Silver Wheel for Demetrio

I was notified that my protege was going to be receiving a Silver Wheel. When I was arranging which event he'd get it at, I sent a quick email to Tyger Signet asking for the assignment. Which I got, so I decided which of the scroll blanks to use and started researching. The illuminator, Lorita DeSiena, helpfully wrote on the back what her inspiration piece was. A French hunting bible, Le Livre de la Chasse. I found some photos online although I don't think I found the exact piece she used. But it seemed to have 2 hands: early gothic, which I learned from doing Ryan's Mark scroll that I severely dislike that one, but it also had Textura Quadrata on some parts. 

 

So I took out the 2 calligraphy books I had and compared them to the exemplar. I usually go with the one from the David Harris book, but the exemplar was a little more flowy, so I looked at the  Marc Drogin book and it was a bit closer. 

Some specific letters and nuances that are different. I traced the practice area onto a sheet, marked some lines (3mm, 5mm, 3mm) and made notes on top of the letters that were different in the exemplar from the book.

I had to decide where to put the order badge on the page. I kind of like putting it right in the middle so the words flow around it. I like that idea, but I wasn't 100% thrilled with how it looked where I had it. Maybe I could move it up to the lines that have less words so it all blocks out more evenly. But I went back to looking at pages from the hunting bible and saw that many of them had a puzzle letter in the upper left of text. I'm not doing that exactly, but what if I put the badge there instead? Ultimately I decided that the badge wouldn't look right there either, so I put it at the bottom under the text. I used a micropen and a circle template.

Words:

Ryouko'jin, Demon-King of Heavens Three 

And Indrakshi, Horned Queen have come forward 

Together, Monarchs East have reached an accord 

There is one whose acts need acclaim, by decree

He has surpassed every measure, all agree 

Demetrio Antelini da Lucca 

His ardent dedication has struck a chord 

With Varied positions in his repartee 

In those roles he exceeds all expectations 

Displaying his intense commitment and zeal 

For now to receive official citation  

His merits are such that they cause bells to peal! 

Today exalted by these great orations 

Do We present Demetrio the Silver Wheel 

Done this Pennsic War, Anno Societatis LX 

Sometimes they just don't go according to plan.

I got an assignment for a person I don't know, and didn't find much information on him. The recommendation was fine, pretty standard for a Silver Tyger. But still, off I went to my wonderful wordsmith and Aislinn came back to me pretty quickly with words. She said it was a hidden acrostic, meaning instead of the letters going down the side spelling out something, it was specific words within the text that spelled out "silver tyger". So I had the idea to do the letters in a red ink, the rest of the text in black. 

I got out one of the blanks Lorita made for me, and figured my standard Gothic hand would match it.

My pen... ugh, I need a better pen I think. The inkwell slip-on thingy was a little wonky, and my size 2.5 nibs are old, so the points didn't line up right. (I have since ordered new nibs) It mostly worked, but it felt like it was fighting me, and in a few spots it just splooged. Plus I missed writing one of the letters in red, so when I tried scraping the letter and redoing it in red it really did not work and still looked black. Plus the red ink I used was really dark, so those letters did not stand out like I'd intended. Not even subtly. Just like, if you know to look for it, you can find it (except the one letter), but I was cursing this page out and put it in time out.

I asked Vettorio to paint on the Silver Tyger badge, so a few days later when I got it back from him and looked at the calligraphy again I didn't absolutely hate it, but I was still not satisfied. But it was due soon, so I took it to the post office and mailed it out, since I was not going to the event.

After all that fighting, I cursed and yelled at my pen and beat the inkwell into proper(ish) position and started in on the next scroll.

Words:

Solomon of Acre has found
A home in Our esteemed ground. 

We’ll take this time to iterate
Laud and expound his martial plate

Verily to all those present 
Examples of practice well spent 

Raising others to much success  
Yet still gives time and praise not less

Today the Eastern Majesty
Of Ryouko’jin and Indrakshi

At Malagentia to confer
This, Solomon’s Silver Tyger 

Done at this Great Northeastern War
Anno Societatis 60

Ryan's Cursed Scroll

Lada, Vettorio, and I received the scroll assignment for Ryan's Mark on May 11th. We didn't have much time to figure out how we would split it up, but we knew we could do it. Vettorio would do a cadel and the order badge, Lada would do some gloriously clashing illumination, and I would do the calligraphy. It was requested that the words be done in charter style. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on my part and I passed the making of words off to the more experienced of them. Lada sent me the words and their inspiration documents. I took a look and since they came from 1100, 1412, and 1297, I thought either Carolingian miniscule or early gothic hand would do best. The calligraphy books I have for the early gothic also have an example where they used Rustic Capitals, so I technically was learning 2 new hands for this. I'm not thrilled with the early gothic hand, and I really hated doing the rustic capitals.

