Hundrede Artes

Did you hear that loud whooshing wind last night around, oh, 9 p.m. EST? That was me sighing with relief as I finally, finally finished an illumination project that I think I've been working on forever. Well, that's an exaggeration, but it has been about a year. School interfered so that the only time I had to work was at Friday night SCA meetings, and if Master Tristan was there, it meant I spent the whole time running my mouth and not working. (Yes, I am totally putting the blame for my own indolence on him!) But, with school over, I jumped right back into it, determined to actually finish the darned thing ... and I did!

This is not my first illumination project. It's actually my fourth. But it's the first sorta-scroll-type thing. Yes, I am being wishy-washy because I'm still not sure that that's what it's going to be. It's also why it looks unfinished ... because it really is. If it is to be a scroll, then it will need calligraphy and the person's heraldry and such will be added. If I'm going to use it for myself, then I will probably fill in the border at the top and the other side and write a poem or something on it. But I don't know what I'm doing with it yet, so I've done the replication of the original until I decide or get some advice on it.

So, yes, this is my unfinished sorta-scroll-type thing or maybe-for-a-poem-type thing.

( Pictures and More Below the Cut! )

(Cross-posted to The (Cyber) Bag of Weasels.)

Well, I failed miserably at the Known World Persona Writing Month challenge. I made two entries and then got bogged down with other stuff and, honestly, didn't feel enough enthusiasm for the project to make time for it.

Part of that was that the project was aimed at helping me to settle on a persona. I began by reading the relevant chapters in The Course of Irish History. I then had good intentions of writing a summary on each relevant chapter so that I could 1) learn more about Irish history and 2) most importantly, focus enough to settle on a persona.

I should have known that ideas don't tend to come through concentrated study but grab me and won't let go. In my other obsession hobby--writing based on the mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien--we call these "plotbunnies" or "nuzgul." In reading the chapter "The Golden Age of Early Christian Ireland: 7th and 8th Centuries," a plotbunny that makes Monty Python's Killer Rabbit look cute and fuzzy (and this after biting the faces off several knights) hopped out upon reading this:

But there were other schools in Ireland as well, schools of poets and of lawyers, which, for a considerable time, remained completely separate from the learning brought by the church. They had a long history and were honoured and respected by the people. The scholars educated in these secular schools formed a professional body, as closely knit as the clergy in Ireland today, and they contributed a great deal to the life of the country. ... [T]hey entertained and instructed people with their stories and histories. They told their traditions before men went into battle, to inspire them with reminders of the historic past; they praised the warriors' courage and prowess; they lamented those who were slain in war. (Hughes 54)

I decided on an Irish persona because I loved the culture's early connection to poetry, song, and the scribal arts, which are perhaps my three biggest interests in the SCA. In mundane life, I am an agnostic, but if I have to "play" a religion in the SCA, I'd rather it not be Christian, or be connected to Christianity as little as possible. And this ... this fit just about everything I wanted in a persona: the chance to be learned in my favorite arts and without a strong connection to Christianity.

So I have settled on this most basic of starting points for a persona: I will be an eighth-century student at a poets' school.

With this, I could work on the much-dreaded (and postponed) task of coming up with a name.

For the past three hours or so, I have been rummaging through the essays and references on St. Gabriel's website. I have learned the basic construction of an Irish name in my period. I have attempted to wrap my brain around Old Irish pronunciation. And I have gone through the list of women's names for my time period, pulled out those for the eighth century, and painstakingly translated each to decide which I liked.

Appropriately enough, as with my persona, I got bored halfway through because I really liked the very first one I translated.

So, my name is almost complete, heralds permitting. It will be Eithne ingen Something. Something will be my fictional father's name; patronymic name constructions are one of the most common ways that early Irish names are constructed. I'm less concerned about the second half; it is by Eithne that I will be known, heralds permitting.

I'm excited! I've been putting this off for a long time, so it's good to have it (mostly) behind me; I like Eithne a lot (hence getting bored halfway through, especially once I started to get the knack of pronunciation and could see that I didn't like any of the second half more than Eithne); and I will finally feel like an official SCAdian and able to be known by something better than Dawn No Not That Dawn.

