My First Trip to Crown Tourney
by Malaney of Axed Root

I had a great time at Crown Tournament. Once on site we were greeted warmly by our Grimfell hosts. I particularly enjoyed opening court and witnessing Their Majesties' sense of humor.

After opening court, the list field was set up and the tourney began. A peculiarity of an indoor list field in a mid-sized site is that the edge of the list is very close to the seats of the populace. During one of the bouts, the two combatants almost crashed off the field and into the crowd. After the exciting tourney ended and the victor was revealed, we attended court again. Closing court was so COOL. It was very interesting to me to see the new prince (Valens) and princess (Shadow) crowned. The feast after court was fantastic with huge amounts of tasty food. As feast began, Prince Valens insisted upon helping serve the head table, traveling to and fro on one of the carts from the kitchen. I had so much fun. It was a wonderful time.

[picture] Detail from 15th century stone carving on a church pulpit (Italian Renaissance) by Sadhbh Bheansidhe

Olde Fart's Soapbox #55: Christmas '00

Once again the happy gnomes of Coeur d'Ennui celebrate the holidays. Mostly because the Olde Fart doesn't try to write something funny and just leaves quotes. So here we go again.

"I like men to behave like men. I like them strong and childish." - Francoise Sagan

"The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god." - Friedrich Nitzsche

"Television is tough work, but I'm not giving up. After all, you can't quit when you're 39." - Jack Benny

"Television is like indoor plumbing. It didn't change people's habits - it just kept them in the house." - Alfred Hitchcock

"I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse." - Groucho Marx

"It is fast approaching the point where I don't want to elect anyone stupid enough to want the job." - Erma Bombeck

"In brief, she assumed that, being a man, I was vain to the point of imbecility, and this assumption was correct, as it always is." - H.L. Mencken

"It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in five years." - John Von Neumann (circa 1949)

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is." - Phoobar

"2 does not equal 3- even for very large values of 2." - Grabel's Law

"If we're not listening, we'd have to be pretty blind." - - J.L. Gassee

"Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers." - Tom Lehrer

"With every passing hour, our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress." - Ransom K. Ferm

"Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change." - Spanky

"Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask, 'Why me?' Then a voice answers, 'Nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.'" - Charlie Brown

"He who hesitates is frost." - Eskimo Proverb

"Support your local medical examiner - Die Strangely." - Phoobar

"Make me one with everything." - - Zen master to hot-dog vendor

Caoimhin McKee

A Note on the Baronial Armory

With many thanks to Ivan, Travis, Klaus, Thomas, and Dylla, the Armory is now open and located in Cormac's dwelling. The Armory is located at 2208 Elizabeth Avenue. One block south of Easton, off East 22nd St, on Elizabeth Avenue, second house from the corner on the north side.
The Armory will be open until 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon until 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, or later if the need be great. It would be wise to call 262-6483 to make sure that Cormac is home to grant you access to his home.
In great hopes to see you armoring soon,

Cormac

Unto the Populace of the Barony of Coeur d'Ennui come greetings from H.L. Hugh Du Puy

I am acting as Archer Marshal for the barony. Archery participation is currently low but I would like to see it revived. On Mondays, alternating with A&S and Court, I would like to resume shooting at one of the local ranges. There is a cost to this.

Please let me know if you are interested. Also, if any gentle knows of an outdoor location where we can shoot this summer, please let me know. I hope to hear from all of those interested soon.

In service to the barony,
H.L. Hugh Du Puy
279-8268
hldupuy@home.com

Greetings & Happy Holidays from the Baronial Knights Marshal

I would like to remind everyone that there will be no fighter practice on December 26 or January 2 due to the holidays.

