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Norrskensfesten was such a fun event!
The week before the event things felt to be going so smoothly I kind of wondered what I hadn't thought of that should have been done. Friday morning I got up, did my morning exercises (my phone app thought that Friday was meant to be a rest day, but I knew I wouldn't make time for it Saturday or Sunday, so I clicked it done and then did the next day's workout), finished packing the last few things, loaded up the car with everything I personally needed for myself and/or the event, and C and I drove out to the site (pausing to pick up the key on the way there), where we unloaded everything, and then drove to the Frostheim storage shed (a four minute drive away) to pick up stuff there. Found boxes of candles and candle holders, some useful looking kitchen stuff, and a rope. No wall hangings or other decorations, and no useful "SCA that way" signs.
So we took the loot back to the hall, she took the car home to finish sewing on her nearly done project and pick up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar, the musical instruments, the uni student who needed a ride, and their event stuff. Then I went up stairs intending to put the breakfast food into the spare fridge. However, none of the keys on the ring would open the door to the upstairs room (which room costs extra to rent), so I called C and she came back for me, and we went back to where we picked up the keys, but they didn't know of another key, and gave us the phone number of the person responsible for the site.
Back to the site she tried every key in the upstairs door to confirm that it isn't just me, none of them work. Then she called the site guy for me and he said there should be one more key, and he would be there soon to unlock the door. Then she left and I set to work.
While waiting for him to show up I started by tying that rope across the back stage wall and pinning the now finished Norrskensbardsmantlen to it. The guy arrived around the time the banner was up, and he let me into the upstairs room. I looked at that fridge and decided it was a bit gross, so I carried the food back down stairs and put it into the second fridge there instead.
I took a bit of time to set up my sleeping area in the back stage room, posted the signs for quiet, noisy, and "warning the Autocrat's dawnlight will turn on in this room at 06:00" areas, then started cooking the evening meal.
Step one was to introduce the yeast to a bit of flour and hot water, then whip the cream till I had butter. Once the butter was removed from the buttermilk I added the buttermilk to the bread sponge along with more hot water, some oats, Grahame flour, dinkel (spelt) flour, and white wheat flour to make a large batch of bread dough.
Then I tossed several boxes of white beans into two very large soup pots, added water and started chopping veggies to toss into the pots. After a bit I divided the dough in half and flattened them out onto two cookie sheets, buttered the top with the store bought butter left over from baking the thank-you cookies, and popped it into the oven and went back to chopping veg. Somewhere in there my soon to be #1 apprentice and her husband arrived and went up stairs to rearrange the furniture to make that room a suitable quiet sleeping area.
The soup was done pretty much the same time as the bread was ready to come out of the oven, and only about thirty minutes after *I* wanted to be eating (so about perfect timing for the others who were arriving on site). We also had some "locally" produced sausage (from Jokkmokk) and cheese for those who wanted it. The soup mostly disappeared pretty quickly, but there was still a bit left for the later arrivals, and, as of when I went to start the bardic circle, there was still a decent sized chunk of bread left. The cheese and sausage, on the other hand, still had plenty remaining after that meal. That evening we got the tables arranged into a large horseshoe around the room, with plenty of space for dancing or bardic circle in the middle. I did not, however, make any attempt to take out the table clothes and start ironing them.
Friday evening I greeted each new arrival, ticked them off on the check in list, gave them their little wool bag site token and explained to them that the four coloured beans inside would be used for voting in the bardic competition the next day. Or rather, I did till the bardic circle started, then I sat and sang and listened to songs until one of the guys came to ask me to bake more bread as some new people had arrived and the bread was gone. So I did, and I think the bardic circle broke up when I left. The second two loaves of bread did the trick, and there was still a small chunk of it left when I got up at 5:45 to start cooking breakfast on Saturday.
So I ate the bit of left over bread for breakfast and started more bread and a huge pot of oatmeal, a lot of hard boiled eggs, and put out sliced cucumber, cheese, sausage, more home made butter, and raspberry jam.
