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Norrskensfesten
Nov. 26th, 2014 12:13 amThis weekend was the big Frostheim SCA event, Norrskensfest. The King and Queen came up from Germany, the Prince and Princess came up from Stockholm. Our erstwhile housemate, C, came back up from Götteborg, some people came from Sundsvall (six hours drive), more from Umeå (three hours drive) and others from Skellefteå (two hours drive). There were around 70 people total, which is not bad at all for a little shire on the far northern edge of a rather spread out Kingdom.
On the Friday night I ran a class on the History of the SCA, starting with reading out loud the story of the first SCA event by Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin and then sharing a timeline of which Kingdoms and Principalities formed when (and thus how many of each existed during any given year), which Kingdoms and Principalities are descended from which, and even a graph showing the change in the number of paid members over the years. If anyone actually wants to see the handout I prepared for that class let me know and I can convert the pdf to photos and share in a separate post.
We also did some dancing that evening, and there was a silk banner painting workshop. Now, because of the dancing and my class![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar and I didn't actually start work on our banner till around midnight. Even so we managed to finish the banner early in the day on Saturday, so it was hanging on the wall to decorate the hall for the feast. We even made time to soak in the shire hot tub (on a trailer in the parking area) before crawling into bed around 02:00.
Even so we managed to get up around 08:00, so we could be part of the musical procession carrying breakfast to their highnesses, who were sleeping in the upstairs room. My beloved minion (who got his AA later in the event!) was kind enough to carry the dulcimer for me, so that I could walk and play. I am so lucky to have a minion!
Saturday during the day there was a tournament outside, but I had agreed to do a hand sewing class inside at the same time, so instead of going outside myself, I made my fur hood and muff available for HRM and HRH if either of them wanted it, since winter hasn't really arrived yet where either of them live, and we were having good weather on the weekend, with temps ranging from around -5 to -10, the snow we had had the week before holding on nicely, and frost crystals decorating the trees.
My "class" was more along the lines of sharing a printout of my favourite sewing web page (created byhrj), as well as printouts of a few others I found that looked useful on the day I was doing the printing and chatting with the other people sitting around working on their own projects. However, many of us had never seen Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch (the link goes to a .doc file with instructions for the stitch), and C was making a new veil, so she gave the stitch a try, and we were all delighted with how well it works. Thanks eithni!
After the tourney and before the feast there was more dancing, and then it was time to get ready for the first performance of the Solar Wind Orchestra.lord_kjar and I got permission from the people in charge of decorating the hall for feast to set up instruments just to the side of high table, and we had our place nicely claimed before the hall door re-opened to permit people to set their feast gear out. The other band members arrived in good time, and we got them set up with feast gear and we settled in to enjoy court before the first half of the feast.
A good number of the people I had recommended for awards actually got them, so I was feeling quite pleased with court, when suddenly the King's herald called me up. I so did Not expect that! I already have a good coverage of awards and didn't feel I was lacking in any. (I had even said so over on FB--some weeks back I posted to the local shires' group pages asking everyone to please list their full SCA names plus any awards they had in the comments so that people could recommend them for awards--to be fair I had also listed mine, and said that there was no point in recommending me, I already had them covered.) However, I don't think the King was privy to that conversation (what Crown would have time to read all the group pages for the various branches in their realm?), and so they admitted me to the ( order of the Lindquistringes ) The photo (behind that cut) shows the scroll, made by the ever so talented Bridget Greywolf, whose name was said for a great many of the award scrolls given, all of which were stunning. One can see that she has actually met me looking at the scroll--it is so pretty I love it.
After court was the feast, and after the first round of servings were done and they had gotten to the first desert our band got up and performed our seven songs, which was much fun, and seemed to go over well. One of the songs is a dance, and the music speeds up with each repeat. The dancers, of course, got up to dance while we sang and played that one, but took part of the song trying to get all the dancers up to speed as to what the steps were, so when we ended the dancers asked us to do it again. We, of course, obliged them. (Though it was hard to sit and play the dulcimer while there was dancing happening!)
