Kalenda Martius

For THL Marie l’Englois upon her elevation to the Order of the Laurel

By TH Laird Colyne Stewart, February AS 51 (2017)

This month will see awe

When at Faire, all a draw,

This lady will kneel at feet of law,

Her voice without flaw.

Woven from rough straw

Music, like gold, flows forth from her jaw;

The iciest hearts her tunes can thaw,

Emotions, felt deeply, and so raw.

All in awe,

See no flaw,

Her place her foretold by ka.

Like owl claw,

I here draw,

Dame Marie, I have estampida.

Based on the 14^th century estampida “Kalenda Maya” by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras. The original poem was six stanzas long (each with identical structure) but as estampida are mono-rhyme poems I only wrote one stanza. (Italian has a lot more words that rhyme than English, making recreating Italian poetic forms in English a challenge.) You may notice that I did repeat a few of my rhyming words, but even with the glut of possible Italian words to choose from Raimbaut sometimes repeated words himself. (So I don’t feel as bad about that.) I based the structure of my stanza on the structure of Raimbaut’s. The last line also directly reflects the last line of the original which states: “N'Engles, ai l'estampida.” [Dame Engles, I have the estampida.]

Below is a version of the poem with footnotes.

This month will see awe[1]

When at Faire[2], all a draw,

This lady will kneel at feet of law[3],

Her voice without flaw.

Woven from rough straw

Music, like gold, flows forth from her jaw[4];

The iciest hearts her tunes can thaw,

Emotions, felt deeply, and so raw.

All in awe,

See no flaw,

Her place her foretold by ka[5].

Like owl claw[6],

I here draw[7],

Dame Marie, I have estampida.

---

[1] The title refers to the first of March, as it is in March 2017 that. Marie will be elevated.

[2] The elevation will occur at Kingdom A&S.

[3] Referring to kneeling at the feet of Their Majesties.

[4] Marie is being made a Laurel for her knowledge of Medieval music. I here draw attention specifically to her singing, likening it to Rumpelstiltskin’s ability to weave gold from straw.

[5] Ka is an Egyptian term for part of the soul.

[6] The owl is the bird of wisdom, as Laurels are supposed to be wise as well as learned.

[7] As in I am drawing (or writing) the poem.

The sun never sets

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, March AS 50 (2016)

The sun never sets on old Ealdormere

Our very old debts are already paid

The trees grow so tall, well watered with blood,

Our legends won’t fall, they walk with us still—

The Iron Duke writes secure in his home,

The mighty Earl fights with sword in each hand,

The first hare of Skreal still sits in the hall,

The fox with black tail sits tall on her horse.

And those that have gone are still in our minds

Live on in their spawn, their lineage kept,

Their hearts are held close in action and deed

Remembered in prose by poet and skald

The hall that they built we add to our selves

Do not let it tilt by adding bad wood

Each log is a deed, an action we took;

A log made of greed, or envy or spite

Could topple the hall, the log rotten through.

Do not be a thrall to low base desire

Live on my good folk, live on as a pack,

Think on what I spoke, live on like true wolf.

The Italian frottola emerged in the 14^th century as a satiric, rambling verse form utilizing irregular meters and stanzas, reflecting the fact that the subject matter was usually unconnected, bizarre and sometimes senseless. They could be composed of couplets of unrhymed pentameter, heptameter or hendecasyllabic lines with internal rhyme (though some experts also believe there were blank form frottola).  In the 15^th century the form became known as the frottola-barzelleta where it became a sub-species of canto carnascialesco (carnival song), set to music, following the structure of the balata grande and being octosyllabic. At the beginning of the 14^th century it was used for moral instruction, but by the end of that century it had assumed artistic proportions with moral, political or satirical themes. It also made use of proverbs and witty instructional content (didacticism).

Ealdormere’s First Master of Defense

For Baron Giovanni de Enzinas

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, December AS 50 (2015)

In northern lands the swords were drawn

And scholars faced epee and foil

‘Til one impressed the sitting royal

Was told to face the coming dawn

In northern lands the swords were drawn

About his neck white collar’s clasped

To mark him as entitled peer

The first, like him, of Ealdormere

While in his hand a sword is grasped

About his neck white collar’s clasped

A man of metal and of art

Who studies words of written worth

And teaches with both joy and mirth

He who has a generous heart

A man of metal and of art

In northern lands the swords were drawn

And scholars faced epee and foil

‘Til one impressed the sitting royal

Was told to face the coming dawn

In northern lands the swords were drawn

A ballata. This poetic and musical form was in use from the late 13th to the 15th century in Italy. It was one of the most prominent secular musical forms at the time.