It turns out I made way more oatmeal than we needed--many people on site, who had stayed up much later than I did, opted to sleep through breakfast and start their eating at 11:00 when the feast started. So I put the left overs in the fridge to be added to the next day's bread.
I managed to get the breakfast cooking stuff cleaned up and out of the way by the time that the feast cook and his assistant were ready to start for the day, and I started checking in the new arrivals (a fair few locals didn't sleep on site) and giving them their voting bags, in between chatting with people, answering questions, and working out last minute decisions with my Maser of Ceremonies about how the day should go, and which business would be best done in conjunction with which course of food.
Fairly early on the students arrived and asked to be put to work, so I gave them the box of table clothes and asked them to go onto the tables, and gave them the option of ironing them if they wanted. One of them said that she enjoys ironing, and she happily set to it, while the boys arranged the chairs around the tables and spread each table cloth as she finished it. Before they were done with that the guy who had the box of shire decorations arrived, so I gave them that too, and told them to put them up wherever they wanted. By the time they arrived the hall looked great, but I may be biased to think that the best part was the large cloak hanging on the wall at the back of the stage with the spotlight on it.
Then, in the last rush before the feast was to start it wasn't possible to check in the last few people, so instead during the words from the autocrat at the beginning I asked for a show of hands who didn't have their voting bags yet, and handed them out, without bothering to write down who they were.
Round one of the contest was the "period piece" performance. There were four of us competing (7 had originally signed up, but several had to withdraw for various reasons, and two weren't even able to attend at all). I performed the first bit of the Prologue to the Canturbury Tales, since I couldn't resist doing something in "English". Afterwards I found out that this was my most popular round, since I had the best stage presence that round.
Round two was the "piece in a period style", where I did my Winter-time filk of Sumer is a cumin in. I think that was also the round where I took my two new apprentices. The first is one we had decided on months ago, and this was the first event wherein we could make it public. The second I had only asked on Thursday, and she said yes straight away. Apprentice #2 plays clarinet, and she has a period instrument made mostly of olivewood that has a modern clarinet mouth piece. That instrument has the sweetest sound, and she used it for most of her entries—alternating playing with singing or reciting. I wound up voting for her for all of those rounds, because I love the sound of that instrument so much. When I was done the other laurel also took his apprentice—the husband of my apprentice #1.
After the third course of food there was a longer break and no contest round. Bu then the merchant had arrived, and he handed me the bag of loot I had pre-ordered to have thank-you gifts for people. During that break there was a brewer's guild meeting and I took time to take a short walk with a friend. I would have loved to have walked longer, but I thought it would be wise to be back in the hall in case I was needed.
When I walked in the door the local Knight was talking with some of the uni students, and I joined their circle. I said something kind of flirtatious to one of the guys (who is named Oscar), and the Knight promptly said something about inappropriate for a teacher, to which I replied "I am a laboratory technician, and he doesn't use my lab", to which the Knight replied "oh, outside your chain of command, ok then". A bit later something flirtatious was said to the other young man (Oskar), and the Knight said "What, are you trying to form a harem?". I replied that I would like that, and both boys promptly agreed to be my harem, so now I can point to the two of them and say "this is my harem, Osckar". They, of course, suggested that we find the third Oscar on site and get him to join, but he wasn't anywhere in sight just then. They also thought we should travel to Visby Medieval Week and see if we could get every Oskar there to join. I suspect that the title of "harem" may only be ceremonial, but if they were to ask nicely…
Third round (and round four of the feast) I did my Norra Nordmark song, and got the audience to sing along on the choruses, which made me happy, and I felt like it was my best yet, however, all of us did especially well that round, and as I stood in line to cast my ballot several people complained that they didn't have enough of the blue beans—they couldn't possibly vote for only one of us, they needed three more votes that round. I, myself, was so undecided as to which of us was the best that when I got to the front of the line I couldn't vote yet, and hand to return to the back of the queue to ponder more.
