Trilliums Part II (aka The Scrolls) (long)
Late in May Nicolaa asked me via the Signet if I would like to do a scroll for the Gunther. I naturally said yes but at that point I had no idea what the award was. About a week later I found out it was for a Court Barony.
Gunther is a good friend of ours and there are many things that we would like to honour.
I looked over my inspiration books for a week or so. I knew Gunther liked the scrolls I have been doing based on early period metal artifacts. By the time Murdee Melee came around I knew it was going to be a two page scroll, each 11x14 pergamenata. I had decided to do a carpet page and an incipit page (the concept seen so clearly in the Lindisfarne Gospels). The carpet page would be an adaptation/build-out of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasp. As for the incipit I had thought to make it very Lindisfarne-y, but more on that anon.
Although I hadn't yet started to draft the main wording, I had dreamed up a key line - "I will be the Kingdom's Man". This line was going to be visually separated from the rest of the text and specially calligraphied using the Lindisfarne composite letterform.
While at Melee I gave Nicolaa a verbal rundown of what I was planning to do and she was tres cool with that. So off I went.
The first thing was to rule out margins on the pergamenata. I don't have a slanted drafting board. I do everything on the dining room table with a flexible see-through ruler and a hard point pencil. I got both pages marked with 1.5" margins. I wasn't quite sure yet how to handle the incipit or text page so I ruled .25" margins most of the way to the top on that one and left it for the moment.
For the carpet page, as mentioned I had decided to use the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasp. It is a magnificent piece of jewellery, red garnets on gold and beautiful millefiori wafers of blue, black and white glass set in gold stepwork, topped by an outstanding pair of garnet boars and framed by garnet zoomorph knotwork, all on gold. Outstanding both technically and artistically.
Here is a picture from Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thursday_dave/2357914145/
While building my pencilled grid for the central stepwork panel, I had some issues of my own. First, the extant shoulder clasp is based on odd numbers whereas I was using 4 x 4 based on the dimensions of the paper and my preference for measuring things by the quarter inch. So this meant a lot of subtle differences to keep the grid balanced. Different motif repeat (even, not odd, which can really affect your colour balance). Diamond shapes to connect the motifs instead of a single line of stepwork. And different fills for the motifs.
Here is the initial grid. I don't use graph paper so this is all from scratch.
Then I had to decide how to visually differentiate the motifs similar to the cloisonne glass in the original but on a different system. While the extant piece only has a couple of patterns plus the plain red, I ended up with 5. I had decided not to use red motifs as there would already be a lot in the surrounds and I needed to balance it with the blue/black/white more so than in the original. Once I was finished I marked the motifs with a brown micropen.
Here is the final grid:
An interesting feature of Migration/Ostrogothic/Anglo-Saxon metalwork is their fondness for garnet inlays over gold that has been scored in a regular pattern, which adds light and some sparkle to what can be a very dark though rich and beautiful gem. The same technique was found in the Staffordshire Hoard pieces dug up a couple of years ago.
Rather than painting the red areas of the grid in a straight fill, I decided to echo this jewellery technique by marking my unused grid lines with a red micropen and then painting each cell individually.
As I began to paint the red cells I experimented with the gouache mixture. I normally use a combination of cadmium red and quinacridone red as the first gives depth and opacity while the second gives colour and lightness. By itself, cadmium red tends to turn a sort of clay colour and has no fire. In contrast, quinacridone is on the orange-y translucent side. But mixed together they give a good quality dark red.
Initially I didn't get the mix quite right. I rationalized that since I was painting the cells hopscotch to avoid running, the variances that naturally resulted as I firmed up the mix or as the mix became paler (due to refreshing with water as it dried in the seashell I was using) would actually add to the rippling jewelled effect I was trying to create. And more or less that was the case! :-)
Initially I had thought to paint the connecting diamonds pale ultramine blue to match what I was intending for the motifs but I decided on gold and I'm glad.
Now, as Gunther has been a Guardsman of the Royal City of Eoforwic, I knew the boars would be perfect as eofor means boar. I added knotwork trilliums to the base of the carpet page to represent Ealdormere. I was hoping to use bear's heads in the knotwork panels but that did not turn out as I will later relate.
Meanwhile I was trying to draw the darn boars. I was having trouble balancing the shapes, and had to sketch them a couple of times before they really took form. When they were properly balanced I used the brown micropen to fix them. As I lined the eyes the boars came alive. It was an odd, almost mystic feeling that I was performing a rite.
Now my work on these scrolls really didn't begin until after Melee. I was working on the scrolls most weeknights after dinner and almost all day on weekends. But I hadn't figured out any wording yet.
