Last weekend, Signy and I packed up the wagon and headed off to Baile for Bardic Madness (South). We'd gone to a Bardic Madness in Northshield early in our SCA lives, and enjoyed watching the challenges (and three odd men dressed in monks' habits with black and white checky trim), so we figured we'd go.We found the parking lot by seeing a wildly gesticulating laurel waving us past it. After parking in the street and finding the door, Gwyn told us that the parking lot was full, so she saw no need for us to even try.
We got through Troll with minimal fuss. Although we did have to remind the man in charge of money that we needed change, and how much it was. He's lucky we're honest. Site tokens were plastic ducks strangled with plaid ribbon.
We squeezed our stuff in next to Jens' portable jail and settled in< >for some good schmoozing. Well, my settling didn't last too long, as Jens discovered the long hallway and happily ran all the way down it. He's already quite the social butterfly, hanging out in the lunch kitchen, talking to people signing up for the challenges, and in general being a traffic hazard. I grabbed someone else to sign my name up for the challenge I was taking, as my hands were full of squirming toddler.
At one point, I was sitting down watching people, when a lady caught my eye. "She walks familiarly," I thought. "I wonder who she is?" So I watched for a while, until she came close enough that I recognized her as Our Fair Baroness! I blushed beet red, bowed, and accused her of
being in disguise.The day was split into two class periods and many challenges, which were recieved in four "fytz" (pronounced "fits") throughout the day. I thought it was pretty neat that one could participate in every single challenge, and go to one class each class period. That's good scheduling, and very nice for those who were mostly watching.
When we had decided to go to this event, I had read the challenges. Most were based on something having to do with St. John the Fool (our very own Master John, but that's what he gets for having apprentii). Some had a period style for you to emulate, some were improvisational, and some were "explain this phenomenon." The only one that inspired me was "Bad Plaid." The name kind of offended me, as the only bad plaid is one that isn't plaid, but I can deal with other people being stylistically ignorant, especially bards. The challenge read thus:
"St John was almost always seen wearing some form of chequey or lozengy fabric. It is possible he was single-handedly responsible for the lozenge shortage of 1482. Spin a song or weave a story that somehow involves such eye-watering fabric. The evil among you could even sew, knit, or crochet such an atrocity to illustrate your tale."
Well, I saw the perfect chance to educate people abot the wonders of plaid, so a couple days before, I sat down and wrote out the "traditional" tale of "How Johninchingrix Lost His Colors." I tried to give it a folk tale feel while putting in as many Gaulish tidbits as I could manage. I'm quite pleased with it.
But before I could perform that, there was the first fyt (which I schmoozed through), and the first class period. During the class period, I chose to go to John's "Improv Games."
The warm-up was an "instrumental" jam session. I am very very bad at musical improv, so this, which was supposed to be simple, was quite difficult for me. But I managed. The games were fun. Although during one, I managed to fall on my face, when I hit a slick spot landing a jump. I really need to get my new shoes made. The last game was a full class silent improv, and it ended up turning into a baseball game. I don't really understand baseball well, and as a kid my baseball games involved a lot of.. um.. full tackles, like football. So when I had to go in, I thought about how Virithos would deal with this. All the Gaulish or Celtic games I know involve taking all the balls or heads, and either putting them through goals or keeping them. Dahrian, who's a good sport, seemed to have an endless supply of balls. So I tackled him and beat him up. John thought I was an irate fan, and I'm not quite sure he understood my explaination of how that was a perfectly logical action. Perhaps I shouldn't become a fool, I'm a bit too violent.
John explained how the duck became associated with him, which was a cool story, and the let class out for the Second Fyt.
I knew my challenge was the second one in this fyt, so I went and got lunch. I also put on my cloak, as the cloak in my story played a big part, and made sure people could see all my plaids (I had 5 visible). Then I went to watch the other performances.
The challenge before Bad Plaid involved taking a tune and writing a song that had as many of a long list of words as one could manage. That ended up with some hillarious songs. I was highly amused. Laughing was good to help calm my stage fright.
Then was Bad Plaid. Each challenge had a Patron, who read the challenge for the audience, and had tokens for each participant. And, like drawing Dietrich in a tourney when I'd ridden with him, Gwyn was the Patron for Bad Plaid. So she stood up and read the challenge while a field full of butterflies hatched in my stomach all at once. The first person on the list needed to find some stuff, so we went to number two, Simon Hondy. I was number three. Butterflies are rather energetic critters. Simon had a cool informational discussion with lots of historical references. I must discuss with him the archaeological record versus what the Gauls' enemies had to say about them. He's a baker, so I need not discuss this with big sticks for a first offence. He got the coolest token (handmade pater noster), but he can wear it with his garb, so I guess that's OK.