I got a photo of the layout from Vettorio, so I measured roughly how much space I'd get and did a practice sheet from that.

Lada was supposed to come out to our area on Memorial day weekend, but first part of the curse, her husband got very ill and she had to stay home in Brooklyn with him. So I got the scroll and did the calligraphy. I wasn't happy with it, but it wasn't horrible, so I accepted what it was and shipped it UPS off to Lada on Wednesday May 28th. By May 20th (curse part 2) the tracking said it was still in a distribution hub in NJ. So I got another piece of the same size bristol paper and restarted the scroll. I got the spaces penciled out and got the calligraphy finished Sunday June 1st. I actually was more satisfied with the calligraphy on the second go round. Giving it a day to dry, I passed it off to Vettorio on Monday. He stayed up late redoing the cadel and badge and Tuesday evening Lada drove out to Long Island (about 1.5-2 hours each way) to pick up the scroll. She then developed a cold (curse part 3!) but finished the illumination of an archer based on a 16th century German statue and the heraldry late Friday in time for the event. Oh, and UPS delivered the scroll to her work place where I'd originally shipped it to Friday afternoon when she was of course working from home. She also said the paint on the heraldic banner on the last part of it was giving her problems (Curse part 4!), but it worked out for our purposes.

So, does this count as 4 dings? Learning 2 new hands and doing the scroll twice. but it's done, and Ryan seemed to like it, so yay. Oy.

Aislinn's Maunche

It's been a while since I got to work on a scroll, I was fearing I was getting out of practice. But a dear friend was getting her well-deserved Maunche, so I was invited to do the calligraphy for it. Hell yeah, tag me in!

Fiona was doing the illumination, and normally she and I would go to Aislinn for the words. Team One Functional Scribe! But we obviously couldn't for this one. So I asked the other wordsmith I always go to, Jenna.

Fiona showed me the style illumination she was going to use, including the exemplar.

At first glance I was all like "Great, I can use textura quadrata." And then after doing the practice sheet and getting the lines down on the scroll I took another look at the exemplar. Oops. It is not Textura. I went looking through my alphabet books and decided it was Rotunda. But the scribe had used long S's. There's two different r's in the calligraphy book, they used the one that looks more like a number 2. And the h was a little more angular, more like Textura. So back to the practice page, I didn't need to adjust the line spacing. I used purple ink, which the ink settled in thick/thin dark/light areas on the letters, so it gave a really neat effect. I let the ink fully dry for a few days and erased the pencil on Thursday, and packed it up to head up to the event on Friday.

I had a little over a week to get this done, and now somehow I bent the rules of time and got it done with a few days to spare. I'm certain with more practice I'll get more consistent in size and spacing, but I'm happy with my first scroll using this new hand. One more for my scribal CV!

Illumination: Fiona the Volatile
Words: Jenna Childslayer
Calligraphy: Violet Hughes, Rotunda hand.

Words:

A call rings through the glorious East Kingdom for words to honor her great populace.

That call is answered with joy and enthusiasm by a devoted wordsmith with a love for wordcraft and for praising the hard work done for skill in service, craft, and Martial forms.

So today does the East's daughter, Aislinn Chiabach, answer a different call. To join the ranks of the illustrious Order of the Maunche, for her artistry and skill in prose, poetry, and wordplay.

Done this day at Crown Tournament AS 60 by Ryouko'jin Saisei, Demon-King of the Three Heavens, and Maharani Indrakshi, Horned Queen of the Night Sky.

Backlog Silver Wheel

Osanna painted a backlog scroll that was based off a late period Italian white vine page, I was asked to do the calligraphy.

Looking at the exemplar I decided the hand was Humanistic. But then I noticed the s's were all the long s. Even the double s, and the last letter of a word s. Which, after looking up the "rules" for long s, was wrong. And the g's were drawn differently.

So I confirmed what I saw with Vettorio and just did it how they did it on that page. *shrug* I saw the e's were also slightly different, the middle line was higher up. But I couldn't figure out exactly what was different about those e's from what is in my calligraphy book, so I didn't worry about that. 

