kareina

This weekend the shire of Reengarda hosted the Norrskensbardstävlingen (contest to choose the next "Bard of the Northern Lights"). This was the first time it has been held in this shire, but the sixth time that I was the one running the event. I have maintained a list of all of the entrants and winners, with photos, on the Frostheim web page for years, but now I also have a spreadsheet showing who entered or won each year. Therefore I now know that we have had a dozen people from the Trenneälver region enter, and two from outside the area. We have had 3 to 6 entrants each year, and most folk enter more than once, but I am the only one who has entered every year. (I am considering making myself a "still not Bard" T-shirt, to echo the "still not King" shirts I have seen some fighters wear)

The event was, as always, great fun. This year my beloved Keldor was the cook, and he's really big on running the kitchen as cheaply, with the best food, as he can possibly manage. Therefore spent hours in the forest picking chanterelle mushrooms to serve at both this event, and at Drachenwald Coronation in January (where he is also the head cook), saving us lots of money (apparently they sell for something like 500 SEK/kilo), and he obtained from a friend a couple of live roosters, which had had a happy life on a small farm, that he slaughtered himself for making Cocky Leeky.

On Wednesday before the event I discovered that not only do I not know where Reengarda's storage unit is, but neither does Keldor, since they moved to a new storage unit while we were in Norway this summer. Therefore I asked in the shire internal FB group if anyone knows where the shire banners and tablecloths are, and if anyone would be able to bring them to the event. It turns out that the storage is in the village of Kåge, a full 50 minutes drive north of where I live, but no one could remember if the banners and tablecloths were actually there, and no one else had time to head there and check before the event (and I get the impression that none of us who were planning to attend the event live anywhere near there, though I don't yet know where everyone lives).

I wouldn't have minded making the time to head there if I had been absolutely certain they were there, but it didn't seem worth spending the time and the cash for the desil for the car to fetch something that might not even be there, so we decided to make do with what we could bring from home, and what my friend Ursa could bring from hers (she had lots of white tablecloths and a few wall hangings, and we had all of the nicely painted metal shields that Keldor has made, plus the Norrskensbard wall hanging, my viking cloak, and lots of other wall hangings.) I was really happy with how the site looked after we decorated it. I never remembered to take any photos, but... Here are some photos (but no promise that they are publically viewable).

Friday I arrived on site around 15:00, unloaded the car, got food into the fridge, punched down the bread dough that had been rising all morning, spread it out to thin layers on baking pans, buttered them, put the pot of veg we'd chopped the day before onto the stove, with some canned beans and lots of water, turned the burner on under the pot and set the ovens preheating, and then started the hall decorating. Ursa and her partner arrived around the time I was ready to start decorating, and they pitched in. Not long thereafter Keldor arrived, so I left them to decorate, and I went to the kitchen to bake the bread, cut up the sausage to be served on the side, and had the dinner ready 17:20, so that people could eat as they arrived.

While we had 40 people registered, I think only about half of them were there on Friday evening, which meant that there was some left over bread to serve with breakfast on Saturday, and the last bit of soup went into the vegetable and beef "gryta" that was served during the banquete.

In addition to the normal settling in to site and catching up with friends the Brewer's guild had a meeting, and also judged the contest for the "most appropriate beverage for Oktoberfest". After that ended some people hung out and chatted in the hall, some went to the sauna, and some sat in the corner and sang songs (I joined the singing after my sauna--they hadn't started singing yet when I went to the sauna, or I might not have gone). I was tired, and knew that I had to get up to make breakfast in the morning, so I did my yoga as we sang, and went downstairs to bed just before 01:00

Saturday we served breakfast then Keldor drove home to check on the cats (a 35 minute drive, one way, if one obeys the speed limit) and I went up to the hall to rearrange the tables and set up for the banquette. Then I hurried downstairs and helped Hildegard and Bjarni get the food for the first course of the banquette ready ("finger foods": bread, cheese, sausage, carrot and cucumber, apples, pears, figs, dates, raisins, dried apricots, walnuts). That took longer than I had hoped, so we didn't sit down to eat till 11:30 (the schedule had been to start at 11:00, but given that folk were still getting dressed and ready when the last of the food went on the table, I don't think anyone minded the delay, especially as if anyone was hungry, they could nibble on the things we had already carried upstairs).

Then it was time for the contest. Sadly, my beloved apprentice Astrid, who has previously been Norrskensbard one time, wasn't able to attend at the last minute, so it was only Þórólfr Blót-Úlfsson, Dis Trumpetare, and myself entering. Gerdis had the help of her two dolls in medieval costumes to introduce the contest and us entrants, much to the delight of the crowd (last year, when she won the contest, they helped her sing the period ballad).

The first round is always the Period Piece. I chose Što j pa moru, a song I learned from Drago, who lives in the shire that they are trying to form in Ukraine. He performed it at the bardic at the virtual Kingdom University in 2020, and I liked it so much I asked him to teach it to me. It was written down in the 12th Century, unusually for the time/place, using Roman letters. Because the tune, in addition to being beautiful, is simple, I managed to learn to play it on the dulcimer (in the last couple of weeks), so I was able to play it a couple of times through, then sing (without playing), then play it again, and repeat the first verse one time. Meanwhile Bjarni stood nearby and displayed the Swedish subtitles I had prepared for each verse. I felt happy with my performance. I don't believe anyone recorded yesterday's performances, but you can hear a lovely version of this song here.

After I sat down Þórólfr worked some magic to get an invisible band to play a background music/beat as he did the Loketrätan as a Battle Rap. It worked very well.

Then Dis sang Cuncti simus concanentes, with her beautiful voice, inspiring many of us in the crowd to join in on the Ave Maria chorus bits.

We then had time to relax and hang out until the next round of food was served at 13:00 (vegetable and beef gryta, or just vegetable for us two vegetarians on site).