I knew I didn't want to do a conventional wording. Part of a scroll's magic for me is the reversal of time through poetry. The less modern-sounding intrusions or bureaucratese the better, yet these are official documents with specific requirements to make them SCA-legal.
So I sat down one weeknight with Beowulf (original + modern translation) and a couple of other books I have on Anglo-Saxon poetry. I knew I wouldn't have a problem generating good alliteration and assonance but I wanted to check the rhythms and how they are deliberately broken for emphasis.
The nice thing about Beowulf is that even though the word endings have changed, the English speech patterns haven't. And even though I couldn't read the words I could read the letters and get a feel not just for the alliteration but for how the phrases varied in length.
Once I felt I had the style cold, I went upstairs and sat on the bed for a couple of hours writing down homonyms and fragments of phrases that could represent the many things that Gunther has done over his twenty years in the Society. Albrecht and Elizabeth eventually came up and we did our free-association vocabulary game ("think of words that start with T", etc.). The game usually deteriorates very quickly into potty talk and Elizabeth didn't understand why we were laughing so hard. I didn't really come up with any extra words that were fit to use so I left my pages to marinate.
A few days later I sat down and assembled my bits and pieces. I knew I wanted to express a progression from Boar to Bear to Wolf (Canton to Barony to Kingdom) in conjunction with Gunther's maturation in the Society as an experienced warrior with heavy administrative chops and fine personal qualities.
I also wanted to keep the award itself a secret until the very end.
When I was finished it made me cry.
Here is the final version. I have bolded the main examples of alliteration and assonance, although there are several other examples of internal rhyme or rhythm.
I heard of a good guardsman
Who worsted many foes
Well-girded with iron,
Who scouted the lands
And ran with the boar.
A quarter-master making fast every ship
Who ordered the feasting,
Carried the colours
And counted the cost.
Shields flashed in summer.
Spears on the mountain made
Mortal men flee.
Lethal yet modest,
The bear knew him then.
When wolves woke,
A right royal retainer
Arrayed in rich trappings
Followed the Trillium
And, joyful in battle,
Struck strife in strange lands.
Considered counsel, canny and courageous,
Solace of bow-song at dew-silvered dawn,
Doughty deed-scribe!
Gracious with gold and kindness concealed!
Twenty years have passed,
Steady and strong like oar-strokes.
Sweet song of sword-heart,
Trove of true counsel,
Who can say more?
Hear your King - Aaron, resolute and dauntless.
Hear your Queen - Rustique, whose eyes uncover all.
We have considered.
This great lord stands apart.
Patient and proven, pomp is your due.
We do what is fitting.
Mark the second day of the seventh month
In the forty-sixth year of our Society.
At sunset on Our battlefield,
The Trillium triumphant,
Where Ard Chreag has done Us honour,
The feast hall well furnished,
The honours are distributed.
Noble Gunther Wahlstedt von Bremen -
Wolf-friend and faithful -
We make you a Baron of Our Court.
Time was running by. I needed tofigure out the incipit page. But, to date, I hadn't decided on a particular letter to emphasize in the Lindisfarne style.
Now early in the game Albrecht had enlisted the unknowing services of our friend Silke, now HRM Drachenwald, and Lino da Napoli to translate my phrase, "I will be the Kingdom's Man" into German. I ended up choosing Lino's version, "Ich sol des künicrîches dienstman sîn" , done in Middle High German as I liked the nuance of choice and willing vassal that Lino explained in his commentary.
I had planned to place the phrase at the bottom of the incipit scroll but I was nagged by a feeling that it would look bulky and take more than one line to execute in full Lindsifarne composite.
Then I had a brainstorm. I would make the incipit page look more like an Anglo-Saxon treasure binding or Irish book shrine such as the Lough Kinale or Cumdach. I decided that the four corners would be guarded by intensely coloured roundels matching the glass studs on the handle mounts of the Ardagh Chalice.
See the third image on the following link:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~asduchasdochas/gatewaywest/ardagh/html/chalice.htm
I also decided the connecting borders would be filled with the German phrase painted in gold, as shown here (upside down), with the Royal signatures in cells at the bottom completing the border.
And here:
You can see where I changed my mind on the where the Kingdom seal should go. Instead I placed it dead centre and surrounded it with a border adapted from an Anglo-Saxon brooch. Now the original is solid colour but in this case I decided to leave it partially natural to refresh the page when surrounded by black calligraphy.
The gold Lindsifarne calligraphy looks embossed. When doing small fills I like the gouache to be thick so it stands proud of the surface. It makes it look real.
