Event Report: Beowulf the Event
It's not often I get to say I was part of something epic, but this weekend, my friends, I was part of something epic.
Friday
It all started Friday afternoon, when I arrived at Aoife, Joel, and Harvey's house after an uneventful trip down from Montreal. (Yay for uneventful trips!) I was the first to arrive, around 3:00, and found myself in the midst of semi-controlled last-minute chaos. I helped as best I could, but most of my helping seemed to consist of "don't panic." Which is pretty good advice, if you ask me.
Mhari showed up shortly after me, and together we set to our primary task of the evening: keep Aoife sane. Well, that was *my* primary task of the evening. Aoife, our wonderful hostess, had decided that in addition to hosting a house full of people, she was *also* going to be on-site at 7:00 a.m. the next morning for set up, *also* host the post-revel, and *also* host brunch on Sunday morning. Because she's nuts. In a good way. But still nuts.
Mhari, meanwhile, was finishing up her own nuts project: Beowulf socks as a gift for our academic director Fiana. All night, we heard the refrain, "Just 9 more rows until the toe! Just 7 more rows until the toe!" She actually got the whole thing done, which I personally consider amazing. Good job, Mhrai!
This is, incidentally, where we got our first and second lines of the weekend (of five):
1. "Craqué dans la tête!" (French-ish for: "Cracked in the head!" Which everyone apparently was. In a good way.)
2. "It pops right back in!" (Mhari's about my size, i.e. very short. When she arrived, Aoife told her she'd found a place for Mhari to sleep. Somewhat nervously, Mhari asked, "Can I fit in it?" To which I replied, "Well, if you scrunch yourself up like this... And if your shoulder dislocates, it pops right back in!" For the rest of the weekend, we were joking that Grendel should have known this advice as well.)
Anyway, sometime after sundown, the truck arrived. Yes, my friends, the truck. There was so much stuff for the mead-hall set that it wouldn't fit in just ordinary vans and the organizers (read: Joel and Harvey) had rented a U-haul to cart it the ten minutes to the site. I helped load, and I was even able to do more than stand around and look pretty, because most of the set pieces were fairly light.
While working on the truck, we came up with line #3 of the weekend: "Don't die, it's bad for you." Just sensible advice, really.
Once the truck was loaded, Mhari, Aoife, some of the other guests, and I decided to practice our Beowulf pieces, workshop-style. I really love the Concordia bardic workshops; they're tremendously helpful. Because I was pretty solid on my lines by this point, I got a couple of very specific, very nuanced, very helpful hints I was able to incorporate into my performance. (Chief among them: Drop the pitch of my voice when speaking as Beowulf.)
Other guests started arriving in the late evening, and Aoife showed us where we were all sleeping. I was with a bunch of women from Bhkail in the "cot dorm": a spare room that Aoife had outfitted with five cots, two of them bunkbed-style. I got the top bunk. Because I'm little.
There was a lot of excited energy going around, so several people decided to have nightcaps to take the edge off. I'm rarely an alcohol drinker at the best of times, so instead I made my way up to the cot dorm around midnight, knowing that Mhari would be waking us all up around eight in the morning and wanting to have a decent night's sleep before the event.
I didn't sleep.
It wasn't nerves, not really. It was my finicky, annoying body that refused to get comfortable on the cot. I tossed. I turned. I checked my clock about once an hour, just to find out what time it was. Finally, around 7:00, I went downstairs and curled up on Aoife's comfy love-seat with my jacket thrown over my torso. It's saying something that even with Aoife, Joel, and Harvey coming in and out of the living room every five minutes or so (in the mad-dash preparations to get to the site), I *still* slept better on the love-seat than the cot. Well, semi-slept. Dozed, certainly.
Anyway, I was up by 8:00, and that's the important thing.
Saturday -- Morning
Mhari -- acting as interim hostess as all the people who live in Aoife's house had gone to the event site to set up -- very smartly woke everyone up around 8:00, to give us plenty of time to get caffeinated, get breakfasted, and get dressed before we needed to leave for the site around 9:45. Actually, we were all ready by around 9:15, so we all piled into one car and arrived early.