The second round of the contest is a piece in a period style.

Dis explained that she really liked the extra long medieval ballads, so her entry was to write 12 more verses to one of her favourite Swedish ballads. The crowd loved it.

Þórólfr read his poem, which the audience seemed to enjoy, and I did a children’s song I had written in Swedish.

Then more time to relax, play games, sit by the fire Alfarin had built outside, etc,

At 15:00 the third course of the feast was served, fried chanterelle on toast with egg and cheese, and salad on the side, followed by dancing, to the music of Gerdis’ violin. Much fun!

Then at 17:00 they served the Cocky Leeky, followed by...

The third round of the contest, the Bard’s choice round. Gerdis had decided on Praise poems/songs for this year’s theme. In all the past years, when I wrote a song, I used a period tune, and I haven’t yet won that cloak. Therefore, this year I decided to try filking a modern tune, using the “set up a rhyme, and then fail to deliver” approach, hoping that adding in a humour element might get me a few extra points. However, I didn’t mention that in my introduction, and I don’t know how many of the people in the room were fluent enough in English to know what words were missing. But it was really fun to write (and I didn’t dare try this type of word play in Swedish, I am much better, but I don’t feel that fluent), and fun to try to pack as many different things that he does and is appreciated for into one short song:


Sweet Keldor

There once was a Keldor, a smith of renown.
The ladies all loved it when he would go...
… lecture on smithing; and making a sword
he's forging and hamm’ring, its stiff as a...
… breeze that is blowing throughout his home land
a place that he nurtures; makes ever so...
… tasty by running a kitchen so fine
the strangest of dishes to try with some

…Sweet chanterelle,
frying in all the butter
cooking them for us at every feast
cooking us all of the sweet chanterelle

Now, when he’s not cooking, he’s helping us all
by building folk armour so that they can…
… look good on the field; enter in crown
At training the newbies he’s best in the…
… game, with a long sword and teaching the stance
says footwork is crucial, just as in…
… laughter and telling an extra tall tale
while sitting with folk enjoying some

…Sweet chanterelle,
frying in all the butter
cooking them for us at every feast
cooking us all of the sweet chanterelle

Now Keldor he fishes and travels around
he's hunting the forest, not making a…
…trail as he journeys; he's trying his luck
by meeting a dryad who just wants a…
…scroll he is painting, in colours so strong,
with skulls to enhance it; now I'll sing the…
…end of his tale, which just demonstrates
that Keldor has plenty to pile on our

…Sweet chanterelle,
frying in all the butter
cooking them for us at every feast
cooking us all of the sweet chanterelle



Þórólfr did a beautiful praise poem for Erik Knutsson Drake, and Dis also chose to filk a modern song—she opted to sing in praise of music itself and sang “Tackar för musiken” (to the tune of “Thanks for the music”), so I guess we were both going for the “make them laugh” approach that round.

The final round of food had been scheduled for 19:00, but the kitchen quit frying up the “plattar” (a thin stove-top pancake, not to be confused with pannkakor, which are oven baked, or so it is here in the north—people in southern Sweden use the terminology differently, and wars are fought over exactly what these two words mean). Because this weekend happened to be Anja’s 15th birthday, the kitchen stacked the plattar with layers of jam between, and then covered them with whipped cream, to make pretty cakes. One large gluten and lactose free one, one large one made from wheat flour, and one small one, with a candle on top, for the birthday girl. Of course we sang for her, followed by...

The Fourth Round of the contest: draw three words (each) out of the hat. Or, since we forgot to bring the hat (twice, I forgot it when I loaded the car, and Keldor forgot it when he went home to feed the cats), the bag. So they called Þórólfr up and he drew out his first word. Flagstångsknapp. He groaned, since he has drawn that word out of the hat twice before. He drew his next word, which was in harder to read handwriting, he turned it around a couple of times, squinted at it, and finally deciphered it. Flagstångsknapp. He groaned. The audience (half of whom were in on the joke) laughed. He tried again. Flagstångsknapp. Again. Flagstångsknapp. Again Flagstångsknapp. At this point Ranghild, holding the bag he was drawing from, looked down at the bag and exclaimed that, oops, this is the wrong bag, and tossed it aside, and handed him the correct bag, and Dis and I were called forward, so that we could all three take turns drawing words (and the audience laughed, and laughed, and laughed. After we three had taken our words and stepped aside for our 15 minutes of rapid writing a handful of folk from the audience came up and took three words for themselves to have a go, too.

My words were pestdoktor, bröd, and bard (plague doctor, bread, and bard). Pestdoktor being multi-syllabic, I grabbed the tune Turdion, which I have used more than once, because I like it, and it is a fun tune into which to squeeze long words, and started writing. I decided to be silly, and started with the first line and a half of a popular Swedish version of that song, and then took a sharp turn and took it a whole other direction:

Dricka vill jag nätt och dag
för vännen som jag minns och
… oj nej! Jag vill helst ha bröd!

Ge mig mumsig mat
istället för din alkohol.

Ni som dricker öl och vin
Vantar bara för en pestdoktor

Men vi som dricka vatten
ska leva länge.

Vi som sjunga nu idag
tävlar för den vackra manteln

En av oss som sjunga
ska bli din bard

Dis also chose to do a funny filk of the popular SCA/Lavj song Harald har konstiga vanor in praise of Gerdis “Barden har så sena vanor” (the bard has late habits, in reference to the fact that she tends to stay up very late at events), and Þórólfr did a lovely poem (he writes well, and quickly—he didn’t start writing for this weekend until the day before, in part because he has been super busy, but in part because he knows he can).

Then everyone else who had drawn words came up and did their performances, I think 5 or 6 people total, all of whom did a great job.

Then the bard slipped out to count the votes, meanwhile...