After that round the Master of Defence on site took his first Scholar (and the first Scholar to a Master of Defence in all Drachenwald). We had considered doing all of the student-taking in one go, but then decided that this one was special and deserved to be on its own.
The Luleå Nyckleharpa group, whom I had invited, also performed between two of the middle rounds, and they were every bit as wonderful as I had expected they would be. I think they had fun at the event, and I hope they attend more SCA events.
Fourth round was the three words out of a hat, and I drew "myrskog" (boggy forest), "Attenmark"(the name of the SCA branch in Skåne), and "gemenskap"companionship. I had planned to write in English, since it was agreed that we could write in any language we wanted, so long as we used the equivalent word. I had also thought it would be nice to try to set whatever words I got to the tune of Turdion, since I like that song, and can even play it on the dulcimer. Much to my surprise, I wound up writing in Swedish:
Genom myrskog ska de gå
Från Attenmark tills Frostheim.
Genom myrskog ska de gå tills Frostheim.
Långt är den vag,
De kommer för vår gemenskap.
Långt är den vag
för vår gemenskap.
Which means, very roughly:
They will walk through the boggy forest from Attenmark to Frostheim.
Through the boggy forest they will walk, to Frostheim.
Long is the road.
They come for our companionship.
Long is the road, for our companionship.
I didn't ask anyone's help, so all errors in grammar are totally my own. I was so pleased to be able to write a song, in Swedish, without help, in only 15 minutes, that I actually voted for myself that round. I don't care that it is really short, and probably not very good, I did it!
Then, after yet more food, I presented my thank-you gifts to everyone who helped with the cloak and the event, including the cloak cookies I had baked.
Finally the winner was announced and we other three put the cloak over her with proper fanfare. It was also announced that we each had a different "best round" according to the votes. I think we were all quite happy with how it went.
After the feast the Uni students did their fire show (outside!), which was quite good, and the visitor from Holmrike (Stockholm) read a letter from the Prince and Princess, who wanted to come, but couldn't make it work on such short notice (it has only been two weeks since they stepped up, and, in Nordmark, one steps up the same day one wins).
Then we did some dancing, to the live music of the Luleå Nyckleharpa group supplemented with some of our own musicians, including my apprentice #2, the contest winner, andlord_kjar, bringing the total to seven musicians! It was so easy to hear the music, and it was so beautiful. I could get used to dancing to live music, if they let me.
Finally, around midnight we did a skype call to a couple of Bards in An Tir, who did a workshop on bardic arts for us. They taught us a round, and we sang a couple of Swedish songs for them. It was a nice unusual thing to have happen, but I was getting really tired at that point. So I packed up the leftover food which was still out and put it in the fried, and left a note on the breakfast counter that people should eat the food in the fridge, and went to sleep after changing my dawn light from 06:00 to 08:30.
Sunday morning, as I was doing my normal situps before getting out of bed one of the guys came over to ask if there was going to be more fresh baked bread today. I asked if it was needed given how much food was left, and he said that he would like it. So I got up and churned more butter and baked more bread and put out all the leftovers to be eaten. Some things disappeared, but the ginger carrots, which had been served rather late in the day, were still in very generous supply by the time we started packing, so I took them home and converted some into a really yummy soup made with beans, left over mashed potato & pumpkin, tomato paste (we were out of crushed tomatoes), dried nettles, and spices. It is even better with a spoon full of homemade black-currant jam (no sugar save what grew in the berries) stirred in.
I really love the way SCA people pitch in and help. I spent Sunday either in the kitchen cooking, packing food, or doing some of the cleanup (with the help of others), or packing up my personal stuff. By the time my stuff was together and I was happy with the kitchen others had finished cleaning everything else in the building, and we were good to go. I was off site by 13:30!
Which meant I had time to go home, take a short nap, unpack most things, and still make it to Swedish folk dance that night.