The site was abustle with activity. Set up had been going on for two hours already. The giant mead hall columns were going up. (Painted so that in the dark, they looked exactly like wood, and I had to keep reminding myself not to lean on them because they were, in fact, cardboard.) I got to say hello to all sorts of people I usually only see at Pennsic: Torvaldr, Fiana, Cerian, Dahrien... (who, I might add, drove all night, arrived in town around 3:00 a.m., and came out for set up anyway. Everyone remember line #1? "Craqué dans la tête!")
Since I was there and not doing anything anyway, I helped with set up. For a while, my job consisted of pushing around some scaffolding while Magnus stood on top of it and set up the blackout curtains. "Blackout curtains, Katherine?" Yes. Blackout curtains. Because mead halls are dark, and we were making a mead hall.
Perhaps I should back up a bit and describe the setting in which we were going to be performing Beowulf.
When Toki had the idea of performing Beowulf, it was quickly decided to do it within a space that was as authentic as possible. This meant a mead hall. So even though we were in a community center or a church or something, you'd never have known. The walls around the audience area were completely curtained off (and the windows shaded by blackout curtains). The curtains were decorated with hand-painted Anglo-Saxon style wall hangings. In the center of the space were huge "wooden" columns (see above). Between those, a long brazier provided light and tremendous amounts of atmosphere. Performers and listeners sat on wooden mead-benches. And, just to get the absolute best experience possible, they'd smoked the entry curtain! That's right: they wanted an authentic smell for the event, so every time you walked into the performance space, you got a whiff of wood-smoke.
Repeat after me: "Craqué dans la tête!"
Set up took us until around noon, I think, at which point Toki gathered the performers (nearly three dozen of us) in the performance space for a pep talk. Sadly, I don't remember most of it verbatim, but it was along the lines of, "Thank you for being part of this. We're gonna do something awesome today. All I ask is that you give it your all."
At that point, we had about a half-hour or so to settle in. I found a space between Cerian on one side and Torvaldr on the other, filled my water mug (no alcohol before performing!), and waited to be amazed.
Saturday -- The Performance
Act 1: Beowulf versus Grendel
When everyone had settled into the mead hall, beverage of choice at hand, Baron Pierre (acting all our hall-thegn) welcomed us and invited the performance to begin.
Fiana rose and, in the Old English original, started us off. There was electricity in the air, anticipation was palpable. And then we started in earnest.
Act 1 was divided into two halves, each about an hour long. Actually, I applaud the organizers for making each of the sections about an hour long: long enough to sink your teeth into the story but not so long that you started to get fidgety. It helped, too, that audience participation was encouraged, and there were many cries, cheers, jeers, and stomps as the various performers recited their pieces.
It was clear from the beginning that we were gonna be in for a show. Everyone put their own unique stamp on their piece. (Usually 50-150 lines, though I know of at least one part that was almost 200.) Some people recited, some chanted, some accompanied themselves with harp or drum. Some people were completely off-book, some had to refer to their words. We all used different translations, but despite that, it all flowed. It was all, absolutely and unequivocally, Beowulf.
The first part of Act 1 had nine parts and eight performers: Fiana, Dorigen, Mord, Ursula (who went twice), Tristan, Cerian, and yours truly.
A few moments that stand out in my mind:
- Fiana kicking the whole thing off in Old English, and the very first cheer of the day, at the Old English version of "He was a good king!"
- Ursula experimenting with musical instruments. Her first piece was chanted and accompanied by a drum, the second (I believe) was sung. It might not have been how I'd have done it, but it was a fun and different way of putting your mark on the piece.
- Dahrien doing most of his performance sitting on the ground, but at one point leaping up in a fit of energy and jumping over the fire pit. (Oh, Dahrien. What *will* you do next?)
And, of course, there was my section.
I'd been practising a lot, as most of you know. By the time my turn arrived, I was completely off-book. I have to say, it went even better than I'd expected. My Unferth was snarky. My Beowulf was boastful. People cheered and booed in all the right places. It was such a rush! Yes, memorizing may have eaten up a month and a half of my life, but it was decidedly worth it to be able to completely interact with my audience.
After an intermission, we returned for the second part of Act 1, which had seven performers: Grim, Edward, Rebekah, William, Siobhan, Linette, and Aildreda (accompanied by Lucien).