I was given words for this scroll, but I don't know if I would ever put "honorable lady" in the text if I was the wordsmith. Yes, I did look up her OP and saw she has a GoA. just to make sure it wasn't stepping on any toes to include that. But I didn't want to tweak the wordsmith's words too much, so I left that in.

I've sent that off to the backlog deputy, and I've cleared out my list of backlogs I'm working on. I've nudged a few illuminator friends to make blanks for me by the end of the year, so I can pick up a few more backlogs or hold them for live assignments for the next reign.

Backlog AoA

I was handed a beautiful backlog illumination for Grainne inghean ui Neill, painted by Fiona the Volatile. She said it was based off the Lindesfarne Gospel. So I googled around a bit and found a blog from a writer who was doing research on that for a book she's writing. She had a few photos, including one page with writing.

So, comparing this page with the ones in my calligraphy books I decided it was insular majuscule, and got to work with the words I was given.

This hand was a bit harder, as the nib was to be flat horizontal. So I ended up rotating the lap desk I work on while also twisting my arm into a position that was not really comfortable. For the t's and g's there's a little extra bit on the leading edge of the top line, I left it out at first, as it would require turning the nib basically 180°. Then I went back in after the rest was done and added those in to get the correct look. 

As much as it physically pained me to do this hand, I am really quite happy with how it turned out.

*tap tap* Is this thing on?

I decided to resurrect my blog and pivot to the arts. I've started taking doing calligraphy a little more seriously, so I wanted to document what I'm doing. I might start with a gallery of what I've done so far. Or I think I might instead just pick up from what I'm currently doing and go from there. Maybe fill in earlier stuff as time allows.

History: I started with textura quadrata (gothic), since it clicked the best in my mind/hand. That's all I did for a while. Then I started branching out a little, kiiiiinda matching the 2 or 3 hands to the style of illumination, but always defaulting to gothic.

I did try to learn how to do cadels in the interest of being able to do a scroll entirely by myself. But honestly it's too much "arty" for me to grasp. That's why I don't do the illumination, I can't paint. Nor do I find any joy in doing it. Plus there's way more people who only want to do illumination than want to do calligraphy, so I feel it works out.

So anyway, watch this space for more updates.

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

My friends keep the best secrets. After presenting some very silly scrolls in morning court Their Majesties said “Oh, Violet. Hang on a second, we want to talk to you.” Uh, ok, sure. I remembered to bow this time before kneeling in front of them. Ryou starts talking about how anytime they needed help I was quick to answer and quick with the help. I said “I was hoping the LOaR would get published this past week so I could greet you with good news today, but it didn’t happen. Any day now.” He’s talking a bit more about how I do this for everybody and I’m thinking “I already have my silver crescent, what are they doing? Court barony? King’s token?” And I’m handed a familiar box of chocolates. I’m still confused. I notice the slight change on the box just as they called in the Order of the Pelicans! WHAT. THE. EFF. Ryan kneels down next to me and says “Gotcha”. I said “You didn’t eat the chocolates!” I get fixated on dumb details sometimes.

They whisked me off to my vigil tent (loaned to us from Broch and Aislinn, so it was a purple tent) which hadn’t been fully set up so I wouldn’t notice it was for me. Of course I helped finish decorating it. Fiona and Saravit had brought the House Three Skulls camp banners back from Pennsic so those were put on. David brought the small banner I had put up for his elevation. Jenna had made a banner with my device on it that was used as a doorway between the waiting area and my private area. Only the side walls were put up so the front and back were open and there was good airflow. Which I really appreciated so I wouldn’t spend the entire time with a mask on.

Most of the day was a blur of people coming in. I ate some, but it was quite warm and I kept shifting my chair around to find the most comfortable/level spot I could while still being close enough to the visitors to hear them. I drank some cider and some sekanjabin. I didn’t even think about taking notes of what people said. When Their Majesties came to talk to me and it was a good chat. I asked if they would help me in pulling shenanigans, and told them what I wanted to do. They were all for it. After everybody had gone through and it was the first call of 10 minutes to court, I suddenly thought about what if they ask me if I want to say an oath? I had written up a thing in my google drive a year or so ago, just as a starting point that I had planned on building on and editing. So I took a quick look over that, changed a couple of words to update it (taking out sword and spear and putting in water and support) and thought it was good enough. I also thought about changing into my sari instead of the ghawazee, but garb has never been my strong suit and the outfit I was wearing was still very nice for me, also I decided there wasn’t enough time to run back to the tent to change. There was a bit of court before me on the docket, but eh, I didn’t have the brain power by that point to try to gussy myself up.