The court of Baron Gilbert, of Aarnimetsä, opened. (He, being the only landed noble on site, we asked the Prince and Princess of Nordmark if it was ok that he hold court on their behalf. They replied something along the lines of“yes, that will be a great exchange for that time we held court on your behalf when the plague prevented you from doing so” . He thanked us for the event, gave the prize to Viriyyfa av Reengarda for her Extra stora extra peppriga, turkiskpeppersnaps as the "most appropriate beverage for Oktoberfest" (because it warms your throat), called the kitchen crew forward to give a special prize to Ragnhild for her 3 words out of a hat (since the kitchen had missed all the other rounds of the contest, and saw only the final one, it was fitting that they should choose the winner from the audience members who also did the Three Words out of a Hat round. Then he called me forward, and I took Bjarni as an apprentice (they are fairly new to the SCA—having planned to join around the time the pandemic hit, and having only been to this event and Reengarda’s Medieval days this summer so far, but they are super enthusiastic and asked me to be their laurel, and I couldn’t refuse, because I adore them). While I was up there, I took a moment to thank everyone for attending and helping out, and for all the help they would do later that evening and in the morning helping to ensure we left the site cleaner than we found it. Gilbert also had tokens for those people who are new enough they haven’t yet been to a court, and for the half a dozen children on site (they got bookmarks, which have a Medieval spell to prevent book thieves written on them), and then Gerdis came back in and announced Dis as the new Norrskensbard. This is sort of the second time Dis has won—the first time she was one of the trio who entered, and won, together, which means that she is the only person to have won every time she entered, even though she has only done it one and one-third times. I am looking forward to seeing her serve as Bard in her own right, instead as one of a trio.

After court the party started, and a bunch of us sat in the corner and sang together late into the night. I would have loved to stay up all night singing, but I was so tired that I caught myself waking up three different times as we sung Herr Mannelig, even though I never stopped singing along (note, we sing that song a little faster here in Norrland than they do in that recording, but it has English translation, so it seemed to be a good version to link to). Therefore, I wound up heading to bed just before Midnight (which felt much later).

Sunday
We had set an 08:00 alarm, since breakfast was on the schedule for 09:00, but we woke early, so Keldor went to start setting out breakfast, and I packed our things up and loaded the car. Then I went to get breakfast at 8:15, and the room was already full of people enjoying their morning meal and conversation. Then I went up to start taking down the decorations in the banquette hall, and when that was done, I went to the kitchen to start packing up my things, and packing up the leftover food. There were already a couple of people hard at work cleaning, so I could focus on packing. I got all of my stuff into the car by 10:00 (which is when cleaning the hall had been scheduled to start), and then helped with the final cleaning of the kitchen. By 11:00 the site was spotless and we were ready to leave. Cleaning after an SCA event is always efficient, but I think this was the record time that I have witnessed. We have some amazing folk up here.

I had a wonderful time, and have already posted a pretty extensive thank you list in Swedish (though I don’t know who did all the cleaning in the parts of the building I wasn’t in just then).

I really look forward to attending Kingdom University next weekend, and to Drachenwald Coronation up here in January, and I have already had some thoughts as to what songs to write for next year’s contest!

As always, I loved the event, but then I am the target market: a feast that is served during the day, when I am hungry, plus plenty of music and singing and dancing, and classes on the above.

While I had been doing event prep for months, of course, the serious pre-event stuff started on the Saturday before, when I went out to Frostheim storage to pick up things like tablecloths, candles, the big cooking pots, etc. That gave me a few days to organize the boxes I had picked up into "don't actually need for the event", and "will take to the event" piles (though I confess that I didn't make the best use of that time, and didn't actually get to that till Thursday).

On Wednesday before the event Cajsa and I went grocery shopping. First we went through the store once and bought everything on my shopping list--the stuff for Friday dinner and breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.While we bought rather a lot, it was a fairly easy process, since I had organized my list based on where the items are in the store. Then we paid, took the banana boxes full of food to the car, and went back in to do the feast shopping. Our cook was coming over from Finland for the event, and we thought it would be easier if most of the food was purchased in Sweden. The second trip was a bit harder, since he had organized his list based on which course each item was needed for, and I hadn't had time to re-order the list before shopping, so we wound up running back and forth in the store a fair bit, plus there were a few times of "did he mean...?", but eventually we had everything that we could get on that day, and we had ordered the lamb and bread to be picked up on Friday morning (luckily, Cajsa was willing to do that, so I didn't have to).

I spent most of Thursday packing and organizing my own stuff for the event (I had planned to do that earlier in the week, but kept spending my evenings at the computer taking care of other event related tasks, like sending out the welcome letter, replying to emails, creating pdfs of the schedule, menu, etc. to be printed before the event, etc.), so now I am even further behind on work than I was after doing the application for that second phd program. Good thing that doesn't officially start till January, so there is a chance to get my hours caught up before then.

Friday morning I picked up Astrid, my lovely apprentice and outgoing Norrskensbard, at 11:00 and we went out to site. She helped me unload the car and get food into the fridge and then she went for a much-needed nap while I made my bed, and one for the lovely Kaarina, who flew up from Finland to enjoy the event and teach classes on music/singing/research. Once I had my stuff together I went to the hall and organized the Frostheim stuff so that things would be easy to find, and then started cooking.

Just as with last year the Friday dinner consisted of fresh made butter (using an electric mixer and some ecological cream), fresh baked bread using the fresh butter milk, a vegan soup containing fresh yellow beets, kålrot, carrot, kale, parsnip, leek, garlic, frozen spinach, and canned mixed beans, some Jokkmokkskorv (a popular local sausage), and some cheese. I managed to get it all done and served by 17:30. While I was working other people started trickling in, and the Seneschal arrived and took charge of signing people in, ironing tablecloths, and decorating the hall.

