Tournament of the Lily - Best. Event. Ever!
Wow - what an amazing, awesome event we had yesterday! I am still trying to process all of it, but I think it's safe to say that Tournament of the Lily was a great success and the 18 months of hard work and planning all came together beautifully. Everyone I talked to said they had a great time, which is very gratifying to me. One of our goals was to have an event that showed the best of what the SCA can be, and I think we achieved that.
I don't want to do a complete blow-by-blow recap of the whole day but I don't want to do bullet point highlights either. So I'm just going with the stream-of-consciousness ramble.
It was really gratifying to see that so many people got inspired to really go all out for the event. I'm really pleased to think that we helped people get excited about doing SCA stuff again - I know I did, but since the event was our idea, that's as it should be. It just tickled me to read about other people making garb, new armor, banners/pennons, really getting into the theme of the event. I know I love that feeling of being inspired and energized about something after a long period of not being really enthused about the SCA, and I'm glad we were able to be the catalyst for that feeling for other people.
It was awesome to see so many people dressed for the specified time period. chargirlgenius posted a picture of some of the fabulously crazy hats, and that wasn't even all of the crazy hats in attendance. (I gotta give props to tashadandelion's friend Muriel, who I kind of sort of met in passing, who wore fantastically perfect 15th century Florentine, down to the correct hairstyle.) One of the things I like about the SCA is the diversity of cultures and clothing, but I also really really like seeing as many people as possible wearing stuff from the same time.
The pas d'armes was really cool and lots of fun to watch. From what I hear the fighters had a lot of fun too. I almost never get to just sit and watch all of the fighting, or even any of it. So being front and center the whole time was awesome. Getting to call the shots, as it were, was even more fun. azpapillion, lady_guenievre and I had a blast determining what weapeons forms and how many blows for many of the bouts. I think the most memorable bout was when Baron ByramSir Godfrey was "blinded in one eye" (ie, popped out a contact) and made my favor into a temporary eyepatch. Syr Christian then did likewise to even the advantage. While normally in SCA fighting I think giving up an advantage is silly, the passage of arms is all about displaying noble and knightly virtues, and in this pas in particular, about entertaining the ladies.
And believe me, we were highly entertained!
We had a break in the fighting for the combatants to have a rest, and during the break we had performers do some entertaining. I loved hearing all the songs, but there was one that especially touched me. My dearest thornbury had commissioned a song to be written by Master Ruaidhri, which Kevin sang to me. It was a complete surprise. My sweetie has such a beautiful voice, it's always a joy to listen to him sing. For those few minutes while he was singing, everything else went away. I felt like it was our wedding day again. That is a memory I will always treasure.
The fighting ended with a grand melee, which went on until "the ladies are satisfied." It was great to watch, but we knew everybody was getting tired so we didn't let it go on too long, I don't think. We wanted to get a balance between having the melee go on long enough to be a real fight, but not too long for the sake of the combatants.
It was nice to have a little while between the end of the pas and the beginning of court. I got to walk around and chat with a few people, stretch my legs and check on Tommy. One of my regrets about this whole process has been that I haven't paid as much attention to him as he has needed lately. I mean, I've been there at home with him, but he's been watching too much TV and I've been working on projects and haven't been able to play with him as much. He had tons of friends to play with at the event, and I'm deeply grateful to thatpotteryguy and smiep for keeping an eye on him much of the day. He really had more fun playing with the rest of the boys than he would have hanging out with me all day. I'm also grateful to vom_schwarzwald and reabhecc for checking on him and sitting with him at dinner. It was hard for me not having him in my sight every second, but on the flip side, it's such a relief to know that we have good friends who will take care of him and help him out.
The feast was awesome, as was the lunch that severus_bracae made for the ladies. (The Cornish game hen was fantastic! I wish I'd gotten more of it before some little boy stole it out from under my nose. I think he took at least one of the marzipan pastries too.) I loved doing the formal high table service from the Boke of Keruynge - I suspect that a lot of the folks in the hall had never seen it done that way, so bonus points for education! jljonsn did a great job explaining what was going on and who the servers were and why things were done the way they were. I'd love to see this done more in the SCA.
I really enjoyed giving prizes to the combatants. I didn't give out all the things that Lucia made, but there were also a lot fewer challengers than we were expecting. (In at least one case, we know one didn't come because his home was without power from the storms down in Tir-y-Don and Marinus. I suspect the weather kept others away as well.) I gave a necklace to Sir Christian, a rosary to Baron Girard (soucyn), and a necklace to Master Galleron, who honored us by attending from the East Kingdom (and for amusing the ladies by pretending a heater shield was a boat. Had to be there.) I also gave a token to Baron Jurgen, for showing great heart and ambition in his challenges. At the end of feast, I awarded the grand prize, a lily signet ring made by Lady Lucia, to Baron Girard, for acquitting himself so well on the field and doing great honor to his lady.
I would have loved to stay longer after feast, but Tommy was Done before the end of the second course. Can't blame him, poor kid was exhausted. So I changed clothes, got the car and took my boy home. He fell asleep about the time we got to I-95, and barely woke up at home long enough to take his shoes, surcote and tunic off. Cuan, duchesspadr and I stared glazedly at the TV for a while before falling asleep in the living room so we headed to bed around 10:00. It was a very long, very good day.
The only real regret I have is that several very close friends couldn't be there, for a variety of reasons. It's unfortunately true that sometimes stuff happens that you just can't avoid, and I'd rather my friends make their choices on the side of health and family rather than events, but I did miss them all the same.