Time was running short. I was still trying to figure out the knotwork. I had planned two days vacation so we could do the full Trillium event and at 2:00 pm on Wednesday I reluctantly packed away the scrolls and threw together a field kit so I could finish onsite. Here is where they stood at 2:00 pm:
At one point I was so stymied by the knotwork that I even tried to take a tracing from a print-out of the Sutton Hoo piece. The scale was all wrong so I threw it away and forced myself to get it right.
My problem was trying to get the lines of knotwork to flow but still retain that jagged angular feeling that the real thing contains. Modern knotwork usually looks wrong - it's too smooth and regular and lacks edge.
You can also see smudging on the carpet page, right hand side near the middle. Feeling ignored despite lots of interim cuddles, my white cat leapt onto the table, put one paw spang into the middle of the seashell containing red gouache and then onto the scroll. Happily most of it could be covered up, though some lines were coarsened. Yes, he is fine.
Later on site I realized that just using my brush and twisting it would broaden the line and give it the flow that I wanted but couldn't achieve by trying to manually double my pencil lines.
I did try to fill the gaps with Bear's heads but nothing worked so I did a simple knotwork fill and called it good.
I was also painting gold like crazy. It is not always even in terms of depth, which makes me sad, but I was short of time despite all the work I had already done.
At Trilliums I spent 4 hours Thursday and another 4 hours Friday finishing the painting. At one point Gunther was around but not paying attention. Friday night I did the calligraphy in about 40 minutes using the half-uncial version I have developed. Shortly afterwards I delivered the scrolls to Nicolaa, who was conveniently Signet on Scene (and who therefore got a sanctioned sneak peek :-)
I tried to relax, but could hardly sleep for trying to imagine how the theatre would go down in Court. Couldn't eat dinner Saturday night when I was cooking steaks (a sneaky way to keep Gunther on site until Court). As they live so close to the site there was a danger he would go home, and once there, be hard to drag back.
Anyway. He was gotcha'd but good. The wording sounded OK in court and the scrolls looked great.
Here are the final framed versions:
These scrolls took over 70 hours to make and I am so proud of them. I know they have flaws. I know I made smudges, that the knotwork is not totally centered, that the top knotwork is not well realized. That the red gouache however lovely would probably be hard to realize in red lead. That the gold fill on the carpet page is not thick enough and the brush strokes are visible. That I used modern materials and tools. But the spirit is undeniably fierce, ancient, and full of love for our friends.
Gunther is a good friend of ours and there are many things that we would like to honour.
I looked over my inspiration books for a week or so. I knew Gunther liked the scrolls I have been doing based on early period metal artifacts. By the time Murdee Melee came around I knew it was going to be a two page scroll, each 11x14 pergamenata. I had decided to do a carpet page and an incipit page (the concept seen so clearly in the Lindisfarne Gospels). The carpet page would be an adaptation/build-out of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasp. As for the incipit I had thought to make it very Lindisfarne-y, but more on that anon.
Although I hadn't yet started to draft the main wording, I had dreamed up a key line - "I will be the Kingdom's Man". This line was going to be visually separated from the rest of the text and specially calligraphied using the Lindisfarne composite letterform.
While at Melee I gave Nicolaa a verbal rundown of what I was planning to do and she was tres cool with that. So off I went.
The first thing was to rule out margins on the pergamenata. I don't have a slanted drafting board. I do everything on the dining room table with a flexible see-through ruler and a hard point pencil. I got both pages marked with 1.5" margins. I wasn't quite sure yet how to handle the incipit or text page so I ruled .25" margins most of the way to the top on that one and left it for the moment.
For the carpet page, as mentioned I had decided to use the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasp. It is a magnificent piece of jewellery, red garnets on gold and beautiful millefiori wafers of blue, black and white glass set in gold stepwork, topped by an outstanding pair of garnet boars and framed by garnet zoomorph knotwork, all on gold. Outstanding both technically and artistically.
Here is a picture from Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thursday_dave/2357914145/
While building my pencilled grid for the central stepwork panel, I had some issues of my own. First, the extant shoulder clasp is based on odd numbers whereas I was using 4 x 4 based on the dimensions of the paper and my preference for measuring things by the quarter inch. So this meant a lot of subtle differences to keep the grid balanced. Different motif repeat (even, not odd, which can really affect your colour balance). Diamond shapes to connect the motifs instead of a single line of stepwork. And different fills for the motifs.
Here is the initial grid. I don't use graph paper so this is all from scratch.