The first person returned and gave a neat performance about how lozengy came from the patches of a commedia dell arte (I think) fool. I spent the time killing butterflies (oh, that sounds weird, I need a different metaphore. Or maybe none at all.) I spent the time calming my nerves. (Yes, that sounds better.)
Then it was my turn. I went up and, on Signy's advice, told the crowd "I'm sorry, I meant to wear a lot of plaid for this challenge, but I forgot." That got a laugh, but really, I wasn't wearing anything I nrmally wouldn't.
A few paragraphs in, I realized that I was probably reading really fast, as I tend to do that when I'm nervous, so I tried to slow down. And I know I didn't have enough audiance eye-contact, since I was reading something I'd finalized the night before. But other than that, I think I did reasonably well. I'm not sure if I can publish my story, as it's meant to be read alout, and just reading it off a page, it looks funny. People laughed in the right places and clapped at the end, so I must have made it obvious when I was done.
Gwyn gave me the "Viking" pater noster, which was the second coolest. As I slipped back to my seat, a bazillion things were pressed into my hands until they were overflowing. Other people were giving tokens. That's a very period thing to do, and very cool to boot. But I wasn't expecting it. I regret very much that I don't know where all the tokens came from. Some people I didn't know, most I just didn't see in the mob. I didn't get more tokens than anyone else performing, but it was quite nicely overwhelming at the time. Unfortunately, in the mass, I missed much, and I regret that.
Signy said I did well and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and that meant the most.
During the rest of the challenge I tried to find places to display the tokens, as it only seemed right to honor those who had seen fit to give them.
I didn't hear any bad performances, even from those who admitted it was their first time. I laughed myself sick several times.
There was a story of a young woman's first trip to SR Harris (fabric Mecca) and the loud plaid she found there. There was a dance! Somebody had signed Dahrian up for all the challenges, and instead of refusing on the grounds that he hadn't actually signed up, he stood up and wrote things off the cuff, and if they were more about how he's going to find out who's signing him up and cause that person grevious bodily injury than actually answering the challenge, well, who can blame him? They were hillarious.
I wasn't interested in any of the second set of classes, so I schmoozed, helped keep Jens out of too much trouble, and worked on my weasle hat. Weasle is very soft fur, so I had to make everyone touch >it. "Hey, have you touched my weasle? It's really soft!" I got a lot of milage out of that. But really, it is quite soft, and I hand sew rarely enough that I like to show it off. I was in a talkative, troublesome mood, which I can only attribute to surviving in front of an audiance.
Jens was getting more and more tired, but he wouldn't sleep with so many interesting things going on. When Gwyn came back from her car and he started screaming just because she had to put stuff down before picking him up, I decided that something needed to be done. So I took him away to an abandoned hallway and let him cry. Mikalynn showed up with nuk and blankie (he will not sleep when he can see Mom), and I thanked her and sent her away. Jens and I sat in a very very boring hallway for quite a while until he finally was asleep heavily enough to put down.
When I came back, the hall was hushed and somber, as the event had >just gotten word of the passing of Baroness Madeleine Gervais de Bellebois.
Signy was off at the concert, so I curled up on the floor next to Jens' cage and 'rested my eyes.' Gwyn was concerned when she came by and saw Jens in jail and didn't see my feet poking out from my cloak, but I heard her and poked my head out before she got upset that her baby had been abandoned.
Finally, it was feast time! I was hungry. Some people at our table helped me go through the on-table munchies like a plague of locusts. Feast was phenominal. Tuge did a Mongolian feast, and I guess one of my ancestors was a Mongol. Even good feasts I've been to, a couple dishes aren't spiced to my taste. I ate some of everything (except the apricots, which I am allergic to), and it was all really good. I loved it.
I watched Jens some so Gwyn could sit down and eat. He was quite happy running around and screaming, but there was another fyt of performances during dinner! He likes watching, but he's only a baby, he doesn't know to be quiet. So I had to take him out for most of the performances. He was much better watching while riding my shoulders, but then during the applause, he'd grab fists of my hair and yank.
Between courses, I managed to crack a walnut perfectly in half. A bit of yougurt cheese and a cilantro stem and we had a mouse! Pegge added ears, Kytte donated a plate, some people the next table down gave the mouse some hazlenut babies. I sent the whole thing down to Simon, who seemed appriciative, but forgot to send me something.
Did I mention feast was wonderful?
It being past my bedtime, we packed up and went home. Overall, that was a heck of a lot of fun. It was a really safe place to be a novice bard, and it was set up so people could get a word in edgewise (unlike some bardic circles I've passed by). The performances were great. I always forget just how much I love live entertainment. Feast was great!