We started to line up, and Ryan was there like a sergeant pushing paratroopers off the plane. “You! Go! You! Go! You! Go!” So we’re walking up, me last obviously, and I didn’t hear the beginning of Jenna’s boast for me. But I heard something about “You may NOT have your charge be an ant!” and my brain was going “Why not?” then I head the lines “Even meant as a joke, Herald’s College do not poke, Because heralds don’t pun, they cant.” and I did the little hopping dance I do when I’m delighted. I was absolutely grinning under my mask. Then Ryou said I have business with another first, and Ryan came to take back his yellow belt. As soon as we finished that, I said “Your Majesty, I have a favor to ask.” I took the skunk out of my belt pouch, handed it to him and said “Please tell Ryan. I want him to know it was me.” And Ryan absolutely *freaked out*. There is a wonderful series of photos and a few videos of me pointing and yelling “GOTCHA!” and him pointing at me and yelling “FOUR YEARS!” That settled down and then the speakers were brought in. I put in my ICOP to have speakers do it in limerick. Or at least keep the speeches short, because I know how long court goes and speakers who go on and on and on, while it’s nice to hear that about the person, it does not do well by the tired people in and attending court. So Ozurr and Matthias actually followed my whim! Ozurr’s was a valiant effort and he followed it up with a few short words afterwards. Matthias had three or four sets of limericks (Still went quick though) that was absolutely amazing. The other speakers also gave wonderful and brief speeches. Two medallions were presented, one bought at Pennsic that was purple, and one made by Antonii that had a pelican perched over three skulls. Hugoline and David gave me one after court that is a House Three Skulls legacy stealth medallion. Suzanne made a cloak for me that is wonderful, made of purple velvet and has my badge (A suffolk knot) repeating as the edge trim, with various badges and my device in the loops of the knot. I absolutely love it and can’t wait to wear it to cold events. Then Syd presented my hat. A few years ago I had asked Ryan if a cap of maintenance had to be red. He said that’s what is listed in corporia, so yes. I was all “Fiiiine, I guess.” I had screenshot a facebook conversation between him and Honig where he said mauve is a shade of red, so I could argue for a purplish hat. But the hat that was made for me is a purple bycocket hat (a style I love and was considering getting one day) which fits my tiny head pretty well! When I saw it I said a quiet “Yes!” at the color. They asked if I wanted to do an oath, so I took out my phone (I hadn’t had time to write it down on paper), forgetting to hold the sword of state as well, oops, and being the herald I am, I spoke my oath loudly. It was a balance between projecting enough that the populace heard me and not being so loud that everybody standing at the thrones were being shouted at. They did their spiel of “we hear you and support you” and I absolutely love that it is my friends who were the royals that elevated me.

I haven’t 100% decided what title to use. Mistress is the traditional title, but there’s been a movement to start shying away from Master/Mistress with all the negative connotations for POC. I did originally like it because that’s what K9 called Romana. Looking at the College of Heralds approved alternate titles I don’t feel like there’s one that both is culturally appropriate for me that I also like. I was thinking maybe old English Hlaefdige, but nobody besides a select few people would know how it’s pronounced (Leftidge), plus I’d have as much trouble spelling it all the time as I do An Dubhaigeainn. I considered Sensei for a few seconds because I was elevated during a Japanese themed reign, but that didn’t feel right either. Possibly Portuguese Mestra because both TRM personas are actually Portuguese. But it doesn't roll off the tongue for me with the rolled r. There really is no rule that I know of saying I can’t keep using Lady. But I guess I’ll stick with Mistress for now. Of course, me being me I did a bunch of other stuff during the event. Calligraphed scrolls, retained, shennaniginated my husband and Ryan with awards, heralded my baroness' elevation, sent in an entry for the dessert challenge, etc. But that all pales in comparison to the tale told above.

I'm glad I'd been planning on the slow and steady path to Peerage so I feel nowhere near burnout point. And I will keep serving my barony, kingdom, and Society to the best of my abilities.

Pennsic deeds

 While I did not take any classes this Pennsic, I did teach one twice. "Heralds don't pun, we cant!" The class during peace week was 4 people (4 more than I thought I would get!) and during war week was 5 people. I think it went well, I explained canting, showed a few examples, then asked people if they could guess some. I might offer it again if there's interest.

