Freiherr: For Tannon the Barbarian upon Becoming a Baron of the Court

Maister Colyne Stewart, July AS 52 (2017)

PART ONE

Call-bound Vendel chief | Cousin to Gunderic

Fearful of no flame | fell-handed hunter

He who laughs loudly | Hero of northlands

Ring-son of Teiwaz | Render of shields

Soil-rich Hochadel | Slayer of halgeist

Giant of wolf-runs | Keeper of kings

PART TWO

Wild, the wolf is now silver headed,

A coronet resting on barbarous brow,

Noble its bearing now all must avow,

The tril’um grows where its paw has treaded.

The foes of its king its claws have shredded,

The red of its blood has stained snow and bough,

Wild, the wolf is now silver headed,

A coronet resting on barbarous brow.

Its howl is loved or else it’s dreaded,

The wolf ‘gainst foemen cuts through like a plow,

The king, ancient wisdom, calls for it now,

It comes through fields so recently redded,

Wild, the wolf is now silver headed.

NOTES

At War of the Trillium 2017, Tannon was made a Baron of the Court of Quillium and Tangwystl. As Tannon is a barbarian, and Quilliam and Tangwystl are having a Tudor reign, I wanted to tell this tale from both viewpoints. For the barbarian point of view I used old German versification (of so similar to Old English and Old Norse versification) which made use of lines divided into hemistichs by a caesura. Alliteration had to occur between the first stressed syllable in each half-line. A footnoted version of the verse is below:

Call-bound[1] Vendel chief[2] | Cousin to Gunderic[3]

Fearful of no flame[4] | fell-handed hunter[5]

He who laughs loudly[6] | Hero of northlands

Ring-son of Teiwaz[7] | Render of shields

Soil-rich[8] Hochadel[9] | Slayer of halgeist[10]

Giant[11] of wolf-runs[12] | Keeper of kings[13]

For the Tudor point of view I settled on a roundel, which was introduced in France in the 13^th century but would have been in use in England in the 16^th.  The rondel is a fixed poetic form, a variant of the rondeau, that runs on two rhymes. It usually consisted of thirteen lines with a free meter (though often eight or ten syllables) divided into three stanzas (two quatrains and a quintet), with the first two lines of the first stanza serving as a refrain of the second and third stanzas. The rhyme scheme is therefore ABba abAB abbaB with no rhyme words being repeated. Sometimes the term rondel and rondeau were used interchangeably.

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[1] Stating that Tannon will always answer his king’s summons.

[2] Tannon is a “barbarian” which is not a term anyone in period would have applied to themselves. I selected to write from the point of view of the Vandals (an old German tribe considered to be barbarians by the Romans).

[3] Gunderic was a king of the Vandal Kingdom. I am implying that Tannon has at least noble blood, which is now recognized as he is a baron.

[4] The Vandals tended to practice cremation, so I am here saying that Tannon does not fear death.

[5] Tannon is a skilled fighter.

[6] Anyone familiar with Tannon is also familiar with his almost ever present smile and laughter.

[7] Teiwaz was a Germanic god of war. I am implying that Tannon is bound to battle.

[8] The king gave Tannon a jar of dirt. Wherever Tannon spreads that soil is to be his domain.

[9] The Hochadel were noble German houses who ruled sovereign states in the Holy Roman Empire, again alluding to Tannon’s nobility.

[10] A halgeist was a mountain spirit (a salt ghost). Implying that Tannon is brave.

[11] Tannon is a tall man.

[12] Ealdormere.

[13] As a bonded noble, Tannon is now a protector of the Crown.

Ten Shall Remain

By THlaird Colyne Stewart, June AS 50 (2015)

For the Barbarians, upon winning the ten-man tournament at Murder Melee XXXII.

To Melee came            a host of might

A horde to fight          upon the field

As ravens flew                        and wolfen fed

All teams of ten          all trained to stand

To face the foe            to fight and bleed

When trumpets call’d              the thunder came

The horde fell to         the happy heri

Bright steel well-swung          the poets sang

As blood fed grass      as beaten fell

‘Til one side stayed     the bar’brous swords

In riches draped          the righteous awed

From beah-gifa’s hand            the heart of Rome

To plunder right          to rich-make home

Written in the style of Old German versification.

This form is made up of lines divided into hemistichs by a caesura. Each hemistich had at two stressed syllables and at least two unstressed syllables. The syllables in each hemistich almost always followed one of the following metrical patterns:

The A-line: / x / x (knights in armour)

The B-line: x / x / (the roaring sea)

The C-line: x / / x (on high mountains)

The D1-line: / / \ x (bright archangels)

The D2-line: / / x \ (bold brazenfaced)

The E-line: / \ x / (highcrested elms)

I used the B-line, though I broke the pattern in the first hemistich of the last line.

Alliteration must occur between at least one stressed syllable in each half-line. It should be noted that all vowels alliterated, and so did any words starting with the letter G (whether the syllables had assonance or not).

Heri is an old Germanic term for army, and beah-gifa means “giver of rings” here referring to the Baron and Baroness of Ben Dunfirth.

