and a kitchen, and on the ground floor are the toilets, shower, and one more room with two single beds and a fold-out couch bed. The autocrat gave Keldor and I the couch bed, which turns out to be rather comfortable, but the convenience of not carrying our stuff up three flights of stairs, and of having the toilets on the same floor was a welcome treat. This is the first time I have been on that site and not slept on the top floor.
This year many of the locals choose to sleep at their own homes, so it was mostly those of us who traveled from other areas who were on site Friday night. I was tired and went to bed before midnight, but Keldor sat up talking till 3 or 4 in the morning.
The theme for the event this year was scrolls, so there were a number of good presentations on the topic.
His Highness Valdemar explained the process from his point of view: from receiving recommendations and what kind of information should be in them, both to help the royals decide that yes, they want to give the award, but also to help the scribe write text that is relevant to the person getting the award, especially if the assignment goes to someone who hasn't met the recipient. He explained why they like lots of lead-time for the recommendations, and really want to know what events the recipient will be at, so that they have time to make the decision, get the information to a scribe, give the scribe time to do the work, get the scroll to them, or to the event where it is needed, so that it can be given to the recipient.
Áskatla did a lovely talk about her approach to doing scrolls, how she likes to personalize them for the recipient, starting with choosing a time period and location that suits the persona of the recipient, and then looking for period examples that feature motifs that seem to fit the recipient. She pointed out that she is particularly fond of matching the style of the art with the specific calligraphy hand so that the result is as authentic as she can make it. Then she asked how many in the room would care if the scribe mixed and matched styles of art and calligraphy from different time periods (the general consensus was that most people are so happy to get a scroll that they are ok with pretty much any decisions the scribe and/or illuminator makes). She pointed out that the most important things is practice, practice, practice. Each new scroll she does has a different style than the one before, so she is careful to spend the time needed to train her hand into the motions needed to get the letters looking like they should. As a result, each scroll she does involves several weeks of practice and planning the layout, but, thanks to all the preparation work, she does the scroll itself fairly quickly.
The after lunch presentation was by Ermina, who took us on a lovely slide show showing a variety of different styles of calligraphy and illumination used through the centuries and across a variety of locations, and discussed their similarities and differences, how to find examples, and tips for how to make your own layout by mixing and matching elements from the surviving manuscripts and different approaches to doing so.
Topics of size and scale were also discussed during one or both lectures. During and between the talks people worked on their own projects--some practicing calligraphy, some doing sketching, and a few of us doing sewing or nålbinding instead, and there was a good mix of time for chatting, looking at what others were doing, and for listening to the talks.
Then it was time for evening court, where his highness presented a couple of well deserved scrolls, one Gyllendeband, done in a simple and elegant and beautiful style, the other a LjusOrden, done with elaborate, beautiful, super personalised portraiture of the recipient and the arts he does, and both were admired after court.
The feast was a pot-luck, which had a good mix of types of food available, and it seemed that everyone found plenty to eat, combined with much pleasant conversation. Later in the evening we sang a bit, and I wound up heading to bed around midnight, while others sat up talking at least a couple of hours more.
On Sunday we stayed on site and helped with cleaning (and more pleasant conversations) till it was nearly done, getting on the road at noon. We took Torunn with us as far as Umeå, which made the trip home very enjoyable, with lots of good conversation. Then we stopped by the shop that sells fish and pet supplies, where Keldor picked up a few new friends for his aquarium and we bought some treats for the cats, then we did some grocery shopping, and continued on northwards, getting home around 17:30.
We had the energy to put away some of the things from the event, but the sad (but not unexpected, given that he'd been fighting cancer) news out of Uma of the death of Ingemar, one of the founders of the shire who has been active there for 30 years, was enough to subdue our energy levels such that we didn't do the super-efficient put everything away already on Sunday, like we did for the last event.
We had hoped to head back down to Uma yesterday (Monday evening) for Ingemars Minnestund (Remembrance gathering) for the Shire, but mother nature didn't cooperate. Keldor left work early, so that we would have plenty of time for the drive down, but it was snowing and blowing so much that the 35 minute drive took him well more than an hour due to low visibility and slippery road conditions. We looked at the forcast for how much more snow was coming that evening and decided that it was better to stay home and light a candle in his memory than to risk our lives to gather with folk. This was probably a wise decision, and the storm has only increased--looking out my window I can see the neighbours house through the blowing snow, but beyond that is a grey wall. Keldor choose not to risk driving in to work today, and I am glad that he did.
I, however, work from home, so now it is time to close this and continue with my thesis writing--it is coming together, I have finally found an elegant way to summarise the LA-ICP-MS results for all the samples in a way that makes it easy to compare them, yet doesn't take too much space, so that section should be done today or tomorrow (I hope--it would be lovely to have time to go back and clean up everything and do basic editing after I have written everything that needs to be included, and before I have to submit it at the end of December).