Friday evening saw the workshops on sources for period music and songs, nyckleharpa, and drinking songs, followed by some dancing. I didn't manage to sit through all of the workshops, but I did hear parts of each of them, and, of course, participated in all of the dancing (and did some of the dance teaching). There were so many people to visit with that I would have happily have stayed up really late talking, but since I knew that I was the one cooking breakfast in the morning I did my yoga around 12:30, and was in bed by 01:30.

Saturday I got up at 05:40 and went to unlock the kitchen to start breakfast. Soon thereafter I was joined by my friend Aron, who found the room a bit too stuffy to sleep longer, and he helped me with cooking the eggs and slicing sausage and cucumber while I got the oatmeal cooking in the rice cooker and made the butter and fresh bread. We managed to get everything else out by 07:15, which was the advertized breakfast start time, but the bread wasn't ready till closer to 08:00 (which got me a complaint from a fighter, who had wanted some of the fresh bread, but by that time he needed to be in armour already).

After getting the kitchen cleaned up after breakfast I was able to spend a little time listening to parts of the morning workshops (analyzing a period style, and period songs and modes) in between doing other event set up tasks and claiming seats at the table at the top of the horseshoe of tables for myself, the Norrskensbard, the workshop teachers, and their guests. I didn't get to see any of the tournament, since I was too busy to head outside, but I think the fighters enjoyed it.

The feast started at 10:30, with a very simple and light first course (the cook was thinking it was so soon after breakfast that we wouldn't need more, but the fighters, at least, would have liked something a bit more hearty), after which the first round of the archery contest started. While the archers were on their "hunting trail" shooting at 3D life like models of animals and an armoured fighter, I got the bardic all set up and ready for the contest. Since the hall is an actual church chapel (the property belongs to the Church of Sweden, and is used for church summer camps etc when they aren't renting it out to other groups) I moved aside the alter and hung a newly-painted Norrskensbard themed wall hanging over the cross., I got the voting beans into ceramic (period style) cups next to the door, and put the voting beakers (covered with Old-English font printed names of the entrants) on the mantle of the fireplace.

The second course was scheduled for 12:30, but was served around a half an hour late due to time needed to get everyone, but especially the archers, back into the hall. After that course everyone walked across the lawn to the chapel, where we held the Norrskensbard competition. The contest opened with a performance of a period Swedish marching tune, played by Astrid, the outgoing bard, and two of her friends who are part of the same orchestra. Then we did round 1: the period piece. She had us come up in the order we happened to sit down in. Gerdis performed a hymn, Kjartan played the music for the La Belle Qui Tien ma Vie, I sang five verses of Bacche Bene Venies (and got the audience to join me on the chorus, since I had helpfully provided documentation and lyrics for all of my pieces), and Þórólfr did a poem, the source of which I didn't catch. Then we did the voting and everyone sat back down for round 2: the piece in a period style. She had us go in the same order, Gerdis performed a very funny song, done with full theater/pantomime about her drunken adventures on a typical Saturday night, set to music from a hymn that had the audience nearly constantly laughing. Kjartan played the bransle music he composed, I performed my sestina, and Þórólfr either did another poem, or sang a song (I forget which was this round and which was next). Then we did the voting and everyone returned to the main hall.

The third course was scheduled for 14:30, and again was about 30 minutes behind schedule (these numbers based on my entries to my food log for the day--I didn't actually notice the time on the day, but when I do a log entry in my phone it records the time so I don't have to). After this course, since the sun had set (but it wasn't yet full dark), the archers went outside to do their second contest round: the fire arrows! (I hope that link works--the video is 360 degrees, so one can watch it from a variety of different directions and see the arrows as they take off, as they fly, and as they land, depending on which direction one looks). Sadly, by that time I was too sleepy to go outside and see the shoot in person, but instead lay down on the couch for a short nap, which made it possible to keep going for the rest of the day. Therefore I am delighted that there is such a cool video of what I missed.

The fourth course was scheduled for 16:30 (and I ate at 16:58), after which we returned to the chapel for the third round of the bardic contest: Drinking Songs. This time she had us perform in the opposite order, so Þórólfr did his song or poem (see above about my confusion on order of these two) on the topic of mead, I sang my song in praise of my favourite drink: water, Kjartan sang a song about his "dream drink", and accompanied himself on the nyckleharpa (the tune he used was Greensleves), and Gerdis performed another funny song, set to music from a hymn (she had a theme going) about how the wine always wins. This time when Astrid sent us to vote she told us to vote for our favourite drink: mead, water, dream drink, or "wine, which always wins in the end". I have no idea if this influenced people to vote for Gerdis or not.

Then we returned to the hall for the fifth course, desert, which was scheduled for 18:30, but, of course, I was no longer hungry that late, so I didn't eat any, and thus have no idea if it was early, late, or on time. After desert was served Astrid brought forth the hat with all the words in it (everyone was instructed to put three words into the had when they checked in for the event). First we four competitors drew our words, and then she called everyone else who wanted to participate to come draw words. This is the third year in the row we have done this contest. Each time we have asked the audience if they also wanted to draw words, and the first two years no one did. Much to my delight we had another 6 or 7 people come up and draw words this time! My three words were ensam (alone), ormtunga (worm-tongue), and ᚠᚾᛒᚢᛚᛟᚢᛋ. So, of course I had to call to the room to find someone who reads runes to tell me what the last word was. It being an SCA event I got a volunteer for that straight away, and *not* the guy who had written it. He pronounced the word for me as "fabulous", and a quick consultation with the Sv-En dictionary on my phone confirms that the same word exists in Swedish, only spelled fabulös. These words looked to me like a fairy-tale sort of story, so I wrote one in my 15 minutes:

Jag ska berätta en fabulös saga om en ensam eremit som bodde i en mörk skog. Hon hade undvikit alla människor efter en falskt ormtunga man övertalade kungen att ge sig i krig. Kriget gick som krigen brukar gå, och alla unga karlarna i landet miste livet. Eremit visste att ingen kunde få dem att komma tillbaka och hon hade tagit sig djup inne skogen. Men, en vacker dag hittat hon en grind some gått till ett nytt land. I nytt land var det manga unga karlar så eremit var inte ensam mer.