After our performance there was lots more food served (since I never eat in the evenings I have no idea what was served, but the people around me seemed to be happy, so I assume it was all good), and there was more court, too. At one point their Highnesses called to their court one of the guys running the event, but he was outside soaking in the hot tub, so we opened the window and called him in. When we said "you are summoned to court" his reply was to stand up, stark naked in the cold night air, and shout back "you have got to be kidding me!". When he realized we were serious he wrapped a towel around his waist and came in. There was much laughter at the banter between the blushing, flushing Princess and the towel-clad man, as their highnesses thanked him for his part in the event and presented him a token of their appreciation.
During the feast one of my friends asked me "So, how many scrolls do you have now?". His eyes really bugged out when I replied "Two. I doubled my collection tonight." Drachenwald is so good about giving scrolls with the awards that he had assumed that "having an award" = "having a scroll". I had to explain to the others about the concept of a backlog...
However, despite having only two scrolls, I do have, as mentioned, quite a number of awards, and this is the third time I have received a Kingdom service award for dance (ironically, I have never gotten a mid-level Kingdom arts award, but skipped straight to the Laurel).
After the feast we settled into a evening of singing, dancing, and merriment. At one pointlord_kjar showed one of the guys in the brewer's guild his experiments involving some of our home grown black currants and alcohol, and suddenly there was an impromptu meeting of the brewer's guild, which lord_kjar is now a member of.
All in all it was a lovely event, full of hugs, cuddles, dance, art projects, music--in short everything I could want in an event. I look forward to our pot luck Yule revel next month. I am also resolved to attend the Known World Dance Symposium in Germany in April. There are just a few details that need working out, like how to get there, and can we really afford it. Therefore I have started a FB group to coordinate the travel to that event for those of us who live in northern Nordmark. With luck that will convince some of our friends to head south with us for that event. With more luck I will succeed in talking those of us who could do so to teach a class at the event.
Sadly, our beautiful weather of the weekend didn't last, and Monday morning it warmed up to rain a bit. Then it cooled back off a tiny bit and we got some very wet, heavy snow. This morning it warmed up again, and the snow started melting like crazy, and it rained again. My poor winter--it has barely started, yet it is already suffering from the same health issues that plagued last winter.
On the Friday night I ran a class on the History of the SCA, starting with reading out loud the story of the first SCA event by Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin and then sharing a timeline of which Kingdoms and Principalities formed when (and thus how many of each existed during any given year), which Kingdoms and Principalities are descended from which, and even a graph showing the change in the number of paid members over the years. If anyone actually wants to see the handout I prepared for that class let me know and I can convert the pdf to photos and share in a separate post.
We also did some dancing that evening, and there was a silk banner painting workshop. Now, because of the dancing and my class
lord_kjar and I didn't actually start work on our banner till around midnight. Even so we managed to finish the banner early in the day on Saturday, so it was hanging on the wall to decorate the hall for the feast. We even made time to soak in the shire hot tub (on a trailer in the parking area) before crawling into bed around 02:00.Even so we managed to get up around 08:00, so we could be part of the musical procession carrying breakfast to their highnesses, who were sleeping in the upstairs room. My beloved minion (who got his AA later in the event!) was kind enough to carry the dulcimer for me, so that I could walk and play. I am so lucky to have a minion!
Saturday during the day there was a tournament outside, but I had agreed to do a hand sewing class inside at the same time, so instead of going outside myself, I made my fur hood and muff available for HRM and HRH if either of them wanted it, since winter hasn't really arrived yet where either of them live, and we were having good weather on the weekend, with temps ranging from around -5 to -10, the snow we had had the week before holding on nicely, and frost crystals decorating the trees.