Prehistory refers to the time before writing, which, in Ireland, was 1500 years ago. Studying the Irish prehistory takes us back thousands of years, to a point when Ireland was still connected by land to England and both were part of continental Europe. The last ice age lasted from about 100,000 to 13,000 BCE. The climate, then, was too cold for trees to grow, and the lowlands were covered with grass that attracted deer and horses. As one moves further north, the land becomes less fertile, and big game becomes less common.

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Word Count: 3,500/10,000

My goal with today's research is to note some important points about how the geography of Ireland has contributed to its history, as well as to begin an ongoing project to create maps relevant to my studies.

What might my Irish persona have encountered in her country during the medieval period? It seems rather forbidding: bogs, lakes, bare rock, drumlins, "highland masses and steep-sided glens," hills, and rugged forests. According to J.H. Andrews, half of Ireland is fully productive land, "but much of that good land is inextricably mixed with the bad" (2). Andrews suggests that the challenging Irish geography, in ancient and medieval times, was an impediment to achieving Irish unity.

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I have now been in the SCA for over a year. And I'm starting to get asked on a pretty regular basis: "Come up with a name yet?" "Got any ideas for a persona?" and--even worse--frequently getting warned that, if I don't come up with a name and persona for myself, then I will be collectively assigned one and might end up really and truly being known what I'm being called at the moment: Dawn No Not That Dawn.

So when Albreda suggested the NaNoWriMo-inspired Known World Persona Writing Month, I jumped on board, even though I'm working fulltime and going to school fulltime and really really can't afford another commitment … but neither can I afford to be known as Dawn No Not That Dawn for the rest of my life in the SCA.

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When I first began to study and seriously contemplate doing illumination, gilding was the thing that intimidated me the most. No, it was not painting tiny details in tiny spaces; I'd painted gaming miniatures for years and was accustomed to doing a five-color gradient inside of a 3mm x 3mm square. It certainly wasn't the research and documentation side; I am an English major, for pity's sake! I write essays for fun! (No, really, I do.)

But gilding just seemed ... well, it involves metal and a rather expensive one at that, and it wasn't something that, in my years of experimenting with motley art forms, I'd ever encountered. Also, my very talented illumination teacher, Master Tristan Alexander, avoided gilding because he couldn't do it. He used layers of gold paint instead. As I looked at his work--to which I aspire to be a tenth as good--and thought, "This man can't gild!" it begged me to wonder whether I'd be able to either.

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Before I even start "The Knight's Tale," an observation: It's long.

It's the longest tale in my Barnes & Noble Classics edition. Well, I think, if I am to become comfortable reading in Middle English, this will give me a good start.

"The Knight's Tale" is what I would expect of a tale so named: It involves romance and intrigue and, of course, elaborate descriptions of armor. In fact, it's almost armor porn. I mentioned the armor pornish aspect to Kenneric, who is studying for his Master's in medieval history--specifically medieval warfare--and he remarked, "Oh, yes. I've used it as a reference."

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Renaissance White Vine looks scary. That is my first assessment when, flipping through my latest goody from Kennerick--Margaret Morgan's Bible of Illuminated Letters--I encounter Renaissance White Vine for the first time.

I am with my friend and co-conspirator where the arts are concerned, Dunlaith, and I have asked her to help me pick out a style to do my holiday cards in this year. It seems fitting, since I am just recently enthused with illumination. I am thinking Celtic. Hey, it uses a lot of red and green, and there's nothing like a dragon head chewing on the stem of a letter to remind a person of peace and love and goodwill to men humans. And it's easy ... well, compared to White Vine.

But the White Vine, she points out, has those little clusters of three dots that are reminiscent of snow. And it also uses a lot of red and green, so I can't even use that argument, accented with blue and gold, which is much more holiday-y than the goldenrod and pinky-salmon colors used on the Celtic examples, and certainly more so than the domineering solid black letters.