Perhaps not the best fairy tale, ever, but I wasted part of my time looking up the correct endings for the words in my other favourite Swedish language app.

All of the three words from a hat poems and songs were well received by the audience, though I couldn't understand every word of all of them myself. (While much better in Swedish these days, I still am much better at reading than I am understanding what I hear.)

Then there was a pause while Astrid counted the votes from the final round, then she presented the hood to Magnus, the new Norrskensbågskytt, and the cloak to Gerdis, the new Norrskensbard. Gerdis pointed out that it was necessary for her to win the cloak again (she was also the first Norrskensbard), because she had been supposed to embroider a label for the inside of the cloak showing the names of the people who had been Norrskensbard, but she hadn't gotten to it yet, and now she has a year to get her name on there, followed by Astrids, followed by hers again.

After the prizes were awarded we did some dancing, some people went out to the sauna and/or hot tub, and I joined the bardic circle, where we sang mostly period tunes for quite a while before switching to include some songs from other sources. Late in the evening we sang Euskefeurat's "Det är hit man kommer när man kommer hem", which got a few people to tear up a bit, but I cried quite a bit. I had been talking with a couple of the ladies from Finland between dancing and singing about just how many times I have moved over the years, and somehow, the chorus, which translates to "it is here one comes when one comes home" really hit me hard this time--the sense that I have never really had a home before, but I do now, and it is, in fact, here. (To be fair, I have had a home in the SCA ever since I was 15, but Norrbotten is my home in the modern world, too.)

When singing started winding down I did my yoga, around 23:00, still singing along, of course, and wandered off to bed around 02:00, since I had to get up to cook Sunday's breakfast.

Since there was no tournament with armour inspection at dawn, breakfast wasn't scheduled till 08:00, which meant I could sleep in till 07:00, which I did. After cooking breakfast (and eating some), I worked on cleaning the kitchen and packing up everything that needed to go home while others cleaned other parts of the site and came and reported to me what they had accomplished. By 11:30, when I sat down to have a bowl of soup for lunch with some friends who were just having breakfast (as they had stayed up way later than I), most folk had already left, and much of the site was returned to order. Even so, it took me till 14:30 before I finished packing up all of the Frostheim stuff, my personal stuff, and cleaned the floors in the main hall and could go home. I was grateful that H, I, and T were willing to stay till I was ready to go, despite the fact that they had to drive back to Umeå after (about three hours south), as that meant I wasn't alone for the last bit.

Once home I only put away the food, and relaxed for a bit (and admired the progress David had made digging down the last of the internet cable to the house, which is why he couldn't stay with me on site) before heading out to Swedish folk dance. Everyone there was surprised I made it, but I couldn't not go. Granted, I only managed to stay for about 45 minutes before I decided it would be smart to go home, do my yoga, and go to sleep...

This past weekend was Norrskensfesten, Frostheim's annual big event, and it was the second annual Norrskensbard competition. I was the autocrat again this year, and again used the format inspired by the Mists Bardic Competition event, with an all day feast interspersed with bardic competition rounds and other entertainment.

I had originally planned to head to site around mid-day on Friday, so I would have time to do a liesurily set-up and cooking dinner, and then would have time after people arrived to do things like sew the new Norrsken tablet-woven band onto the Norrskensbards cloak. However, the car we bought this summer for carrying stuff to SCA events had been showing a warning light and not sounding quite right, so we have been avoiding moving it till it could be looked at, and we booked an appointment with the shop he has been using for many years. However, the shop has been quite busy, and the earliest appointment we were able to get was for Thursday before the event. Then, during that week they called us to say that some other repairs had gone way over time and offset their schedule, so they had called in a favour with another shop and transferred our booking to them for the same time. This turned out to be a good thing, as the other shop is only a 20 minute walk from my office, so I was able to bring the car in and then just walk to work (the original shop is a 20 minute drive from my office, which means taking two cars and driving one back).

Thursday afternoon they called to say they had found the problem, that they had one of the needed parts in house, but the other wouldn't arrive till the following morning, but they still hoped to be done with the job by noon on Friday. Thursday evening was Frostheim's craft night, during which I helped one of our new guys sew together the costume we had cut out the previous week (he drove the machine, I pinned the pieces together and handed them ready to sew). Then O. and I stayed up later than we should have talking, as we hadn't had a chance to do so earlier in the week, after which I got like four hours of sleep and he went home to do some school work, because he was inspired to do so.

Friday morning I got up and finished the last of the packing and had everything ready to go by the time my friend Å. arrived at mid-day (he picked up O. on the way in, since O. had just missed his bus. Then we took Å's car to the shop, where I picked up my car, returned home, and the three of us loaded everything up into both cars (which meant that I could see out of the back window a bit). Then, after a quick second lunch, I went straight to site, and the boys went to fetch V. and L.

This gave me time to unload all of my stuff, set up my nest in the corner back-stage with a movable shelf to enclose my space and organize my stuff, get the foods out, and start work on dinner before the second car arrived. Then I whipped the cream into butter, used the butter milk to make reiska (a fairly quick flat-baked Finnish bread that, these days, is often done with baking powder in either oat or rye flour, but my grandmother always did it with yeast, and often mixed the oats with wheat flour--I opted for a mix of four grains (wheat, spelt, rye, and oat) for this weekend's version), and put L., R., and A. (who had arrived just after Å.'s car full) to work making the soup. By the time we had people looking for food the soup (veg and bean) was ready, the bread baked and the sausage cut up. It was a bit later than I would have preferred to have eaten (18:30), but everyone else was happy. After I ate I made a second batch of bread, as the first was going fast.