This was a hard-hitting section. I think everyone was off-book for it. Grim did an absolutely masterful job with Beowulf's fight with Grendel: the gestures! The ripping off of the arm! Amazing!
Earl Edward, who was king last Pennsic, was also great. He needed to restart his section, but he did it so smoothly and so naturally that no one minded. And once he restarted, he was great.
William was jumpy and energetic, as I've come to expect. Linette accompanied herself on the harp, which was utterly enthralling and beautiful. Then, right after her, Aildreda performed her piece, which was also accompanied by harp-music (this time played by her partner Lucien).
By this point, it was around 3:00, I believe, and we took our second intermission before launching into...
Act 2: Beowulf versus Grendel's Mother
I must pause here to say how glad I am that I performed in Act 1, not Act 2 or 3. Sadly, the curse of my lungs struck again, as it seems to do at most indoor SCA events I've been to in the last 3-4 years. I needed to start taking my inhaler around 2:00, and I just kept needing to take it more and more as the day wore on. When I performed my piece (the seventh in the first part of Act 1), I was still doing fine. I'd hate to have had to try to perform in Act 3, late in the evening, when I was super-asthmatic.
In any event, Act 2 also featured a bunch of hard-hitters: Cerian, Mhari, Katrusha, Fiana, Gwendolyn, Lywelyn and Juliane, and Zsof.
A few memorable moments from Act 2:
- Mhari, who had performed most of her piece as Hrothgar lamenting that Grendel's mother was attacking his hall, was walked back to her seat by Katrusha, as Beowulf saying, essentially, "Don't worry. I got this one." It was perfectly timed and an absolutely brilliant transition.
- Fiana and Gwen doing the fight with Grendel's mother. Particularly Gwen's line of "He hacked off his head!" Oh, my God, the power of that line! Amazing!
- Zsof, flitting just on the edge of her usual Hungarian accent, utterly controlling the hall, as always.
I should point out here that we encountered line #4 of the weekend around this time. A bunch of us were standing around, feeling silly, and acting out parts of the story. I don't remember whether it was Cerian, Dahrien, or Torvaldr that tackled the fight with Grendel's mother, when Beowulf's sword Hrunting fails him (and you must imagine this with hand gestures, or it doesn't work): *swings sword* Boink. "Boink? What'da'ya mean, 'Boink'?" *swings again* Boink. "Yup, that was definitely a Boink." *throws sword away*
Feast
At this point, we took an extended break to have feast. The mead-benches were removed and tables brought in so that we could sit around the fire in the mead-hall. It was one of the most atmospheric feasts I've ever attended in 12 years in the SCA. The food was good, but the real show-stealer was the hall.
Unlike most events, there was no formal entertainment at feast. Which is good, because I think we were all bardicked out for a while and needed to recharge our brains. My little corner of the feast hall had some silly storytelling going on (Torvaldr did one of his "Viking Home Companion" pieces; I told a Hrothgar story I'd learned from John McGuire, etc.), but really people just chatted with each other and marvelled that we were here, performing Beowulf.
Sometime during tear-down of the feast, Gwen brought us line #5 of the weekend: "Keep walking. Just keep walking." Sensible advice, I'd say.
As feast was wrapping up, I decided to be stupid. That is, I decided to stay for the entire performance, even though my lungs were seriously unhappy with me. "It's worth it," I told myself. "And it's not like I need to perform again." I knew I was being stupid. It was worth it.
Once feast was over and the benches had been returned to their places, we embarked on...
Act 3: Beowulf versus the Dragon
Like Act 1, Act 3 was divided into two halves. The first half had five performers: Broom, Toki, Magnus, Jacqulinne, and Torvaldr.
My hat's off to everyone in Act 3. Some of those sections were not easy. I lucked in, because my section was all about boasting, so it was really easy for me to stir up the audience. In Act 3, there's a lot of backstory, a lot of "let me tell you again why we're here," and a lot of stuff that's really not relevant to the main plot. Despite that, everyone held their own. I was seriously impressed.