Much to my surprise, after spending a weekend at a major feast, I weighed a full kilo less this morning than I had on Friday morning. Today's weight was 55.3 kg (about 121.9 lbs), which is the smallest number I have seen since purchasing the scale. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, while I ate something every round, I told the servers to only give me tiny bits of each item, since I didn't feel that hungry (except for the rice pudding with raisins and lingon berries--I had a normal size serving of that, yum!), and my total intake for each day was noticeably less by volume than I normally eat. I think I may have made up for it today though--it will be interesting to see what the scale says tomorrow.
So we took the loot back to the hall, she took the car home to finish sewing on her nearly done project and pick up
lord_kjar, the musical instruments, the uni student who needed a ride, and their event stuff. Then I went up stairs intending to put the breakfast food into the spare fridge. However, none of the keys on the ring would open the door to the upstairs room (which room costs extra to rent), so I called C and she came back for me, and we went back to where we picked up the keys, but they didn't know of another key, and gave us the phone number of the person responsible for the site.Back to the site she tried every key in the upstairs door to confirm that it isn't just me, none of them work. Then she called the site guy for me and he said there should be one more key, and he would be there soon to unlock the door. Then she left and I set to work.
While waiting for him to show up I started by tying that rope across the back stage wall and pinning the now finished Norrskensbardsmantlen to it. The guy arrived around the time the banner was up, and he let me into the upstairs room. I looked at that fridge and decided it was a bit gross, so I carried the food back down stairs and put it into the second fridge there instead.
I took a bit of time to set up my sleeping area in the back stage room, posted the signs for quiet, noisy, and "warning the Autocrat's dawnlight will turn on in this room at 06:00" areas, then started cooking the evening meal.
Step one was to introduce the yeast to a bit of flour and hot water, then whip the cream till I had butter. Once the butter was removed from the buttermilk I added the buttermilk to the bread sponge along with more hot water, some oats, Grahame flour, dinkel (spelt) flour, and white wheat flour to make a large batch of bread dough.
Then I tossed several boxes of white beans into two very large soup pots, added water and started chopping veggies to toss into the pots. After a bit I divided the dough in half and flattened them out onto two cookie sheets, buttered the top with the store bought butter left over from baking the thank-you cookies, and popped it into the oven and went back to chopping veg. Somewhere in there my soon to be #1 apprentice and her husband arrived and went up stairs to rearrange the furniture to make that room a suitable quiet sleeping area.
The soup was done pretty much the same time as the bread was ready to come out of the oven, and only about thirty minutes after *I* wanted to be eating (so about perfect timing for the others who were arriving on site). We also had some "locally" produced sausage (from Jokkmokk) and cheese for those who wanted it. The soup mostly disappeared pretty quickly, but there was still a bit left for the later arrivals, and, as of when I went to start the bardic circle, there was still a decent sized chunk of bread left. The cheese and sausage, on the other hand, still had plenty remaining after that meal. That evening we got the tables arranged into a large horseshoe around the room, with plenty of space for dancing or bardic circle in the middle. I did not, however, make any attempt to take out the table clothes and start ironing them.
Friday evening I greeted each new arrival, ticked them off on the check in list, gave them their little wool bag site token and explained to them that the four coloured beans inside would be used for voting in the bardic competition the next day. Or rather, I did till the bardic circle started, then I sat and sang and listened to songs until one of the guys came to ask me to bake more bread as some new people had arrived and the bread was gone. So I did, and I think the bardic circle broke up when I left. The second two loaves of bread did the trick, and there was still a small chunk of it left when I got up at 5:45 to start cooking breakfast on Saturday.
So I ate the bit of left over bread for breakfast and started more bread and a huge pot of oatmeal, a lot of hard boiled eggs, and put out sliced cucumber, cheese, sausage, more home made butter, and raspberry jam.
It turns out I made way more oatmeal than we needed--many people on site, who had stayed up much later than I did, opted to sleep through breakfast and start their eating at 11:00 when the feast started. So I put the left overs in the fridge to be added to the next day's bread.