Once I had eaten and gotten the kitchen clean and ready for H. to start his pre-cooking for the feast I had thought to start sewing the trim onto the cloak, but instead I never really got a chance to sit down the rest of the evening, as people kept coming to me with questions. The fencers had a candle lit fencing tournament in the hall, the hot tub was enjoyed by some people, others worked on projects, and/or sang songs. As it got close to midnight a couple of the musicians started playing Swedish folk music, so I, and the girlfriend of one of them, danced for a while, neither of us caring that the music and dance style is a few centuries out of period, it is still fun. Then I did my yoga for the day, followed by some acroyoga practice with E., and managed to get to bed around 01:00. By then I was totally exhausted, yet had problems falling asleep as my legs were aching/cramping up a bit, since I had been on my feet pretty much non stop (other than the yoga and acroyoga poses in which my feet leave the ground) since arriving on site sometime after 15:00. O., on the other hand, opted to stay up late talking with people, and didn't join me in bed till around 04:00, and he reports that he couldn't really sleep either, as he found the bed both too warm and too small.

I got up at 06:30 on Saturday, so I would have time to do my morning situps before getting up and starting breakfast, which involved more fresh-churned butter and reiska, hard-boiled eggs, oatmeal, apples, etc. I managed to get the breakfast mess in the kitchen cleaned up before H. arrived to start the feast cooking. Around that time the fighters went outside to do their morning tournamnet, and we started setting up tables in the hall for the feast. Before the tournament the Crown Prince told me that he intended to keep fighting for as long as he could talk people into playing with him after the tourney, so if he wasn't ready yet when the feast started we should start without him. So we did.

The hall we were using is decent sized, and there was no problems last year just setting the tables in a horse-shoe ring around the edge of the hall leaving an open place in the middle for dancing and performances. However, last year there were only 70 people registered for the event, and this year we were 100. Therefore, in order to keep that open space in the middle I placed three tables on the stage for high table. Their Royal Highnesses and the outgoing Norrskensbard sat in the middle table, and we six competitors sat on the two side tables. My household was well represented at high table. My table included me, my apprentice A., and lord_kjar, and my minion sat at the other table with the other two entrants (and the small son of one of them, since his wife had charge of their other child at one of the tables on the floor).

The sequence of events went: serve the food, slight pause to give everyone a chance to at least taste their food, then a round of the competition, followed immediately by a long-dance (farendole style), which lead the dancers to the voting station. Each entrant had a glass jar covered with paper and their name written on it, and after each round people would drop one of the beans they had received when they checked in into the jar of their choice (the gold bean was for round 1: period piece, the silver for round 2: piece in a period style, the blue bean for round 3: on the theme of nature, and the white bean for the three words out of a hat). After voting there was a short break before the next round of food. This pattern was for the first, second, fourth, and fifth courses of the banquet. To break the day up after third course we had a performance by the musician of Luleå Nycklehearpa plus all the other musicians on site who were able to join in on the songs, during which I called dancing. We hadn't taken any time to teach, just jumped in, and even though there were a few people who didn't already know the dances, it went really well. After that musical interlude their Royal Highnesses had a short court, where they distributed the scrolls that hadn't made it north when the Crown was up here this summer presenting awards, and they also gave tokens of welcome to the new members. I was grateful for that break, as I actually wound up drifting on the edge of sleep during the court, which gave me enough energy to continue participating in the competition.

I was really happy with the competition--it seemed like all six of us were better prepared than were the four of us who entered last year, and the overall quality of performances was better. I got some good feedback on my poems and presentation, and my wonderful apprentice Astrid won, which made me very proud. (There was an additional proud moment when it was revealed that each of the four rounds had a different winner, and the winners were the four of us in the contest from my household, especially as one of the other entrants has an amazing voice and is able to do Kulning (the distinctive loud, musical, calls women did to call the cows home).

For my period piece I opted to just play Turdion on the dulcimer, since I could do that, and I ran out of time to actually learn the 12th century sestina I had hoped to use. For my piece in a period style I used the Prolouge to the Canturbury tales (my last-year's period piece) as the inspiration for a Prologue to Double Wars poem. This was the round I won, which didn't surprise me, as I had won the period piece the year before. My singing is now passable, after years of singing in choir, but it isn't impressive. On the other hand, compared to the other entrants, I am better at recitation, with good projecting, vocal variety, body language, etc. My piece on the theme of nature was my song "Winter time it has arrived" (to the tune of Summer is acumin in), which would have gone better if I had made more time to learn the new verse I wrote the week before the event, since I forgot a line and needed to pause and start that bit over. My three words out of a hat were ever so much fun. Before we drew our words the Crown Prince had commented to me "none of the words will be shorter than 'trebuchet'". So, of course, I had to use it.

I had planned to do a song for my 3 words piece, and had chosen Bacche, bene, venies as the tune to use. However, I wound up drawing Bacchus as one of my three words, and just couldn't bring myself to use that tune, as it would have felt like cheating. Though, in hind sight, I suppose I could have just written a new verse and used the original chorus, but at the time it seemed unacceptable to do that. So, instead, I wrote a quick, very silly, story in iambic pentameter (these things happen when that is the form one used for one's piece in a period style), using as many odd words as I could toss in (including trebuchet), so that people would have it harder to guess the three words.

Towards the end of the feast E. and I did our acroyoga performance. We opted for only a slight variation on previous acroyoga performances, due to pretty much no time to plan or practice before the event, but stil got some good feedback, and at least two different Phire members commented to me about liking the fact that we added in some new stuff, so, clearly, doing the changes was a good thing.

After the feast there was a workshop in playing the Finnish This past weekend was Norrskensfesten, Frostheim's annual big event, and it was the second annual Norrskensbard competition. I was the autocrat again this year, and again used the format inspired by the Mists Bardic Competition event, with an all day feast interspersed with bardic competition rounds and other entertainment.