I think Magnus really shone in the first half of Act 3. Like me, he had a boasting Beowulf section. We had just come off of Toki's section, in which he (as Beowulf) explained some backstory and the larger political situation. Magus stood up, still as Beowulf, and said, "I will tell you more." There was a collective sigh in the hall, as we realized we were in for more backstory. And then, with just the right amount of pause, he continued, "...about my fight with Grendel!" The hall popped! Cheering galore! And then Magnus, true to his word, bragged about his fight. Great job, Magnus!
I have to give credit to Torvaldr, too. He had told me earlier in the day that he wasn't off-book yet, and so his plan was to perform with a leather-bound binder in one hand and a lamp in the other, using the lamp to gesture and add emphasis. Sadly, the smoke from the lamp got into his eyes, and as he was wiping them, the lamp went out. Very calmly, he went over to the fire pit, re-lit his lamp, and kept right on going. That's grace under fire, I tells ya!
The second half of Act 3 had seven performers: Anne of Framlingham, Peregrine, Aoife, Dagrun, Mhari, Toki, and Fiana.
Again, I reiterate what I said before about Act 3 being full of extraneous materials and everyone pulling it off. Aoife was particularly wonderful. I'd heard her piece the night before and had had trouble following: it's all about the various feuds that are going to start up again now that Beowulf is dead. But there in the mead hall, she nailed it. It was clear, it was solid. Aoife's section was not easy, and she was great.
I was also very impressed by Mhari, who'd had two weeks to practice her section when the original performer couldn't come. Despite that, she was almost entirely off-book (and for a 60-line section, that's no small feat!) and really captured the spirit of her piece.
The poem ended on a solemn note, as Toki took the stage and mourned for Beowulf. Then Fiana stood up and repeated the last ten lines or so in Old English. There was a long silence in the hall, a pregnant pause.
And then the room erupted in cheering. Cries of "We did it!" and "We were epic!" echoed around the mead hall. There was hugging and fist-bumps (highly out-of-period, but very much in fitting with the moment), as we all realized that we fulfilled our boast (okay, Toki's boast) of reciting the entirety of Beowulf, in a mead hall, in one sitting. Wassail, us!
Saturday -- Tear-down and Post-revel
After the cheering had died down, it was time to dismantle the mead hall. (Poor mead hall. You will be missed.) My asthma was pretty bad at this point, so I stood outside and did a masterful job of holding up a railing. Eventually, Aoife drove Mhari and I home with her so we could set up for the post-revel.
I must say, tear-down was way faster than set up. Apparently Joel and Harvey were walking out the door after an hour and five minutes, compared to the nearly five hours for set up. At least it meant everyone could get to the post-revel faster.
Incidentally, line five-and-a-half of the weekend, from (I believe) Fiana: "Is anyone else having a problem with unconscious alliteration?"
The post-revel was fun. We were all hyped on energy. Surprisingly, for a room full of bards, there wasn't that much bardic going on. Or I suppose it's not that surprising, given that we'd just spent the whole day performing Beowulf. There was lots of chatting, lots of eating, but I didn't last very long. I'd been taking my inhaler almost every hour, and between that and the lack of sleep on Friday night, my body decided to shut down.
Aoife kindly gave me a room that had been reserved for Edward and Anne (who couldn't stay for a variety of reasons). So I got an actual bed. I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of Owen's Grendel song ("He was hairy, he was scary, he was very very tall..."), wishing I could go downstairs and join in but knowing it would be stupid to do so.
I slept... sort of. I was up every two hours or so to take my inhaler, but at least it was better than being on the cot.
Sunday
I woke up late on Sunday, or at least I tried to. I wanted to give my body a chance to heal. Aoife had decided to host Sunday brunch. (Repeat after me: "Craqué dans la tête!") So I had very nice breakfast, surrounded by my friends and feeling moderately more healthy than the night before.
There was the repeated question to Toki of, "So, what are we performing next time?" Which I think may have given Toki a nervous breakdown. The sense I get is that the local group won't be putting on another immersion bardic experience like that for at least five years, the better to give everyone a chance to recover.
I left around noon, giving myself plenty of time to get home. I budgeted for two naps, took one, got home, and collapsed. Asthmatic pocket bard was seriously, seriously asthmatic. Still, it was worth it. Because we. were. epic. Vivant to all of us!