And, in truth, the White Vine looks fun. Scary, yes ... but fun too. I love detail work. After years of painting gaming miniatures, it has become a survival trait. So I commit to trying out White Vine for this year's holiday cards.

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ETA: Sorry to my legit visitors, but I'm screening anon comments (which also means OpenID for those commenting from LJ) after getting hit with a spammer each day for the better part of a week. For those of you less-than-familiar with the behavior of LJ and clones like IJ, that just means that I have to approve your comment before it appears to the public. Please leave comments as usual; I'll approve anything that's legit and delete the spammers.

Last year, for my birthday, Kennerick acquired for me a wealth of books relevant to study of the literature of the Middle Ages. Our families looked on as I squeeded over The Canterbury Tales (translated and the original Middle English text!) and Shakespeare's Henry V. He might have given me diamonds. From my perspective, he had.

Months have since passed, and I haven't gotten to my books as I'd hoped. To the holidays and beyond, they sat stacked on my desk in the study, gathering dust from the woodstove. Eventually, they moved atop the scanner to make room for my recorders and sheet music. Spring came, and the woodstove dust got brushed off till next winter. Kennerick recently tidied the study and moved them further yet to the actual bookshelf. To be fair, I did open The Canterbury Tales back in May ... to have my interest hijacked again after receiving an email that day about the Highland River Melees and their focus on the Hundred Years' War. My education in--and, therefore, knowledge of--history is so embarassingly lean that I spent the next month reading a historical text on the Hundred Years' War with the benefit that, hey, Chaucer was from that era and in fact had been held for ransom by the French at one point. Dipping my toe into The Canterbury Tales as far as the biographical introduction to its author, I had known this already. In my mind, the history became less linear and began to connect to disciplines I found less imposing, namely art and literature.

But one of my goals across the A&S 50 challenge is to become more proficient with the languages that would have been used during the Middle Ages. So Chaucer--and the baby steps of learning a "new" way to read English--beckoned.

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This was my very first illuminated piece, attempted to make sure that I actually liked doing illumination before I took anymore of my and Master Tristan's time. As such, I was using subpar supplies--craft paints with names like "Red Apple"--that I had lying around the house, and I focused more on the actual painting of the capital than matching the exact hue of the colors.

I also did not add the gold, as I did not know gilding at the time.

I was pretty pleased with the outcome ... and yes, I enjoyed it as well, enough to decide to continue!

The original can be found on the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

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"The Fairy's Song" is an alliterative poem in the style of the mid-14th century poem Pearl. This is an original work, and I maintain the copyright of this work. Please contact me at DawnFelagund@gmail.com before reprinting or distributing this poem outside of this journal.

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Pearl is widely regarded as one of the finest poems written during the period of English literature known as the Alliterative Revival and certainly one of the most technically challenging (Ward 1). Pearl is part of the manuscript Cotton Nero A.x. and can be found at the British Museum, where it is bound with three other poems--Patience, Purity, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--in a quarto volume of vellum folios (Osgood ix). While the author remains unknown, stylistic similarities have led critics to the conclusion that all four poems in the volume were written by the same poet.

( The Alliterative Revival ) ( The Plot and Themes of Pearl ) ( The Structure of Pearl ) ( My Project )

A Quest for the Foolish Brave is only available on limited locked archives in order to preserve my first publication rights as an author. Currently, the story can be found on my LiveJournal and in my A&S50 project folder only to members of those archives. If you are not a member of these archives and wish to read the story, please email me at DawnFelagund@gmail.com and I will send you a copy.

( Introduction ) ( My Project ) ( Bibliography )

For me, the challenge to create medieval artwork began before I even joined the SCA, and so this is where my A&S50 journey begins.

Several Christmases ago, while choosing impulse gifts for my husband, I saw on the shelf at the bookstore the J.R.R. Tolkien translation of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Kenneric has always loved the Arthurian legends and, at the time, was playing a Bretonian Warhammer army where the Green Knight was one of his most effective characters. He'd always had a penchant for knights of the verdant variety: Even his email addresses and usernames often involve "greenknight" in some way.

So I picked it up for him, figuring that he'd enjoy it.

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