I had originally planned to head to site around mid-day on Friday, so I would have time to do a liesurily set-up and cooking dinner, and then would have time after people arrived to do things like sew the new Norrsken tablet-woven band onto the Norrskensbards cloak. However, the car we bought this summer for carrying stuff to SCA events had been showing a warning light and not sounding quite right, so we have been avoiding moving it till it could be looked at, and we booked an appointment with the shop he has been using for many years. However, the shop has been quite busy, and the earliest appointment we were able to get was for Thursday before the event. Then, during that week they called us to say that some other repairs had gone way over time and offset their schedule, so they had called in a favour with another shop and transferred our booking to them for the same time. This turned out to be a good thing, as the other shop is only a 20 minute walk from my office, so I was able to bring the car in and then just walk to work (the original shop is a 20 minute drive from my office, which means taking two cars and driving one back).

Thursday afternoon they called to say they had found the problem, that they had one of the needed parts in house, but the other wouldn't arrive till the following morning, but they still hoped to be done with the job by noon on Friday. Thursday evening was Frostheim's craft night, during which I helped one of our new guys sew together the costume we had cut out the previous week (he drove the machine, I pinned the pieces together and handed them ready to sew). Then O. and I stayed up later than we should have talking, as we hadn't had a chance to do so earlier in the week, after which I got like four hours of sleep and he went home to do some school work, because he was inspired to do so.

Friday morning I got up and finished the last of the packing and had everything ready to go by the time my friend Å. arrived at mid-day (he picked up O. on the way in, since O. had just missed his bus. Then we took Å's car to the shop, where I picked up my car, returned home, and the three of us loaded everything up into both cars (which meant that I could see out of the back window a bit). Then, after a quick second lunch, I went straight to site, and the boys went to fetch V. and L.

This gave me time to unload all of my stuff, set up my nest in the corner back-stage with a movable shelf to enclose my space and organize my stuff, get the foods out, and start work on dinner before the second car arrived. Then I whipped the cream into butter, used the butter milk to make reiska (a fairly quick flat-baked Finnish bread that, these days, is often done with baking powder in either oat or rye flour, but my grandmother always did it with yeast, and often mixed the oats with wheat flour--I opted for a mix of four grains (wheat, spelt, rye, and oat) for this weekend's version), and put L., R., and A. (who had arrived just after Å.'s car full) to work making the soup. By the time we had people looking for food the soup (veg and bean) was ready, the bread baked and the sausage cut up. It was a bit later than I would have preferred to have eaten (18:30), but everyone else was happy. After I ate I made a second batch of bread, as the first was going fast.

Once I had eaten and gotten the kitchen clean and ready for H. to start his pre-cooking for the feast I had thought to start sewing the trim onto the cloak, but instead I never really got a chance to sit down the rest of the evening, as people kept coming to me with questions. The fencers had a candle lit fencing tournament in the hall, the hot tub was enjoyed by some people, others worked on projects, and/or sang songs. As it got close to midnight a couple of the musicians started playing Swedish folk music, so I, and the girlfriend of one of them, danced for a while, neither of us caring that the music and dance style is a few centuries out of period, it is still fun. Then I did my yoga for the day, followed by some acroyoga practice with E., and managed to get to bed around 01:00. By then I was totally exhausted, yet had problems falling asleep as my legs were aching/cramping up a bit, since I had been on my feet pretty much non stop (other than the yoga and acroyoga poses in which my feet leave the ground) since arriving on site sometime after 15:00. O., on the other hand, opted to stay up late talking with people, and didn't join me in bed till around 04:00, and he reports that he couldn't really sleep either, as he found the bed both too warm and too small.

I got up at 06:30 on Saturday, so I would have time to do my morning situps before getting up and starting breakfast, which involved more fresh-churned butter and reiska, hard-boiled eggs, oatmeal, apples, etc. I managed to get the breakfast mess in the kitchen cleaned up before H. arrived to start the feast cooking. Around that time the fighters went outside to do their morning tournamnet, and we started setting up tables in the hall for the feast. Before the tournament the Crown Prince told me that he intended to keep fighting for as long as he could talk people into playing with him after the tourney, so if he wasn't ready yet when the feast started we should start without him. So we did.

The hall we were using is decent sized, and there was no problems last year just setting the tables in a horse-shoe ring around the edge of the hall leaving an open place in the middle for dancing and performances. However, last year there were only 70 people registered for the event, and this year we were 100. Therefore, in order to keep that open space in the middle I placed three tables on the stage for high table. Their Royal Highnesses and the outgoing Norrskensbard sat in the middle table, and we six competitors sat on the two side tables. My household was well represented at high table. My table included me, my apprentice A., and lord_kjar, and my minion sat at the other table with the other two entrants (and the small son of one of them, since his wife had charge of their other child at one of the tables on the floor).

The sequence of events went: serve the food, slight pause to give everyone a chance to at least taste their food, then a round of the competition, followed immediately by a long-dance (farendole style), which lead the dancers to the voting station. Each entrant had a glass jar covered with paper and their name written on it, and after each round people would drop one of the beans they had received when they checked in into the jar of their choice (the gold bean was for round 1: period piece, the silver for round 2: piece in a period style, the blue bean for round 3: on the theme of nature, and the white bean for the three words out of a hat). After voting there was a short break before the next round of food. This pattern was for the first, second, fourth, and fifth courses of the banquet. To break the day up after third course we had a performance by the musician of Luleå Nycklehearpa plus all the other musicians on site who were able to join in on the songs, during which I called dancing. We hadn't taken any time to teach, just jumped in, and even though there were a few people who didn't already know the dances, it went really well. After that musical interlude their Royal Highnesses had a short court, where they distributed the scrolls that hadn't made it north when the Crown was up here this summer presenting awards, and they also gave tokens of welcome to the new members. I was grateful for that break, as I actually wound up drifting on the edge of sleep during the court, which gave me enough energy to continue participating in the competition.