Friday
It all started Friday afternoon, when I arrived at Aoife, Joel, and Harvey's house after an uneventful trip down from Montreal. (Yay for uneventful trips!) I was the first to arrive, around 3:00, and found myself in the midst of semi-controlled last-minute chaos. I helped as best I could, but most of my helping seemed to consist of "don't panic." Which is pretty good advice, if you ask me.
Mhari showed up shortly after me, and together we set to our primary task of the evening: keep Aoife sane. Well, that was *my* primary task of the evening. Aoife, our wonderful hostess, had decided that in addition to hosting a house full of people, she was *also* going to be on-site at 7:00 a.m. the next morning for set up, *also* host the post-revel, and *also* host brunch on Sunday morning. Because she's nuts. In a good way. But still nuts.
Mhari, meanwhile, was finishing up her own nuts project: Beowulf socks as a gift for our academic director Fiana. All night, we heard the refrain, "Just 9 more rows until the toe! Just 7 more rows until the toe!" She actually got the whole thing done, which I personally consider amazing. Good job, Mhrai!
This is, incidentally, where we got our first and second lines of the weekend (of five):
1. "Craqué dans la tête!" (French-ish for: "Cracked in the head!" Which everyone apparently was. In a good way.)
2. "It pops right back in!" (Mhari's about my size, i.e. very short. When she arrived, Aoife told her she'd found a place for Mhari to sleep. Somewhat nervously, Mhari asked, "Can I fit in it?" To which I replied, "Well, if you scrunch yourself up like this... And if your shoulder dislocates, it pops right back in!" For the rest of the weekend, we were joking that Grendel should have known this advice as well.)
Anyway, sometime after sundown, the truck arrived. Yes, my friends, the truck. There was so much stuff for the mead-hall set that it wouldn't fit in just ordinary vans and the organizers (read: Joel and Harvey) had rented a U-haul to cart it the ten minutes to the site. I helped load, and I was even able to do more than stand around and look pretty, because most of the set pieces were fairly light.
While working on the truck, we came up with line #3 of the weekend: "Don't die, it's bad for you." Just sensible advice, really.
Once the truck was loaded, Mhari, Aoife, some of the other guests, and I decided to practice our Beowulf pieces, workshop-style. I really love the Concordia bardic workshops; they're tremendously helpful. Because I was pretty solid on my lines by this point, I got a couple of very specific, very nuanced, very helpful hints I was able to incorporate into my performance. (Chief among them: Drop the pitch of my voice when speaking as Beowulf.)
Other guests started arriving in the late evening, and Aoife showed us where we were all sleeping. I was with a bunch of women from Bhkail in the "cot dorm": a spare room that Aoife had outfitted with five cots, two of them bunkbed-style. I got the top bunk. Because I'm little.
There was a lot of excited energy going around, so several people decided to have nightcaps to take the edge off. I'm rarely an alcohol drinker at the best of times, so instead I made my way up to the cot dorm around midnight, knowing that Mhari would be waking us all up around eight in the morning and wanting to have a decent night's sleep before the event.
I didn't sleep.
It wasn't nerves, not really. It was my finicky, annoying body that refused to get comfortable on the cot. I tossed. I turned. I checked my clock about once an hour, just to find out what time it was. Finally, around 7:00, I went downstairs and curled up on Aoife's comfy love-seat with my jacket thrown over my torso. It's saying something that even with Aoife, Joel, and Harvey coming in and out of the living room every five minutes or so (in the mad-dash preparations to get to the site), I *still* slept better on the love-seat than the cot. Well, semi-slept. Dozed, certainly.
Anyway, I was up by 8:00, and that's the important thing.
Saturday -- Morning
Mhari -- acting as interim hostess as all the people who live in Aoife's house had gone to the event site to set up -- very smartly woke everyone up around 8:00, to give us plenty of time to get caffeinated, get breakfasted, and get dressed before we needed to leave for the site around 9:45. Actually, we were all ready by around 9:15, so we all piled into one car and arrived early.