Its rhyme scheme is usually AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same text. It is similar to the French virelai (not the ballade, as the name would suggest). The first and last A are called aripresa, the b lines are piedi (feet), and the fourth line is a volta. Longer ballate (the plural of ballata) may be found with different rhyme schemes such as AbbaAbbaA. The two b lines usually have exactly the same music, though eventually they would have an open and close ending.

Arrochar Strikes

Arrochar Strikes

By THLaird Colyne Stewart, July AS 50 (2015)

At Trillium War the sinners gathered

As clerics set the field with painted pins

To make the penitent repent their sins

The contrite pilgrim must then take a ball

And from safe distance roll it ‘cross the grass

Then in the outcome they must prove their class

And fight one knight per pin that did not fall.

So teams of three were sent to do the deed

And Arrochar took up the worthy call

And stood on field, waiting their turn with ball,

When Berend, gentle Master of the Laurel,

Awed all with glorious shoots of superb skill

As more than once he sent the ball to kill

And sent all pins to lie in repose floral.

Sir Nigel told him then to stand aside

And let his brothers take their turns to throw

So Kol and Colyne then their skill did show

And knocked pin after pin unto the ground

Though not as well as Berend did they tried

Rejoiced when many so thus truly died

Then went to face the knights upon the mound.

So well three battles then the squires fought

In singles first they faced a Master pink

Much blood was spilt for greedy grass to drink

Then three on three they faced a hardy group

Defeated two before the battle’s end

And finally beat a polearm’s deadly friend

To prove their worthy valour as a troupe.

With skill of arm at boules and with the blade

The house of Arrochar purged forth their sins

And the holy clerics tallied up their wins

In honour of their knight and of his love

The ermine and the star won well the day

By dropping pins and fighting in the fray

And in good brotherhood they won thereof.

And so to Nigel do we therefore praise

For teaching well his men the warrior’s ways

May much more honour come in future days.

At War of the Trillium 2015, there was a Bowling Knights tournament based on a period event where people would roll a ball at pins representing their skins. They were pardoned for each sin they knocked down, and then could pay to be forgiven for any remaining sins. In the Bowling Knights tourney, each of the pins was represented by a knight or master-of-arms. So, when a team took a turn to bowl, they had to fight any members of the chivalry whose pin was still standing. There were six pins, and five frames. Each pin knocked down, and each member of the Chivalry defeated, were worth one point.

Team Arrochar was one of six or seven teams to take part, and was represented by Baron Berend van der Eych, Baron Kolbjorn Skatkaupandi and THL Colyne Stewart. In the first frame, Berend bowled a strike. He repeated this in the second. At this point he was told by his knight, Sir Nigel, not to throw the third. Instead, Kol bowled the third frame and knocked down all the pins except for Duchess Kaylah’s. Arrochar offered her single combat and defeated her. In the fourth frame, Colyne knocked down three pins so it was a three on three fight. Arrochar managed to take out two of the knights before being defeated by the third. Berend was then allowed to bowl again for the last frame. He got another strike, but as it was the last frame he was allowed another ball. This time he knocked down five pins, and Arrochar faced Sir Tiberius. As Tiberius brought out a polearm, single combat was not offered. Arrochar swarmed Tiberius and won the field.

This meant that Arrochar missed out on only one point, and scored 35 out of a possible 36 to win the tourney (due largely to Berend’s skill at bowling).

This poem was written as a canzone, which was an Italian or Provençal song or ballad, or a type of lyric resembling a madrigal, originating during the 13^th century. Derived from the Provençal canso, the canzone consisted of five to seven stanzas with each stanza being between seven to twenty lines. It ends with a tornado, the Provençal version of the envoi (a shortened stanza used as a sort of epilogue).

For Asa Gormsdottir upon being elevated to the Order of the Laurel

THlaird Colyne Stewart, December AS 49 (2014)

For some are masters of an art,

They practiced each and every day,

To hone their skill, find their way,

And in the kingdom play their part,

For some are masters of an art.

One of these was blessed by her Queen,

For skill with needle, thread and cloth,

Who people in fine garb were swath,

Whose art was ‘mongst the greatest seen,

One of these was blessed by her Queen.

Now Asa, Dame of Ordered Laurel,

Sworn by faith, worthy scholar,

Wearing leaves about her collar,

In our kingdom of the boreal,

Now Asa, Dame of Ordered Laurel.

Since Asa does both Old Norse and Venetian I had a choice to make about what kind of poetry to use. I decided to go with an Italian form and settled on a ballata. Ballate were often accompanied by music and dancing, but not always. And since I can’t write music or choreograph a dance, simple words it is!