Then I had to decide how to visually differentiate the motifs similar to the cloisonne glass in the original but on a different system. While the extant piece only has a couple of patterns plus the plain red, I ended up with 5. I had decided not to use red motifs as there would already be a lot in the surrounds and I needed to balance it with the blue/black/white more so than in the original. Once I was finished I marked the motifs with a brown micropen.
Here is the final grid:
An interesting feature of Migration/Ostrogothic/Anglo-Saxon metalwork is their fondness for garnet inlays over gold that has been scored in a regular pattern, which adds light and some sparkle to what can be a very dark though rich and beautiful gem. The same technique was found in the Staffordshire Hoard pieces dug up a couple of years ago.
Rather than painting the red areas of the grid in a straight fill, I decided to echo this jewellery technique by marking my unused grid lines with a red micropen and then painting each cell individually.
As I began to paint the red cells I experimented with the gouache mixture. I normally use a combination of cadmium red and quinacridone red as the first gives depth and opacity while the second gives colour and lightness. By itself, cadmium red tends to turn a sort of clay colour and has no fire. In contrast, quinacridone is on the orange-y translucent side. But mixed together they give a good quality dark red.
Initially I didn't get the mix quite right. I rationalized that since I was painting the cells hopscotch to avoid running, the variances that naturally resulted as I firmed up the mix or as the mix became paler (due to refreshing with water as it dried in the seashell I was using) would actually add to the rippling jewelled effect I was trying to create. And more or less that was the case! :-)
Initially I had thought to paint the connecting diamonds pale ultramine blue to match what I was intending for the motifs but I decided on gold and I'm glad.
Now, as Gunther has been a Guardsman of the Royal City of Eoforwic, I knew the boars would be perfect as eofor means boar. I added knotwork trilliums to the base of the carpet page to represent Ealdormere. I was hoping to use bear's heads in the knotwork panels but that did not turn out as I will later relate.
Meanwhile I was trying to draw the darn boars. I was having trouble balancing the shapes, and had to sketch them a couple of times before they really took form. When they were properly balanced I used the brown micropen to fix them. As I lined the eyes the boars came alive. It was an odd, almost mystic feeling that I was performing a rite.
Now my work on these scrolls really didn't begin until after Melee. I was working on the scrolls most weeknights after dinner and almost all day on weekends. But I hadn't figured out any wording yet.
I knew I didn't want to do a conventional wording. Part of a scroll's magic for me is the reversal of time through poetry. The less modern-sounding intrusions or bureaucratese the better, yet these are official documents with specific requirements to make them SCA-legal.
So I sat down one weeknight with Beowulf (original + modern translation) and a couple of other books I have on Anglo-Saxon poetry. I knew I wouldn't have a problem generating good alliteration and assonance but I wanted to check the rhythms and how they are deliberately broken for emphasis.
The nice thing about Beowulf is that even though the word endings have changed, the English speech patterns haven't. And even though I couldn't read the words I could read the letters and get a feel not just for the alliteration but for how the phrases varied in length.
Once I felt I had the style cold, I went upstairs and sat on the bed for a couple of hours writing down homonyms and fragments of phrases that could represent the many things that Gunther has done over his twenty years in the Society. Albrecht and Elizabeth eventually came up and we did our free-association vocabulary game ("think of words that start with T", etc.). The game usually deteriorates very quickly into potty talk and Elizabeth didn't understand why we were laughing so hard. I didn't really come up with any extra words that were fit to use so I left my pages to marinate.
A few days later I sat down and assembled my bits and pieces. I knew I wanted to express a progression from Boar to Bear to Wolf (Canton to Barony to Kingdom) in conjunction with Gunther's maturation in the Society as an experienced warrior with heavy administrative chops and fine personal qualities.
I also wanted to keep the award itself a secret until the very end.
When I was finished it made me cry.
Here is the final version. I have bolded the main examples of alliteration and assonance, although there are several other examples of internal rhyme or rhythm.
I heard of a good guardsman
Who worsted many foes
Well-girded with iron,
Who scouted the lands
And ran with the boar.
A quarter-master making fast every ship
Who ordered the feasting,
Carried the colours
And counted the cost.
Shields flashed in summer.
Spears on the mountain made
Mortal men flee.
Lethal yet modest,
The bear knew him then.
When wolves woke,
A right royal retainer
Arrayed in rich trappings
Followed the Trillium
And, joyful in battle,
Struck strife in strange lands.
Considered counsel, canny and courageous,
Solace of bow-song at dew-silvered dawn,
Doughty deed-scribe!
Gracious with gold and kindness concealed!
Twenty years have passed,
Steady and strong like oar-strokes.
Sweet song of sword-heart,
Trove of true counsel,
Who can say more?