The site was abustle with activity. Set up had been going on for two hours already. The giant mead hall columns were going up. (Painted so that in the dark, they looked exactly like wood, and I had to keep reminding myself not to lean on them because they were, in fact, cardboard.) I got to say hello to all sorts of people I usually only see at Pennsic: Torvaldr, Fiana, Cerian, Dahrien... (who, I might add, drove all night, arrived in town around 3:00 a.m., and came out for set up anyway. Everyone remember line #1? "Craqué dans la tête!")
Since I was there and not doing anything anyway, I helped with set up. For a while, my job consisted of pushing around some scaffolding while Magnus stood on top of it and set up the blackout curtains. "Blackout curtains, Katherine?" Yes. Blackout curtains. Because mead halls are dark, and we were making a mead hall.
Perhaps I should back up a bit and describe the setting in which we were going to be performing Beowulf.
When Toki had the idea of performing Beowulf, it was quickly decided to do it within a space that was as authentic as possible. This meant a mead hall. So even though we were in a community center or a church or something, you'd never have known. The walls around the audience area were completely curtained off (and the windows shaded by blackout curtains). The curtains were decorated with hand-painted Anglo-Saxon style wall hangings. In the center of the space were huge "wooden" columns (see above). Between those, a long brazier provided light and tremendous amounts of atmosphere. Performers and listeners sat on wooden mead-benches. And, just to get the absolute best experience possible, they'd smoked the entry curtain! That's right: they wanted an authentic smell for the event, so every time you walked into the performance space, you got a whiff of wood-smoke.
Repeat after me: "Craqué dans la tête!"
Set up took us until around noon, I think, at which point Toki gathered the performers (nearly three dozen of us) in the performance space for a pep talk. Sadly, I don't remember most of it verbatim, but it was along the lines of, "Thank you for being part of this. We're gonna do something awesome today. All I ask is that you give it your all."
At that point, we had about a half-hour or so to settle in. I found a space between Cerian on one side and Torvaldr on the other, filled my water mug (no alcohol before performing!), and waited to be amazed.
Saturday -- The Performance
Act 1: Beowulf versus Grendel
When everyone had settled into the mead hall, beverage of choice at hand, Baron Pierre (acting all our hall-thegn) welcomed us and invited the performance to begin.
Fiana rose and, in the Old English original, started us off. There was electricity in the air, anticipation was palpable. And then we started in earnest.
Act 1 was divided into two halves, each about an hour long. Actually, I applaud the organizers for making each of the sections about an hour long: long enough to sink your teeth into the story but not so long that you started to get fidgety. It helped, too, that audience participation was encouraged, and there were many cries, cheers, jeers, and stomps as the various performers recited their pieces.
It was clear from the beginning that we were gonna be in for a show. Everyone put their own unique stamp on their piece. (Usually 50-150 lines, though I know of at least one part that was almost 200.) Some people recited, some chanted, some accompanied themselves with harp or drum. Some people were completely off-book, some had to refer to their words. We all used different translations, but despite that, it all flowed. It was all, absolutely and unequivocally, Beowulf.
The first part of Act 1 had nine parts and eight performers: Fiana, Dorigen, Mord, Ursula (who went twice), Tristan, Cerian, and yours truly.
A few moments that stand out in my mind:
- Fiana kicking the whole thing off in Old English, and the very first cheer of the day, at the Old English version of "He was a good king!"
- Ursula experimenting with musical instruments. Her first piece was chanted and accompanied by a drum, the second (I believe) was sung. It might not have been how I'd have done it, but it was a fun and different way of putting your mark on the piece.
- Dahrien doing most of his performance sitting on the ground, but at one point leaping up in a fit of energy and jumping over the fire pit. (Oh, Dahrien. What *will* you do next?)
And, of course, there was my section.
I'd been practising a lot, as most of you know. By the time my turn arrived, I was completely off-book. I have to say, it went even better than I'd expected. My Unferth was snarky. My Beowulf was boastful. People cheered and booed in all the right places. It was such a rush! Yes, memorizing may have eaten up a month and a half of my life, but it was decidedly worth it to be able to completely interact with my audience.
After an intermission, we returned for the second part of Act 1, which had seven performers: Grim, Edward, Rebekah, William, Siobhan, Linette, and Aildreda (accompanied by Lucien).
