Even though I had a fun time at the SCA event this past weekend, I’m glad to be home. I slept great last night–perhaps a little too great. I’m groggy as fuck this morning, even after my usual coffee.
^^Okay, so I was groggier than I thought I was. That was written yesterday morning after much, much thought…then I got distracted by the fact that it was time to leave for work and forgot I was even writing a post. D’oh!
It was fun dressing up in period garb and walking around watching the rapier fighting and kinda sorta meeting people.
It was the annual Mideast Feast, so I wore some loaner garb that was sorta Middle Eastern. I’m grateful to have friends that are willing to loan out clothes for events until I can make my own.
Most of the people were from a different barony, meaning I didn’t know them from the local area, and the majority of the new names I learned kinda zoomed in one ear and out the other. Not that I wasn’t trying to listen, but I just was so overwhelmed (not to mention I am terrible with names to begin with). The protocol of calling everyone m’lord/m’lady or calling people with crowns on “excellency” or learning who was king/queen to call “your grace” or the prince to call “your highness” was hard to figure out. Then there’s the whole regular-name-vs-SCA-name thing. I still don’t quite get it, but hopefully I’ll pick up better as I go.
I’ve pretty much picked my SCA name and some of the detail work I’ll do on my garb once it’s finished properly (I’m going to just make it “good enough” for rapier practice for now), and I have the beginnings of a persona. I’m definitely going for Viking shieldmaiden–partly because fighting women are awesome, partly because I get to wear pants instead of skirts–and I’ve got a name picked out that’s referenced as being a Valkyrie in some period poetry. Valkyries are awesome as well. Plus my name loosely translates to either “protection/luck rune” or “ale rune.” Protection/luck for the battlefield, ale for after. 😉
Next up on the SCA list of things to do is going to our first official SCA meeting. It’s kind of like a “town hall” sort of thing, so no garb required, but in two weeks is “court” so we might have to wear garb for that. Hopefully by then I’ll have our fencing/period garb coats done and we can have something to wear to both rapier practice and SCA events. The pants will probably have to wait because of time constraints on the cosplays, which I really need to get cracking on as soon as the jackets are done. For now, jackets and, like, pajama pants will have to do in a pinch. I have patterns for leggings, but not quite the type that the Vikings wore. It doesn’t look too hard though (famous last words).
Some friends of ours are being gracious enough to loan us some rapiers to practice with at home. We’ll definitely have to be super careful, because I don’t yet have a fencing mask or, well, anything. If we can find the wall space, we might put up an EVA foam “target” to stab at. Protects the apartment walls, provides something other than each other to practice on.
This is going to be a time-consuming (and expensive) hobby, but I’m looking forward to getting more involved in the SCA and meeting new people and learning new things. It’s great having the friends we’ve already met and gotten to know, and hopefully I’ll make even more friends as time goes on.
I’m glad my husband finally talked me into joining the SCA and going to events. I’ll have to admit, the rapier fighting kind of cinched it for me. Even though I get frustrated with it at times because I’m very much a beginner, I enjoy it. Stabby-stab. I’m even interested in cut-and-thrust, which apparently is more risky (as far as potential injuries go), but it looks like it would be really fun.
I’m hoping I meet new people at the meeting tonight and don’t get too confused on the name thing. And I hope I don’t pronounce my own name wrong. Norse names are weird.
AJ Mullican, Author 