For the Honourable Lord Albrecht Stampher upon being Named a Vigilant of the Order of the Laurel

By THLaid Colyne Stewart, June AS 50 (2015)

[Voice 1:]

I sing now of a man most wise,

Who is adept at all he tries,

And has now come to Royal’s sight.

[Voice 2:]

I sing now of a man most prized,

Whose blade flashes’ neath the skies,

And who is known well for papers that he writes.

[Voice 3:]

I sing now of a man who tries,

Who where others fall he doth still rise,

And who wields a pen long into night.

[Voice 4:]

I sing now of a man who cries

With joy as manuscripts higher rise,

And with whom base ignorance doth lose the fight.

[All:]

We sing now of Albrecht, eyes

Set upon the scholar’s guise,

Who will be raised to gloried height.

By Their decree, the Herald cries

For Albrecht, Laurel, to arise,

And bid him be a teacher bright

Written as a lied. The lieder (the plural of lied) were several types of German songs as they were referred to in English and French writings. The earliest examples are from the 12^th and 13^th centuries and were the works of the Minnesingers.

The lied proper usually made use of the bar form. It was made up of a strophe (stanza) divided into two stollen (confusingly also referred to as stanzas, and collectively known as an aufgesang). They were followed by an abesang (the after-song). It was apparently not uncommon for the stollen to be of different lengths. Melodically, the abesang would mirror the end melody of the aufgesang. The bar form was usually represented as AAB (with the As being the two stollen and the B being the abesang).

The courtly minnelieder were monophonic (a single melodic line). As musical notation of this period was not precise, the rhythmic interpretation is open to debate.

In the 14^th century the monophonic lied went into decline, while the polyphonic lied was introduced (for two or more voices or voice and instruments).

In the 15^th century the polyphonic lieder expanded to having up to four voices, and were addressed to scholars and clergy.

As Albrecht’s persona is 16^th century German, I went with the later polyphonic version of the lied, which fit quite well as he is being made a Laurel for research, and the later lieder were often addressed to scholars.

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For Siegfried Brandbeorn upon being named a vigilant of the Order of the Pelican

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, February AS 49 (2015)

Siegfried, bold knight,

Look now to light;

Behold what waits,

What monarch states:

For service done,

For honour won,

For duty full,

For grace’s pull,

Bow down your head.

Be not in dread,

As rulers speak

Of phoenix beak,

Of hands hurt raw,

Of wolfen paw,

Of feet sore tread,

Of oaths you said,

Of feasts you cooked,

Of halls you booked,

Of land you tilled,

Of roles you filled.

For service done,

For honour won,

Unbend your knee,

We look to thee,

With glory gird,

We wait your word,

Not done by half,

Most worthy Graf.

Written as a Sprechspruch, a German form employed by the minnesingers. It consists of 4-beat lines, arranged in rhymed pairs. It is unstrophic (that is, it is not divided into regular stanzas) but could be divided into sections of various lengths at the poet’s whim. The form is fairly simple, except for the fact that 4-beat lines are hard to write, what with them being so short! 

For Ysemay Sterlyng, on Becoming a Vigilant of the Order of the Laurel

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, January AS 49 (2015)

From Eastern lands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

For Ysemay Sterlyng’s deft and graceful hands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

For Eastern royals

Will glad increase the standing of Their Laurels

With Ysemay Sterlyng, both kind and loyal

Will glad increase the standing of Their Laurels

With Eastern grace

She stands a Peer, forever in her place

Bright Ysemay Sterlyng of the smiling face

She stands a Peer, forever in her place

Notes on the Piece

You’ll have to bear with me on this one. Ysemay is being made a Laurel for her knowledge of 16^th century Germany (an era I know nothing about). So, I looked into what kind of poetic traditions were common in that time and found the Meistersingers, guilds of professional poets and singers who lived by dozens if not hundreds of rules (Die Kunstausdrücke der Meistersinger, a rule book written in 1887, is almost 300 pages long).

I could only find basic information about the Meistersingers in English, so my attempt at writing lyrics in their style may be WAY off. Further research will have to discover how close or far I got.

Meistersingers apparently wrote their verse in three strophes (or stanzas). I could not find out what kind of strophe they used (as there are many kinds), so I based mine on a piece of musical notation I found for Veilchenweise by Hans Folz. The lyrics were not included so I could not see the rhyming scheme, but it did allow me to see exactly how the strophe was constructed from its parts. I decided to go with an AAAA BBBB CCCC rhyming scheme.

Each strophe was divided into two stollen (confusingly also referred to as stanzas, and collectively known as an aufgesang). They were followed by an abesang (the after-song). It was apparently not uncommon for the stollen to be of different lengths. Melodically, the abesang would mirror the end melody of the aufgesang. I have included this mirroring by repeating the second stollen as the last line of the abesang.

So, deconstructed, here is the first strophe of my poem:

Aufesang

[Stollen 1] From Eastern lands

[Stollen 2] Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

Abesang

For Ysemay Sterlyng’s deft and graceful hands

Glad tidings flow around the knowne worlde spann’d

Technically, this should be written to music, but I know next to nothing about writing music.