This was a hard-hitting section. I think everyone was off-book for it. Grim did an absolutely masterful job with Beowulf's fight with Grendel: the gestures! The ripping off of the arm! Amazing!
Earl Edward, who was king last Pennsic, was also great. He needed to restart his section, but he did it so smoothly and so naturally that no one minded. And once he restarted, he was great.
William was jumpy and energetic, as I've come to expect. Linette accompanied herself on the harp, which was utterly enthralling and beautiful. Then, right after her, Aildreda performed her piece, which was also accompanied by harp-music (this time played by her partner Lucien).
By this point, it was around 3:00, I believe, and we took our second intermission before launching into...
Act 2: Beowulf versus Grendel's Mother
I must pause here to say how glad I am that I performed in Act 1, not Act 2 or 3. Sadly, the curse of my lungs struck again, as it seems to do at most indoor SCA events I've been to in the last 3-4 years. I needed to start taking my inhaler around 2:00, and I just kept needing to take it more and more as the day wore on. When I performed my piece (the seventh in the first part of Act 1), I was still doing fine. I'd hate to have had to try to perform in Act 3, late in the evening, when I was super-asthmatic.
In any event, Act 2 also featured a bunch of hard-hitters: Cerian, Mhari, Katrusha, Fiana, Gwendolyn, Lywelyn and Juliane, and Zsof.
A few memorable moments from Act 2:
- Mhari, who had performed most of her piece as Hrothgar lamenting that Grendel's mother was attacking his hall, was walked back to her seat by Katrusha, as Beowulf saying, essentially, "Don't worry. I got this one." It was perfectly timed and an absolutely brilliant transition.
- Fiana and Gwen doing the fight with Grendel's mother. Particularly Gwen's line of "He hacked off his head!" Oh, my God, the power of that line! Amazing!
- Zsof, flitting just on the edge of her usual Hungarian accent, utterly controlling the hall, as always.
I should point out here that we encountered line #4 of the weekend around this time. A bunch of us were standing around, feeling silly, and acting out parts of the story. I don't remember whether it was Cerian, Dahrien, or Torvaldr that tackled the fight with Grendel's mother, when Beowulf's sword Hrunting fails him (and you must imagine this with hand gestures, or it doesn't work): *swings sword* Boink. "Boink? What'da'ya mean, 'Boink'?" *swings again* Boink. "Yup, that was definitely a Boink." *throws sword away*
Feast
At this point, we took an extended break to have feast. The mead-benches were removed and tables brought in so that we could sit around the fire in the mead-hall. It was one of the most atmospheric feasts I've ever attended in 12 years in the SCA. The food was good, but the real show-stealer was the hall.
Unlike most events, there was no formal entertainment at feast. Which is good, because I think we were all bardicked out for a while and needed to recharge our brains. My little corner of the feast hall had some silly storytelling going on (Torvaldr did one of his "Viking Home Companion" pieces; I told a Hrothgar story I'd learned from John McGuire, etc.), but really people just chatted with each other and marvelled that we were here, performing Beowulf.
Sometime during tear-down of the feast, Gwen brought us line #5 of the weekend: "Keep walking. Just keep walking." Sensible advice, I'd say.
As feast was wrapping up, I decided to be stupid. That is, I decided to stay for the entire performance, even though my lungs were seriously unhappy with me. "It's worth it," I told myself. "And it's not like I need to perform again." I knew I was being stupid. It was worth it.
Once feast was over and the benches had been returned to their places, we embarked on...
Act 3: Beowulf versus the Dragon
Like Act 1, Act 3 was divided into two halves. The first half had five performers: Broom, Toki, Magnus, Jacqulinne, and Torvaldr.
My hat's off to everyone in Act 3. Some of those sections were not easy. I lucked in, because my section was all about boasting, so it was really easy for me to stir up the audience. In Act 3, there's a lot of backstory, a lot of "let me tell you again why we're here," and a lot of stuff that's really not relevant to the main plot. Despite that, everyone held their own. I was seriously impressed.