I managed to get the breakfast cooking stuff cleaned up and out of the way by the time that the feast cook and his assistant were ready to start for the day, and I started checking in the new arrivals (a fair few locals didn't sleep on site) and giving them their voting bags, in between chatting with people, answering questions, and working out last minute decisions with my Maser of Ceremonies about how the day should go, and which business would be best done in conjunction with which course of food.
Fairly early on the students arrived and asked to be put to work, so I gave them the box of table clothes and asked them to go onto the tables, and gave them the option of ironing them if they wanted. One of them said that she enjoys ironing, and she happily set to it, while the boys arranged the chairs around the tables and spread each table cloth as she finished it. Before they were done with that the guy who had the box of shire decorations arrived, so I gave them that too, and told them to put them up wherever they wanted. By the time they arrived the hall looked great, but I may be biased to think that the best part was the large cloak hanging on the wall at the back of the stage with the spotlight on it.
Then, in the last rush before the feast was to start it wasn't possible to check in the last few people, so instead during the words from the autocrat at the beginning I asked for a show of hands who didn't have their voting bags yet, and handed them out, without bothering to write down who they were.
Round one of the contest was the "period piece" performance. There were four of us competing (7 had originally signed up, but several had to withdraw for various reasons, and two weren't even able to attend at all). I performed the first bit of the Prologue to the Canturbury Tales, since I couldn't resist doing something in "English". Afterwards I found out that this was my most popular round, since I had the best stage presence that round.
Round two was the "piece in a period style", where I did my Winter-time filk of Sumer is a cumin in. I think that was also the round where I took my two new apprentices. The first is one we had decided on months ago, and this was the first event wherein we could make it public. The second I had only asked on Thursday, and she said yes straight away. Apprentice #2 plays clarinet, and she has a period instrument made mostly of olivewood that has a modern clarinet mouth piece. That instrument has the sweetest sound, and she used it for most of her entries—alternating playing with singing or reciting. I wound up voting for her for all of those rounds, because I love the sound of that instrument so much. When I was done the other laurel also took his apprentice—the husband of my apprentice #1.
After the third course of food there was a longer break and no contest round. Bu then the merchant had arrived, and he handed me the bag of loot I had pre-ordered to have thank-you gifts for people. During that break there was a brewer's guild meeting and I took time to take a short walk with a friend. I would have loved to have walked longer, but I thought it would be wise to be back in the hall in case I was needed.
When I walked in the door the local Knight was talking with some of the uni students, and I joined their circle. I said something kind of flirtatious to one of the guys (who is named Oscar), and the Knight promptly said something about inappropriate for a teacher, to which I replied "I am a laboratory technician, and he doesn't use my lab", to which the Knight replied "oh, outside your chain of command, ok then". A bit later something flirtatious was said to the other young man (Oskar), and the Knight said "What, are you trying to form a harem?". I replied that I would like that, and both boys promptly agreed to be my harem, so now I can point to the two of them and say "this is my harem, Osckar". They, of course, suggested that we find the third Oscar on site and get him to join, but he wasn't anywhere in sight just then. They also thought we should travel to Visby Medieval Week and see if we could get every Oskar there to join. I suspect that the title of "harem" may only be ceremonial, but if they were to ask nicely…
Third round (and round four of the feast) I did my Norra Nordmark song, and got the audience to sing along on the choruses, which made me happy, and I felt like it was my best yet, however, all of us did especially well that round, and as I stood in line to cast my ballot several people complained that they didn't have enough of the blue beans—they couldn't possibly vote for only one of us, they needed three more votes that round. I, myself, was so undecided as to which of us was the best that when I got to the front of the line I couldn't vote yet, and hand to return to the back of the queue to ponder more.
After that round the Master of Defence on site took his first Scholar (and the first Scholar to a Master of Defence in all Drachenwald). We had considered doing all of the student-taking in one go, but then decided that this one was special and deserved to be on its own.
The Luleå Nyckleharpa group, whom I had invited, also performed between two of the middle rounds, and they were every bit as wonderful as I had expected they would be. I think they had fun at the event, and I hope they attend more SCA events.
