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Norrskensfesten, an autocrat's perspective
Nov. 8th, 2017 09:26 pmAs 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...
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...
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