I think Magnus really shone in the first half of Act 3. Like me, he had a boasting Beowulf section. We had just come off of Toki's section, in which he (as Beowulf) explained some backstory and the larger political situation. Magus stood up, still as Beowulf, and said, "I will tell you more." There was a collective sigh in the hall, as we realized we were in for more backstory. And then, with just the right amount of pause, he continued, "...about my fight with Grendel!" The hall popped! Cheering galore! And then Magnus, true to his word, bragged about his fight. Great job, Magnus!
I have to give credit to Torvaldr, too. He had told me earlier in the day that he wasn't off-book yet, and so his plan was to perform with a leather-bound binder in one hand and a lamp in the other, using the lamp to gesture and add emphasis. Sadly, the smoke from the lamp got into his eyes, and as he was wiping them, the lamp went out. Very calmly, he went over to the fire pit, re-lit his lamp, and kept right on going. That's grace under fire, I tells ya!
The second half of Act 3 had seven performers: Anne of Framlingham, Peregrine, Aoife, Dagrun, Mhari, Toki, and Fiana.
Again, I reiterate what I said before about Act 3 being full of extraneous materials and everyone pulling it off. Aoife was particularly wonderful. I'd heard her piece the night before and had had trouble following: it's all about the various feuds that are going to start up again now that Beowulf is dead. But there in the mead hall, she nailed it. It was clear, it was solid. Aoife's section was not easy, and she was great.
I was also very impressed by Mhari, who'd had two weeks to practice her section when the original performer couldn't come. Despite that, she was almost entirely off-book (and for a 60-line section, that's no small feat!) and really captured the spirit of her piece.
The poem ended on a solemn note, as Toki took the stage and mourned for Beowulf. Then Fiana stood up and repeated the last ten lines or so in Old English. There was a long silence in the hall, a pregnant pause.
And then the room erupted in cheering. Cries of "We did it!" and "We were epic!" echoed around the mead hall. There was hugging and fist-bumps (highly out-of-period, but very much in fitting with the moment), as we all realized that we fulfilled our boast (okay, Toki's boast) of reciting the entirety of Beowulf, in a mead hall, in one sitting. Wassail, us!
Saturday -- Tear-down and Post-revel
After the cheering had died down, it was time to dismantle the mead hall. (Poor mead hall. You will be missed.) My asthma was pretty bad at this point, so I stood outside and did a masterful job of holding up a railing. Eventually, Aoife drove Mhari and I home with her so we could set up for the post-revel.
I must say, tear-down was way faster than set up. Apparently Joel and Harvey were walking out the door after an hour and five minutes, compared to the nearly five hours for set up. At least it meant everyone could get to the post-revel faster.
Incidentally, line five-and-a-half of the weekend, from (I believe) Fiana: "Is anyone else having a problem with unconscious alliteration?"
The post-revel was fun. We were all hyped on energy. Surprisingly, for a room full of bards, there wasn't that much bardic going on. Or I suppose it's not that surprising, given that we'd just spent the whole day performing Beowulf. There was lots of chatting, lots of eating, but I didn't last very long. I'd been taking my inhaler almost every hour, and between that and the lack of sleep on Friday night, my body decided to shut down.
Aoife kindly gave me a room that had been reserved for Edward and Anne (who couldn't stay for a variety of reasons). So I got an actual bed. I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of Owen's Grendel song ("He was hairy, he was scary, he was very very tall..."), wishing I could go downstairs and join in but knowing it would be stupid to do so.
I slept... sort of. I was up every two hours or so to take my inhaler, but at least it was better than being on the cot.
Sunday
I woke up late on Sunday, or at least I tried to. I wanted to give my body a chance to heal. Aoife had decided to host Sunday brunch. (Repeat after me: "Craqué dans la tête!") So I had very nice breakfast, surrounded by my friends and feeling moderately more healthy than the night before.
There was the repeated question to Toki of, "So, what are we performing next time?" Which I think may have given Toki a nervous breakdown. The sense I get is that the local group won't be putting on another immersion bardic experience like that for at least five years, the better to give everyone a chance to recover.
I left around noon, giving myself plenty of time to get home. I budgeted for two naps, took one, got home, and collapsed. Asthmatic pocket bard was seriously, seriously asthmatic. Still, it was worth it. Because we. were. epic. Vivant to all of us!