Have a very merry holiday season!
Thomas FitzRodrick

Herald's Point by Jacqueline de Meux, Cabochard Herald

T his month we have a matching game. Lots of people aren't sure what to put on their device. Here are people in Coeur d'Ennui and something they have chosen. But I have mixed them all up! See who you can match up with the correct item. The answers are not in the Boar's Snore. Come ask me or look them up in the Calontir Armorial online. You can reach the Armorial by going to sca.calontir.org then look for the link. Happy Hunting!

Greetings, good gentles of Coeur d'Ennui from the Baronial Minister of Arts & Sciences Just a short reminder that there will be no A&S for January. Instead, you should all watch football and recover from the previous night's revelries.

Queen's Prize Tourney is just around the corner. The deadline for papers is December 23 in Shajar's hand. Deadline for all other entries is January 12.

In service,
Murdoch

Court Notes compiled by James the Musician

Her Excellency announced that Lord Albrecht is the new demo coordinator. Their Excellencies also presented AoAs to Kjartean and Ysoria. (Huzzah!)

Lady Kateryn mentioned that Lady Brihtwynn and Lord Ceanntigern have donated leftover meat to the barony.

Lady Brihtwynn requested corrections and updates to the baronial phone list on behalf of Lady Winnifred. The phone list will also be available for perusal at December A&S and Yule Court.

Lord Ceanntigern gave belt hooks to Lord Murdoch and Lord Simon in appreciation of their help with the wedding.

Lord Edward reminded all that he would be stepping down as baronial treasurer in March and that the process of choosing a successor would start in January to allow time for training. All interested should contact Lady Brihtwynn, Lord Edward, or Their Excellencies (and preferably all three).

Lord Murdoch announced that due to New Year's Day being on Monday, there will be no A&S night in January.

He also reminded all of the approach of Queen's Prize Tourney and urged all to participate either by entering or by sponsoring an entrant.

Lady Tsire announced the change in site for dance practice to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in West Des Moines (45th and Ashworth). Practice will be held every 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at 7 p.m. Best of all, the site is FREE! Hope to see you there.

The Smith Speaks A series on Smithing Resources by Hans

Part I: A Little about forges.

Choice of forge is difficult if you are just starting - anything you choose might later prove insufficient for the work you would like to do. For example, portable forges are small self-contained units like those coal forges on my Portable Forges page at http://showcase.netins.net/web/schlosser/smallforge.htm. These are okay for occasional work but perform very poorly. Most beginners try these and end up not going far with smithing because it seems so difficult. What they never find out is that the small forge made it difficult.

Larger ready-made or factory made forges such as those on my Factory-Made page at http://showcase.netins.net/web/schlosser/factory.htm would be much more suitable for the beginner and many professionals keep one of these somewhere for occasional work. These larger forges are not very portable. Some are just downright heavy.

Many of these were designed a little too deep, and heating long bars requires a very large fire. Long bars may need to be bent to reach down into the heart of the fire for heating. The heart of the fire is where the iron is heated, but the beginner may not realize this. To understand this, see my pages on Lighting the fire and Using the fire at http://showcase.netins.net/web/schlosser/thefire.htm . I plan to add pictures to those pages later.

To buy a ready-made forge, try draft horse sales (draft horses are shod by blacksmiths, and forges are commonly found at sales along with anvils). An internet source to locate draft horse auctions is the Draft Horse Journal web page at http://www.drafthorsejournal.com/. Also watch the newspapers for farm sales. Occasionally in the business section you'll find a welding or ornamental iron shop going out of business which used a forge. There is also the Blacksmith's Junkyard at http://www.keenjunk.com/junkyard.htm.

Irecommend building a forge if you possess the skills and tooling. Blowers on stands and separate items from forges can be bought at draft horse sales. New fire pots for about $150 are found at Centaur Forge. The Centaur Vulcan and the Centaur Horseshoers' round are good with the dumping ash gate. Centaur has an internet web site at http://www.centaurforge.com. Gas forges can be bought new at Centaur. I don't like them. I have found that none of them ever get hot enough.

More to come next month in Part II of the series.