I was really happy with the competition--it seemed like all six of us were better prepared than were the four of us who entered last year, and the overall quality of performances was better. I got some good feedback on my poems and presentation, and my wonderful apprentice Astrid won, which made me very proud. (There was an additional proud moment when it was revealed that each of the four rounds had a different winner, and the winners were the four of us in the contest from my household, especially as one of the other entrants has an amazing voice and is able to do Kulning (the distinctive loud, musical, calls women did to call the cows home).

For my period piece I opted to just play Turdion on the dulcimer, since I could do that, and I ran out of time to actually learn the 12th century sestina I had hoped to use. For my piece in a period style I used the Prolouge to the Canturbury tales (my last-year's period piece) as the inspiration for a Prologue to Double Wars poem. This was the round I won, which didn't surprise me, as I had won the period piece the year before. My singing is now passable, after years of singing in choir, but it isn't impressive. On the other hand, compared to the other entrants, I am better at recitation, with good projecting, vocal variety, body language, etc. My piece on the theme of nature was my song "Winter time it has arrived" (to the tune of Summer is acumin in), which would have gone better if I had made more time to learn the new verse I wrote the week before the event, since I forgot a line and needed to pause and start that bit over. My three words out of a hat were ever so much fun. Before we drew our words the Crown Prince had commented to me "none of the words will be shorter than 'trebuchet'", so, of course, it was necessary for me to use that word.

I had planned to write a song for my three words, and had selected bacce benne venies as the tune. However, I drew "Baccus" as my first word, and just couldn't bring myself to use that tune. Yes, I could have kept the original chorus and done a new verse, but that would have felt like cheating, so instead I just wrote a poem in the same iambic pentameter I used for the piece in a period style. It was a short, very silly story, into which I squeezed as many odd words as possible to make it harder for the audience to guess which words were compulsory.

Towards the end of the evening E. and I did an acroyoga performance. We opted for only a slight variation on previous acroyoga performances, due to pretty much no time to plan or practice before the event, but stil got some good feedback, and at least two different Phire members commented to me about liking the fact that we added in some new stuff, so, clearly, doing the changes was a good thing. We are now working on yet more variations for a performance at my 50th birthday party next month.

After the feast there was a workshop in playing the Finish Kantele, which seemed to be well attended (I so didn't have the energy to participate), and was mostly full of musicians, so the teacher really enjoyed the class, and I suspect that she will come over from Finland for our events again. After that workshop Master S., who had missed the feast due to staying home with a sick child, and then came out to site after his wife and daughter went home, called people to come listen to some of his stories, and he had quite a circle of people at his feet. I didn't have the energy at that point to concentrate on understanding the Swedish, so I did my yoga in the corner and enjoyed listening to the rhythm of what he was saying. His storytelling continued longer than did my yoga, and I was feeling really sleepy, so I went out to the hot tub to see if a bit of hot water would keep my legs from cramping up when I slept. Sadly, the tub was only about 36 C, which feels pleasantly hot when one gets in, but isn't quite hot enough to make the muscles truly relax, so while it helped, it wasn't a total cure.

After my soak I went to bed (just before midnight), and slept in to 07:30 before getting up to make breakfast (including more fresh churned butter and reiska) for people. Then I started on cleaning and organizing to head home. interspersed with pauses to visit with people coming over to say farewell. Enough people pitched in to help that I managed to leave site sometime between 14:00 and 15:00, and then went home to curl up with a book and a bowl of popcorn before putting away more than half of the stuff. Then I did my yoga and went to bed really early (20:15!).

Monday after work I managed to photograph all of the lost and found, and put away a few more things, but Tuesday was Phire practice and Choir after work, and I went to bed straight after getting home, so today will be the rest of the event recovery.

This evening, after putting lord_kjar on a train to Göteborg, I sat down to play with the new loom and see if I would have any better luck weaving the northern lights than I had yesterday, when I determined several approaches I didn't like.

When I warped the loom I set it up with alternating the cards alternating their direction one S, one Z, repeat. I used two threads per card in a heavy dark blue cotton yarn, one thread per card in a lighter weight linen-cotton turquoise yarn, and the final thread in an unknown fiber type variegated pink that ranges from almost white to very pink. Originally all cards had the same colors in the same position. However, after playing with it I decided that it would look better if all the cards were leaning in the same direction, so I flipped every other one to make them all S direction. Of course, this resulted in every other card having pink where its neighbours have turquoise and vice versa.

I decided that could be an advantage, and set the cards up in sets of three--the first three with the brights colours in positions A & B, the next three with the bright colours in B & C, then in C & D, and finally D & A, at which point I was out of cards. This means that on any given pass of the weft I will have at least one set of three with bright colours up--either in pink-turquoise-pink or in turquoise-pink-turquoise, and the next pass, if I turn the tablets only one quarter turn, will give another set of three, just offset from the last, with the opposite pattern.

The effect in the below photo was achieved by turning the cards inconsistently. Often I do several 1/4 turns in a row, passing the weft after each before changing directions, but sometimes I do half or three quarter turns before passing the weft.




Not a perfect match to the northern lights, but to my eye it gives the impression of them, anyway. I am happy with it as a first draft. Now to decide if I am happy enough with it that it is worth trying to buy some yarn to make a wider version with which to trim the Norrskens bard cloak. The yarn warped for this one used up the last of the variegated pink (which, let me state for the record, I have no idea where it came from and what it was doing in our yarn drawer--it isn't a colour that I would expect either of us to buy in the normal course of things--perhaps it was in a bag of mixed yarn obtained at a second hand store, and the other colours in the bag were interesting?).

Or perhaps I can just forget the tablet woven trim idea?