My "class" was more along the lines of sharing a printout of my favourite sewing web page (created by
hrj), as well as printouts of a few others I found that looked useful on the day I was doing the printing and chatting with the other people sitting around working on their own projects. However, many of us had never seen Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch (the link goes to a .doc file with instructions for the stitch), and C was making a new veil, so she gave the stitch a try, and we were all delighted with how well it works. Thanks eithni!After the tourney and before the feast there was more dancing, and then it was time to get ready for the first performance of the Solar Wind Orchestra.
lord_kjar and I got permission from the people in charge of decorating the hall for feast to set up instruments just to the side of high table, and we had our place nicely claimed before the hall door re-opened to permit people to set their feast gear out. The other band members arrived in good time, and we got them set up with feast gear and we settled in to enjoy court before the first half of the feast.A good number of the people I had recommended for awards actually got them, so I was feeling quite pleased with court, when suddenly the King's herald called me up. I so did Not expect that! I already have a good coverage of awards and didn't feel I was lacking in any. (I had even said so over on FB--some weeks back I posted to the local shires' group pages asking everyone to please list their full SCA names plus any awards they had in the comments so that people could recommend them for awards--to be fair I had also listed mine, and said that there was no point in recommending me, I already had them covered.) However, I don't think the King was privy to that conversation (what Crown would have time to read all the group pages for the various branches in their realm?), and so they admitted me to the ( order of the Lindquistringes ) The photo (behind that cut) shows the scroll, made by the ever so talented Bridget Greywolf, whose name was said for a great many of the award scrolls given, all of which were stunning. One can see that she has actually met me looking at the scroll--it is so pretty I love it.
After court was the feast, and after the first round of servings were done and they had gotten to the first desert our band got up and performed our seven songs, which was much fun, and seemed to go over well. One of the songs is a dance, and the music speeds up with each repeat. The dancers, of course, got up to dance while we sang and played that one, but took part of the song trying to get all the dancers up to speed as to what the steps were, so when we ended the dancers asked us to do it again. We, of course, obliged them. (Though it was hard to sit and play the dulcimer while there was dancing happening!)
After our performance there was lots more food served (since I never eat in the evenings I have no idea what was served, but the people around me seemed to be happy, so I assume it was all good), and there was more court, too. At one point their Highnesses called to their court one of the guys running the event, but he was outside soaking in the hot tub, so we opened the window and called him in. When we said "you are summoned to court" his reply was to stand up, stark naked in the cold night air, and shout back "you have got to be kidding me!". When he realized we were serious he wrapped a towel around his waist and came in. There was much laughter at the banter between the blushing, flushing Princess and the towel-clad man, as their highnesses thanked him for his part in the event and presented him a token of their appreciation.
During the feast one of my friends asked me "So, how many scrolls do you have now?". His eyes really bugged out when I replied "Two. I doubled my collection tonight." Drachenwald is so good about giving scrolls with the awards that he had assumed that "having an award" = "having a scroll". I had to explain to the others about the concept of a backlog...
However, despite having only two scrolls, I do have, as mentioned, quite a number of awards, and this is the third time I have received a Kingdom service award for dance (ironically, I have never gotten a mid-level Kingdom arts award, but skipped straight to the Laurel).
After the feast we settled into a evening of singing, dancing, and merriment. At one point
lord_kjar showed one of the guys in the brewer's guild his experiments involving some of our home grown black currants and alcohol, and suddenly there was an impromptu meeting of the brewer's guild, which lord_kjar is now a member of. All in all it was a lovely event, full of hugs, cuddles, dance, art projects, music--in short everything I could want in an event. I look forward to our pot luck Yule revel next month. I am also resolved to attend the Known World Dance Symposium in Germany in April. There are just a few details that need working out, like how to get there, and can we really afford it. Therefore I have started a FB group to coordinate the travel to that event for those of us who live in northern Nordmark. With luck that will convince some of our friends to head south with us for that event. With more luck I will succeed in talking those of us who could do so to teach a class at the event.
Sadly, our beautiful weather of the weekend didn't last, and Monday morning it warmed up to rain a bit. Then it cooled back off a tiny bit and we got some very wet, heavy snow. This morning it warmed up again, and the snow started melting like crazy, and it rained again. My poor winter--it has barely started, yet it is already suffering from the same health issues that plagued last winter.