On This Day...
January 2: Granada falls to the Spanish, 1492.
January 3: Martin Luther has been excommunicated, 1521.
January 4: Ethelred and Alfred had a good basic idea; here it is winter of 871 so we can catch the Vikings in their camp at Reading and storm the place. Unfortunately, the Vikings beat the local fyrd badly.
January 5: In their serial war, the Swiss defeated Charles the Rash again at Nancy in 1477 and this time killed him. Some people won't take polite hints.
January 6: True XII Night; Old Christmas Day; Battle of Ashdown Forest, 871.
January 8: Catherine of Aragon died of natural causes in 1536.
January 14: Traditional Festival of the Ass, a popular festival in Northern France. "Those who celebrate the Festival of the Ass desire jollity!" Lest any misconstrue the event, it celebrates the virtues of the faithful beast who carried Our Lady and her babe to safety in Egypt.
January 16: Harold Godwinson crowned King of England, 1066.
January 17: Johann van Gutenberg did the town of Mainz such a notable service with that invention of his that they granted him a pension today, 1465.
January 21: Feast of the martyrdom of St. Agnes, patron of maidens.
January 22: Feast of St. Vincent of Saragossa, patron of winemakers.
January 26: Charles of Anjou became King of Sicily, 1266, by defeating Manfred, bastard son of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, at Benevento.
January 27: The citizens of Florence expunged a political undesirable from their midst today in 1302 when they sent Dante Aligheri into permanent exile.
January 28: Sir Francis Drake dies and is buried at sea, 1596.
January 29: The Netherlands provinces league themselves against Spain in the Union of Utrecht, 1579.

Source: Stupefying Stories, vol. XXVI, #1, whole number 107.

A Series of Recipes by Kateryn de Develyn Ein condimentlin (marinated veggies)
Von Guter Spiese

1 cup each: beets, carrots, shredded cabbage, cauliflower
1 T. caraway seeds (freshly crushed)
1 t. anise (freshly crushed)
1/2 t. cubeb or pepper (freshly crushed)
1/4 cup balsamic wine vinegar
1 cup honey
1 t. dry mustard powder
Mix caraway seeds, anise, cubeb, vinegar, honey and mustard together. Then pour over veggies. Allow to marinate refrigerated at least 24 hours. Serve cold.

16th c. Mughal: Bread Ain i Akbari

3 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. ghee (clarified butter)
1 c. milk
1/2 T. salt

Melt the ghee, stir it into the flour with a fork until there are only very small lumps. Stir in the milk until thoroughly mixed, knead briefly. Put the ball of dough in a bowl covered by a damp cloth and leave for at least an hour. Then knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, adding a little extra flour if necessary.

 Either: Take a ball of dough about 2" in diameter, roll it out to about a 5" diameter circle. Cook it in a hot frying pan without grease. After about 2 minutes it should start to puff up a little in places. Turn it. Cook another 2 minutes. Turn it. Cook another 2 minutes. It should be done. The recipe should make about 11.

Or: Take a ball of dough about 3" in diameter. Roll it down to a circle about 7" in diameter and 1/4" thick. Heat a baking sheet in a 450 degree oven. Put the circle of dough on it in the oven. Bake about six minutes; it should be puffing up. Turn it over. Bake about four minutes more. Take it out. The recipe makes about 5.

Cariota Libre de Nola

1 lb. carrots (8 large)
2-3 T. olive oil
2-3 t. each white wine vinegar, white wine
2-3 t. chopped fresh herbs: parsley, and a pinch each of any other fresh, mild green herbs (dill, chives, tarrragon, thyme, marjoram) salt and pepper to taste

Scrub and scrape carrots, and brush lightly with oil. Roast in a 400 degree oven. Slice into a serving dish and dress with minced herbs, oil, vinegar, wine, and salt and pepper to taste.

