Northern Region War Camp: My most favorite squiring evah

For me, the single coolest thing that happened at the event was Sir Seosamh (metasomething) took my daughter, Baroness Leonete (evilnicola) , as his squire.

He did it in Shark Pit with dozens of people who had known Leonete since she was six.

It was a quick, but moving ceremony. Leonete was very nervous, because Seosamh had told her to memorize her lineage. He asked her if she had memorized it, she said yes, and he went to move on until Prince Konrad asked him to ask her to recite it, and she nailed it.

She received two belts. One woven by her sister Tola (theresat) and one from her step-mom, Alethea (alethea_eastrid). The one from Alethea had been hers when she was squired to Duchess Rowan.

For those of you who do not know my daughters, they are both amazing people.

This post is about Leonete, who started in youth combat at about age 8, when the program began. She qualified as an 18-year-old, and was, I believe, the first former youth fighter to fight in Crown.

She was on the field Saturday in her new pink arming coat and got a number of kills in the field battle before succumbing to an injury. Just axe her about it..

One of the things I like most about her squiring to Seosamh, someone we have known for 15 or so years, is that he is also a Pelican, and Leonete is as much as service junkie as the rest of the family.

She was head lady-in-waiting to Alethea and worked behind the thrones during court Saturday, just as she has before. She retained for Their Highnesses this weekend, too. She ran the list table for svava’s Whims Tourney.

She’ll be running the East Kingdom Teen Party at Pennsic – again. She was there at the beginning for that one, too.

I am proud beyond words.

Northern Region War Camp: Beah, heah. Get your good beah, heah!

Then there was beer.

The beer-tasting sessions went great. The Friday one was with jeepsquire, and on  Saturday, we did it at bytchearse’s.

In both cases, the audiences were really interested in what we were doing. On Friday, I introduced jeepsquire to a pair of Belgians, a Saison du Pont farmhouse ale and a quad called Gravitation from Smuttynose. We also had the Long Trail IPA and the Arrogant Bastard Strong Ale, from Stone Brewing.

Padair had never had Belgians, other than the Belgian Whites, which are citrusy, and citrus isn’t so good for him. He really liked them.

The Gravitation, part of Smutty’s Big Beer series, was very sweet and was a big hit.

At Jaji’s on Saturday, after a wonderful meal, we had Long Trail Blackbeary Wheat, Gritty McDuff’s Black Fly Stout and two strong ales – the Bastard and the Long Trail Double Bag. hugh_mannity was in on that one and had a great time. Mitress Peyton and her lord, Adrian, seemed to have a good time, too.

evilnicola was my lovely assistant and alethea_eastrid was there to evaluate how things went. Nicola (Baroness Leonete) was an excellent assistant, and she was able to add a good bit to my stories.

I will extend a standing offer of a donation tof $50 or more o the East Kingdom Travel fund for a tasting for four to six beers. (I have to pay for the beer with part of the donation. )There is usually enough beer for you and four others. Your camp at Pennsic would be an excellent place. If you are in Albany/Troy/Schenectady  or in Saratoga, Washington or Warren counties, we can make arrangements for a session at your place or mine.

I used my spiffy new six-ounce beer-tasting glasses from Stone Brewing.

Norther Region War Camp: A bunch of other cool things . . .

1. First and foremost, please welcome loreigh to the Liamverse. She’s new to the SCA and new to the SCA. She got her baptism by fire at Northern Region War Camp this past weekend. I was her native guide; she camped in Clan Campbell, and wound up with new garb and everything. Please friend her if you met her. Trey, you oughta friend her, too.

She’s not the only one. Also, please welcome marlenemcc!

2. So many cool things happened at Northern Region, during which we dodged much of the rain. (Oh, that we could dodge the reign). Friday afternoon, was svava’s Whims Tournament, with evilnicola at the MOL table and me as the herald. Yeah. Not sure who survived. Lord Ian from Coldwood won it, and lbitw (Lord Kettil) was second. I worked at gate a lot Thursday and Friday, getting to spend quality time with sideshownate, Brittany and the rest of the crew. theresat received an honorable mention in the embroidery contest. knitprincess was totally  “deer-in-the-headlights”

3. zarhooie got her AoA, ending a months’ long multi-kingdom conspiracy. ingusmoen, a Laurel she works with when she’s at school in Northshield, wrote the text in England and Old Norse (or something like that). I got permission from Khioniyah to ask for a specific scribe, and Lady Altani did a scroll in both languages with Norse illustrations and zarhooie’s arms. When it came time to read it, Master Grim read the Norse, and alethea_eastrid read the England.

4. Alethea was one of the heralds. Malcolm was the chief herald, but he also had evilnicola making sure everything was “just so.”

The court was extremely well-run, and somewhat humorous. I liked the backlog AoA scroll that was from Darius and Alethea.

King Andreas: “I bet if our predecessors were here, they would say very good things about you.”

He then turned to Alethea, who kept a straight face right through the part where she said, “given this day by King Darius and Queen Alethea.”

5. Sometime things just come together.

Mid-week, jenphalian, the bestest autocrat ever (and my protégé) called me and said something had fallen though and she needed some folks to take over cooking the pork loin. I had a line to etherial on gmail chat, and he said and rosinavs would be happy to do it. It turned out to be long and more difficult than expected, but by following instructions from bytchearse, it came out great! In court, King Andreas asked them to stand, and thank them, then asked if they had their AoAs.

From behind him, Alethea said, “We beat you to them, Your Majesty.

6. Despite the NOAH (It’s gonna rain for 40 days and 40 nights) forecast, it turned out to a pretty nice weekend. There was rain at times, but the fighting weather Saturday was excellent. It got fairly cool Saturday night into Sunday morning.

7. We camped in Clan Campbell for the second event in a row, and I have to thank stonetimber and stefka again for making that possible.