I'm sure there will be other things that surface in my memory about the day later, but I've tried to get as much down as I could while it's still relatively fresh in my mind. I do want to talk some more about all the projects we did for the event, but that's going to be a long post as well, so that will wait for later. I have a little boy who needs some snuggling and probably some lunch.
I don't want to do a complete blow-by-blow recap of the whole day but I don't want to do bullet point highlights either. So I'm just going with the stream-of-consciousness ramble.
It was really gratifying to see that so many people got inspired to really go all out for the event. I'm really pleased to think that we helped people get excited about doing SCA stuff again - I know I did, but since the event was our idea, that's as it should be. It just tickled me to read about other people making garb, new armor, banners/pennons, really getting into the theme of the event. I know I love that feeling of being inspired and energized about something after a long period of not being really enthused about the SCA, and I'm glad we were able to be the catalyst for that feeling for other people.
It was awesome to see so many people dressed for the specified time period. chargirlgenius posted a picture of some of the fabulously crazy hats, and that wasn't even all of the crazy hats in attendance. (I gotta give props to tashadandelion's friend Muriel, who I kind of sort of met in passing, who wore fantastically perfect 15th century Florentine, down to the correct hairstyle.) One of the things I like about the SCA is the diversity of cultures and clothing, but I also really really like seeing as many people as possible wearing stuff from the same time.
The pas d'armes was really cool and lots of fun to watch. From what I hear the fighters had a lot of fun too. I almost never get to just sit and watch all of the fighting, or even any of it. So being front and center the whole time was awesome. Getting to call the shots, as it were, was even more fun. azpapillion, lady_guenievre and I had a blast determining what weapeons forms and how many blows for many of the bouts. I think the most memorable bout was when Baron ByramSir Godfrey was "blinded in one eye" (ie, popped out a contact) and made my favor into a temporary eyepatch. Syr Christian then did likewise to even the advantage. While normally in SCA fighting I think giving up an advantage is silly, the passage of arms is all about displaying noble and knightly virtues, and in this pas in particular, about entertaining the ladies.
And believe me, we were highly entertained!
We had a break in the fighting for the combatants to have a rest, and during the break we had performers do some entertaining. I loved hearing all the songs, but there was one that especially touched me. My dearest thornbury had commissioned a song to be written by Master Ruaidhri, which Kevin sang to me. It was a complete surprise. My sweetie has such a beautiful voice, it's always a joy to listen to him sing. For those few minutes while he was singing, everything else went away. I felt like it was our wedding day again. That is a memory I will always treasure.
The fighting ended with a grand melee, which went on until "the ladies are satisfied." It was great to watch, but we knew everybody was getting tired so we didn't let it go on too long, I don't think. We wanted to get a balance between having the melee go on long enough to be a real fight, but not too long for the sake of the combatants.
It was nice to have a little while between the end of the pas and the beginning of court. I got to walk around and chat with a few people, stretch my legs and check on Tommy. One of my regrets about this whole process has been that I haven't paid as much attention to him as he has needed lately. I mean, I've been there at home with him, but he's been watching too much TV and I've been working on projects and haven't been able to play with him as much. He had tons of friends to play with at the event, and I'm deeply grateful to thatpotteryguy and smiep for keeping an eye on him much of the day. He really had more fun playing with the rest of the boys than he would have hanging out with me all day. I'm also grateful to vom_schwarzwald and reabhecc for checking on him and sitting with him at dinner. It was hard for me not having him in my sight every second, but on the flip side, it's such a relief to know that we have good friends who will take care of him and help him out.
The feast was awesome, as was the lunch that severus_bracae made for the ladies. (The Cornish game hen was fantastic! I wish I'd gotten more of it before some little boy stole it out from under my nose. I think he took at least one of the marzipan pastries too.) I loved doing the formal high table service from the Boke of Keruynge - I suspect that a lot of the folks in the hall had never seen it done that way, so bonus points for education! jljonsn did a great job explaining what was going on and who the servers were and why things were done the way they were. I'd love to see this done more in the SCA.
I really enjoyed giving prizes to the combatants. I didn't give out all the things that Lucia made, but there were also a lot fewer challengers than we were expecting. (In at least one case, we know one didn't come because his home was without power from the storms down in Tir-y-Don and Marinus. I suspect the weather kept others away as well.) I gave a necklace to Sir Christian, a rosary to Baron Girard (soucyn), and a necklace to Master Galleron, who honored us by attending from the East Kingdom (and for amusing the ladies by pretending a heater shield was a boat. Had to be there.) I also gave a token to Baron Jurgen, for showing great heart and ambition in his challenges. At the end of feast, I awarded the grand prize, a lily signet ring made by Lady Lucia, to Baron Girard, for acquitting himself so well on the field and doing great honor to his lady.
I would have loved to stay longer after feast, but Tommy was Done before the end of the second course. Can't blame him, poor kid was exhausted. So I changed clothes, got the car and took my boy home. He fell asleep about the time we got to I-95, and barely woke up at home long enough to take his shoes, surcote and tunic off. Cuan, duchesspadr and I stared glazedly at the TV for a while before falling asleep in the living room so we headed to bed around 10:00. It was a very long, very good day.
The only real regret I have is that several very close friends couldn't be there, for a variety of reasons. It's unfortunately true that sometimes stuff happens that you just can't avoid, and I'd rather my friends make their choices on the side of health and family rather than events, but I did miss them all the same.
I'm sure there will be other things that surface in my memory about the day later, but I've tried to get as much down as I could while it's still relatively fresh in my mind. I do want to talk some more about all the projects we did for the event, but that's going to be a long post as well, so that will wait for later. I have a little boy who needs some snuggling and probably some lunch.