Book Sources:
Renfrow, Cindy. Take A Thousand Eggs Or More, volumes 1 & 2. Privately printed.
Redon, Odile; Francoise Sabban; & Silvano Serventi. The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy. Translated by Edward Schneider (c) 1998, ISBN: 0-226-70684-2\ISBN: 0-226-70685-0.
Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Pleyn Delit. University of Toronto Press, Toronto. 1979.
Hieatt, Constance B. An Ordinance of Pottage. Prospect Books (London) 1988, ISBN 0-907325-38-6.

Internet Sources:
Stefan's Florilegium at: http://www.florilegium.org/
Medieval/Renaissance Food Homepage:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/food.html

Things I've Learned From Sewing at 2:00 a.m. by Winnifred

1) I hate hemming.
2) My bobbin winder hates me.
3) The more you try to fix the hem, the more you will screw it up.
4) I need a serger.
5) Don't use red chalk to draw the pattern on white fabric when you need the garb the next day.
6) If the neck hole was too little the first time, only cut a little bit off at a time. There's no going back. I now have an off-the-shoulder undertunic.
7) If you're trying on the garb you're sewing over and over to get the right fit, it's easier just to sew nekkid. Someone please tell me I'm not alone.
8) The first time you sew it together, use a big stitch. They're easier to pull out.
9) Trying to convince yourself that no one will notice that the sleeves are two different lengths gets easier as the night goes on.
10) They play really crappy music on the radio at 2:00 a.m.
11) Ignore the "Buy 1 more yard then you think you'll need" rule. Replace it with the "Buy 7 more yards than you think you'll need" rule.
12) Get $1/yard fabric. Then you won't swear at yourself so much.
13) You can see a black bra through $1/yard white cotton.
14) You can see a white bra through $1/yard white cotton.
15) You can see you're not wearing a bra through $1/yard white cotton.
16) The warning on cold medicine that says you shouldn't operate heavy machinery while on this drug should state sewing machines specifically.
17) If you're going to be trying on something that's pinned, and have to pull it over your head, remember to wear protective eye gear.
18) The numbers on my tape measure move. They must. I've measured three times, and it's still not working.
19) You really do have to match plaids or your butt looks funny.
20) Remember Rule 6? Don't do that again on the over tunic. Next time, try a keyhole.
21) At 4:00 a.m., leaving the garb too big sounds perfectly acceptable.
22) No matter what you learned from your last 2:00 a.m. sewathon, you're gonna do it all again.

Did You Know? by Seraphima Iaroslava Suvorova

Did you know that to cross your fingers while making a wish dates to the pre-Christian era?
The pagan belief that a cross was the symbol of perfect unity and that its point of intersection marked the dwelling place of beneficent spirits was found mainly in early European cultures. However, while in modern times we cross our second finger over our first finger, in the beginning of this tradition the index finger of a well-wisher was crossed over the index finger of the person giving the wish - the two fingers forming the cross.
Eventually, the custom developed into our current custom, the two fingers forming the Scottish cross of St. Andrew. The statement "I'll keep my fingers crossed" is in reference to the fact that the early Europeans believed that the wish is kept in the junction of the cross until it is met.

Panati, Charles. Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. Harper & Rowe, New York. 1987.

Snow Day by Leisel VanJander

Our barony has been referred to as the "Frozen North," and we recently lived up to the name. One day, when I found myself surrounded by three to four foot snowdrifts, I decided to call it a day and stayed home.

B eing in the SCA, I am rarely at a loss for rainy (or snowy) day activities. This particular day, in between making an inordinate amount of long distance phone calls, I decided that I needed to supplement my garb closet with pants to go with the Middle Eastern thing (which I forgot the name of) that I got at the Kris Kinder Market. So I made some more phone calls and got directions from Seraphima on how to make pants. And now after an hour of cutting and pinning and stitching, I have a fun set of purple puffy pants.

Back to On Line Boar's Snore Index