Master Chort and the Olde Mill Inne
One story of merry celebration with dear friends in Markland, before leaving for work, and then chasing the sunset, to another merry celebration with dear friends in Calontir. Enjoy. :-)
The place is the colonial-era Adelphi Mill, built in 1796. But for one night, every winter for more than twenty five years, the clock turns back. Back to the age of high sail and high adventure. The stone walls and wooden beams are transformed into the The Olde Mill Inne. And materializing from a snowy winter's night, come an entire company of corsairs, rakes, privateers, gentlemen and Ladies. Musicians and singers and dancers of every kind.
Welcome, to the year 1711. Welcome, to Master Chort's Pirate Feast.
The day begins early, when Master Chort and his crew first take possession of the Adelphi Mill. After over a quarter of a century, the preparations are well practiced and well organized. Supplies and equipment are unloaded. Floors are mopped and cleaned. A pile of vegetables are washed and chopped; a mountain of bread of every kind is bought and brought. A dozen pots boil on a long counter-top of burners, and soon the aroma of soups and stews and curries begins to waft out from the tightly choreographed fury of the kitchen.
Tables and chairs are hauled. Musician's gear is fetched. A full-length bar is hauled in and assembled. As the sun begins to set and the guests begin to arrive, the crew goes from modern mundanes to privateer garb, the pitchers are filled, the kegs are tapped and the music begins.
Another Pirate Feast has begun.
As always, click on thumbnails to expand
The Great Hall is lit entirely by the glow of a hundred candles. The tables are packed end to end with rogues and nobles in their finest. There are fiddlers and pipers and drummers, filling the rafters with jigs and reels. Pyrates step forth and lead the company in traditional shipboard chanties and original songs. There are dances followed by dances followed by dances -- a Regency waltz, a Playford brawl, an Irish Step dancer leaping up a storm, a hafla in spinning jangles and silks.
Much of the gathered company comes from the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia and/or the performing companies of the Maryland Renaissance Festival. The detail of the costumes and the skill of the performances are professional quality. But there *is* no paid "outside" audience this evening; this revel is for themselves, old friends come together, in feasting and dance, music and song. From sunset until deep into the night, the revels spin one into the next, and the hours fly by, the magic of old friendships and familiar songs a warm glow on a cold winter's night.
And nine years after I first heard the stories of Master Chort's famous Pirate Feast, I was lucky enough to join them. :-)
It was nine years ago, in 2002, that silmaril first shared the magic of Chort's Pirate Feast with us all in her own online journal. It was that same year that she mischieviously invited me to come with her to dance practice with Thrir Venstri Fœtr, Markland's medieval dance troupe, my very first medieval recreation event. And the rest, as they say, is enormously happy happy history. :-)
I became a card-carrying SCAdian, in Cynnabar and Three Rivers. I became an annual Renfest Patron, Michigan and Maryland. Thanks to the generosity of friends, I got to be a dancer and fiddler and even up on stage. Kind friends got me Arms in the Midrealm and title in Calontir. And then, nine years, countless adventures and many, many precious friendships later, mundane life brought me full circle: back to Markland, back to where it all began.
Although the Company gathered for the Pirate Feast comprises many performers and reenactors from the Markland and MDRF communities, the Feast itself always was and still remains a private, not public event. It began almost three decades ago as a private celebration of the many, *many* friends of Master Chort, and remains so to this day. That it is a gather of old friends, year after year, is a deep part of the Feast's magic; but it also means that you can't, naturally, just walk in off the street. Markland Demos and Revel Grove weekends are for the public. This is for just the Company -- no advertisement except word of mouth, and tickets essentially by invitation only.
Fortunately, during one of my medical activism trips to DC years ago, silmaril had kindly introduced me to Master Chort and his beloved lady Patience, at a dinner in a Thai restaurant in College Park. And vvalkyri at a Conservatory Dance this winter generously petitioned Chort on my behalf, for a place for me on his crew. With vvalkyri's and silmaril's help, I got the chance to be part of my first Pirate Feast, nearly a decade after I had first heard the stories. And in a long night of dancing, music, feast and song, it was every bit as full of laughter and wonder as the legends said.
It had been literally months since I had done anything medieval recreation related. I had not, in fact, put on garb once since I left Calontir, seven months before. The crushing brutality of the first year of fellowship put paid to that. And so it was wonderful, wonderful indeed to clap and stomp and sing along with the Homespun Ceilidh Band, playing all the reels and jigs familiar from my days with the St. Louis Irish Session Players. Wonderful to dance brawls and Playford progressions with vvalkyri and leiacat and others. To raise glasses in toast and sing old Pubsing favorites. And to meet many new faces and folks who are part of the merry company. My first medieval event in over half a year -- my first in-garb event since I arrived in Markland to stay -- and it was glorious. :-)
Master Chort's Pirate Feast is a gather of old friends, a night of music and dance and song. And when the floors are swept and the bills are paid, the profits from the evening are donated by Master Chort towards research pursuing the defeat of cancer. The Pirate Feast didn't begin as a fundraiser, Master Chort explained to me during a quiet moment between sets. But along the way, along the almost thirty years he had been hosting the revel, they'd been able to pass the hat and raise a fair bit of change torwards supporting the fight for a cure.
He'd lost friends over the years to cancer. Three in this past year alone. Absent friends remembered with raised glasses, in a tradition that was too a part of the Feast. And funds raised each year, to try to do something about it.
- Well, Master Chort: you keep the tradition of the Inn going, every year when winter is at it's darkest. We'll keep waging the fight -- on ward, in lab, and among the halls of power.
Someday, we will raise a mug together, in a world free of cancer. And we will call it even.