I did retain once. The shift was supposed to be 2 hours, 11:00 - 1:00 and it was from the end of heavy list castle battle and a little afterwards. I followed their Majesties back to EK camp with their wagon of supplies. Arabella asked if I minded staying a little past my shift while TRM got their rapier gear on and headed back for the second battle where I would meet my shift reliever. No problem, I said. So I sat around with the other retainer and queens guard while Ryou and Indrakshi relaxed a little bit and assembled their armor. I also made sure they ate from the meat and cheese plate Arabella had provided. Eventually we all made our way back to the battle field and it was 2:00. I passed off the cart and saw Vetra and Vettorio, who I had promised to keep hydrated. They had their own cart with water, gatorade, and their daybags.  I hadn't eaten since breakfast, which was a cup of tea and a minibox of cereal. The other retainer had brought a basket of snacks and things for fighters so I begged a cheese stick off her. (So thankful!) The fight lasted about an hour, and my friends did great. 

I went to East Kingdom Court to see a friend get her writ for Pelican. I'm so excited for her! But before court started I was talking with Zippy (Herald for the next set of royals) and Yehuda (Brigantia herald). My Peer, knowing that crown herald is one of my goals, had told Zippy that I should be his deputy. So I briefly talked to them about it. Yay! I'm looking forward to learning more about the job. Especially the things needed in lead-up to an event. I know how it goes with baronial herald, but I don't think it would be that simple for kingdom.

So during court at one point I hear my name called out. Oh geez, what did I do now? Aislinn, who I had been sitting with, said afterwards she tried to get up to escort me in, but I zoomed up there too quick. Nerves. Also I realized afterward I forgot to bow to TRM as I approached. Oops. So yeah, now I got a Silver Brooch! With an *amazingly* gorgeous scroll done by my friends.

So let's see what else did I do this war? I was there peace week, so I helped set up our camp. I'd never gone peace week before, I thought it was going to be a lot more work. But it was more like set one big thing up each day and relax the rest of the time. Severus (my son) and I also went over to EK Royal when they had put the call out for volunteers to help set up their public area. So we spent a few hours helping there as well.

We had had some "interesting times" the day before we were going to leave for Pennsic, and my biggest fears were to get covid within days of arriving on site, or to come back home to a flooded house. Neither happened, so it was a very awesome time. We are likely to try doing both weeks again next year.

Potted Arms

Potted arms was a nice easy-going event. The schedule was set up well, the fighting looked fun. We did the Heraldic Tournament, I was talking to Sorcha, she asked if I was participating in that. I said I wasn't sure, I wasn't in the best of moods. As I'm saying that Jean Xavier comes over and asks if I'd herald for him. I looked at Sorcha and said "Guess I am!" I can't turn JX down, he's awesome people.

I checked in with Demetrio a few times over the day to make sure he had all herald info he needed for court. I offered to come up with the entourage and guide him through it. After the first one or two cues I stepped back to see if he'd take it from there or look to me for guidance. He did it all (Except announcing the winner of the rapier tourney, because he won that!) and handled it extremely well. He had taken my advice on changing up the wording of calling people into court. And he's a former theater kid, so he spoke clearly. After court I spoke to the coronet and told them I have full confidence that he'll be a great herald. A few days after the event he messaged me and asked me to check over the court report before he sent it in, and he did a fine job on that so with my blessings off it got filed with the EK heralds as well as sent to the barony newsletter.

Getting busier!

I went to Spring coronation, signed up for 2 retaining shifts, but was told I wasn't actually needed for either one. But I did introduce myself to the new Crown Herald and got to read a scroll in court. (For my sister! Muwahahah!) I also got to chat with Demitrio about what's involved for the baronial herald office and he decided to put his letter of intent in. He was voted in as of last meeting, I told him I'd be his first deputy right away to guide him, but once he got comfortable with his office he should find another deputy to train up to replace him when his term is over. 

After that event I went to Balfar's challenge. I signed up for retaining and did get to do 2 shifts trailing after His Majesty. I also got to read a scroll for Kayleigh, so that was awesome. I remembered what Ryan said after Coronation about projection and presence, so I tried to "talk to" a guy I spotted in the back row and put a little more emotion and variance of inflection into my words. It also helped that the scroll wasn't as long as Jenna's! 

June 18th is Potted Arms. Vetra asked for a volunteer to do PR and advertisement, so I jumped on that. It's likely going to be, as usual, almost entirely local people. There's some big events elsewhere in the kingdom that it's up against. But I've been doing my best to hype it up, and since it's only 2 weeks away I'll be ramping that up. The new information has been coming out steadily, so that's helped.