Hear your King - Aaron, resolute and dauntless.
Hear your Queen - Rustique, whose eyes uncover all.
We have considered.
This great lord stands apart.
Patient and proven, pomp is your due.
We do what is fitting.
Mark the second day of the seventh month
In the forty-sixth year of our Society.
At sunset on Our battlefield,
The Trillium triumphant,
Where Ard Chreag has done Us honour,
The feast hall well furnished,
The honours are distributed.
Noble Gunther Wahlstedt von Bremen -
Wolf-friend and faithful -
We make you a Baron of Our Court.
Time was running by. I needed tofigure out the incipit page. But, to date, I hadn't decided on a particular letter to emphasize in the Lindisfarne style.
Now early in the game Albrecht had enlisted the unknowing services of our friend Silke, now HRM Drachenwald, and Lino da Napoli to translate my phrase, "I will be the Kingdom's Man" into German. I ended up choosing Lino's version, "Ich sol des künicrîches dienstman sîn" , done in Middle High German as I liked the nuance of choice and willing vassal that Lino explained in his commentary.
I had planned to place the phrase at the bottom of the incipit scroll but I was nagged by a feeling that it would look bulky and take more than one line to execute in full Lindsifarne composite.
Then I had a brainstorm. I would make the incipit page look more like an Anglo-Saxon treasure binding or Irish book shrine such as the Lough Kinale or Cumdach. I decided that the four corners would be guarded by intensely coloured roundels matching the glass studs on the handle mounts of the Ardagh Chalice.
See the third image on the following link:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~asduchasdochas/gatewaywest/ardagh/html/chalice.htm
I also decided the connecting borders would be filled with the German phrase painted in gold, as shown here (upside down), with the Royal signatures in cells at the bottom completing the border.
And here:
You can see where I changed my mind on the where the Kingdom seal should go. Instead I placed it dead centre and surrounded it with a border adapted from an Anglo-Saxon brooch. Now the original is solid colour but in this case I decided to leave it partially natural to refresh the page when surrounded by black calligraphy.
The gold Lindsifarne calligraphy looks embossed. When doing small fills I like the gouache to be thick so it stands proud of the surface. It makes it look real.
Time was running short. I was still trying to figure out the knotwork. I had planned two days vacation so we could do the full Trillium event and at 2:00 pm on Wednesday I reluctantly packed away the scrolls and threw together a field kit so I could finish onsite. Here is where they stood at 2:00 pm:
At one point I was so stymied by the knotwork that I even tried to take a tracing from a print-out of the Sutton Hoo piece. The scale was all wrong so I threw it away and forced myself to get it right.
My problem was trying to get the lines of knotwork to flow but still retain that jagged angular feeling that the real thing contains. Modern knotwork usually looks wrong - it's too smooth and regular and lacks edge.
You can also see smudging on the carpet page, right hand side near the middle. Feeling ignored despite lots of interim cuddles, my white cat leapt onto the table, put one paw spang into the middle of the seashell containing red gouache and then onto the scroll. Happily most of it could be covered up, though some lines were coarsened. Yes, he is fine.
Later on site I realized that just using my brush and twisting it would broaden the line and give it the flow that I wanted but couldn't achieve by trying to manually double my pencil lines.
I did try to fill the gaps with Bear's heads but nothing worked so I did a simple knotwork fill and called it good.
I was also painting gold like crazy. It is not always even in terms of depth, which makes me sad, but I was short of time despite all the work I had already done.
At Trilliums I spent 4 hours Thursday and another 4 hours Friday finishing the painting. At one point Gunther was around but not paying attention. Friday night I did the calligraphy in about 40 minutes using the half-uncial version I have developed. Shortly afterwards I delivered the scrolls to Nicolaa, who was conveniently Signet on Scene (and who therefore got a sanctioned sneak peek :-)
I tried to relax, but could hardly sleep for trying to imagine how the theatre would go down in Court. Couldn't eat dinner Saturday night when I was cooking steaks (a sneaky way to keep Gunther on site until Court). As they live so close to the site there was a danger he would go home, and once there, be hard to drag back.
Anyway. He was gotcha'd but good. The wording sounded OK in court and the scrolls looked great.
Here are the final framed versions:
These scrolls took over 70 hours to make and I am so proud of them. I know they have flaws. I know I made smudges, that the knotwork is not totally centered, that the top knotwork is not well realized. That the red gouache however lovely would probably be hard to realize in red lead. That the gold fill on the carpet page is not thick enough and the brush strokes are visible. That I used modern materials and tools. But the spirit is undeniably fierce, ancient, and full of love for our friends.