Fourth round was the three words out of a hat, and I drew "myrskog" (boggy forest), "Attenmark"(the name of the SCA branch in Skåne), and "gemenskap"companionship. I had planned to write in English, since it was agreed that we could write in any language we wanted, so long as we used the equivalent word. I had also thought it would be nice to try to set whatever words I got to the tune of Turdion, since I like that song, and can even play it on the dulcimer. Much to my surprise, I wound up writing in Swedish:
Genom myrskog ska de gå
Från Attenmark tills Frostheim.
Genom myrskog ska de gå tills Frostheim.
Långt är den vag,
De kommer för vår gemenskap.
Långt är den vag
för vår gemenskap.
Which means, very roughly:
They will walk through the boggy forest from Attenmark to Frostheim.
Through the boggy forest they will walk, to Frostheim.
Long is the road.
They come for our companionship.
Long is the road, for our companionship.
I didn't ask anyone's help, so all errors in grammar are totally my own. I was so pleased to be able to write a song, in Swedish, without help, in only 15 minutes, that I actually voted for myself that round. I don't care that it is really short, and probably not very good, I did it!
Then, after yet more food, I presented my thank-you gifts to everyone who helped with the cloak and the event, including the cloak cookies I had baked.
Finally the winner was announced and we other three put the cloak over her with proper fanfare. It was also announced that we each had a different "best round" according to the votes. I think we were all quite happy with how it went.
After the feast the Uni students did their fire show (outside!), which was quite good, and the visitor from Holmrike (Stockholm) read a letter from the Prince and Princess, who wanted to come, but couldn't make it work on such short notice (it has only been two weeks since they stepped up, and, in Nordmark, one steps up the same day one wins).
Then we did some dancing, to the live music of the Luleå Nyckleharpa group supplemented with some of our own musicians, including my apprentice #2, the contest winner, and
lord_kjar, bringing the total to seven musicians! It was so easy to hear the music, and it was so beautiful. I could get used to dancing to live music, if they let me.Finally, around midnight we did a skype call to a couple of Bards in An Tir, who did a workshop on bardic arts for us. They taught us a round, and we sang a couple of Swedish songs for them. It was a nice unusual thing to have happen, but I was getting really tired at that point. So I packed up the leftover food which was still out and put it in the fried, and left a note on the breakfast counter that people should eat the food in the fridge, and went to sleep after changing my dawn light from 06:00 to 08:30.
Sunday morning, as I was doing my normal situps before getting out of bed one of the guys came over to ask if there was going to be more fresh baked bread today. I asked if it was needed given how much food was left, and he said that he would like it. So I got up and churned more butter and baked more bread and put out all the leftovers to be eaten. Some things disappeared, but the ginger carrots, which had been served rather late in the day, were still in very generous supply by the time we started packing, so I took them home and converted some into a really yummy soup made with beans, left over mashed potato & pumpkin, tomato paste (we were out of crushed tomatoes), dried nettles, and spices. It is even better with a spoon full of homemade black-currant jam (no sugar save what grew in the berries) stirred in.
I really love the way SCA people pitch in and help. I spent Sunday either in the kitchen cooking, packing food, or doing some of the cleanup (with the help of others), or packing up my personal stuff. By the time my stuff was together and I was happy with the kitchen others had finished cleaning everything else in the building, and we were good to go. I was off site by 13:30!
Which meant I had time to go home, take a short nap, unpack most things, and still make it to Swedish folk dance that night.
Much to my surprise, after spending a weekend at a major feast, I weighed a full kilo less this morning than I had on Friday morning. Today's weight was 55.3 kg (about 121.9 lbs), which is the smallest number I have seen since purchasing the scale. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, while I ate something every round, I told the servers to only give me tiny bits of each item, since I didn't feel that hungry (except for the rice pudding with raisins and lingon berries--I had a normal size serving of that, yum!), and my total intake for each day was noticeably less by volume than I normally eat. I think I may have made up for it today though--it will be interesting to see what the scale says tomorrow.