I was fortunate to attend SCA events three weekends in a row in November of 2019: Drachenwald’s Kingdom University in the Barony of Gotvik, the Feast for the new Baron and Baroness of Aarnimetsä, held in Shire of Kaarnemaa (about 2.5 hours from Frostheim, and then our own Norrskensfesten here in Frostheim the weekend of 22-24 November.
I agreed to pick up some friends at the train station on the way to the event, which meant that I had company for the 15 or 20 minutes it takes to get to the site from the city center. This site has a large main room with a stage and back-stage area, as well as a lobby area near the kitchen, and another room off the lobby. That front room is where the families with small children set up their sleeping areas, so that the door could be closed to encourage kids to sleep at a kinda still reasonable hour, but the rest of us slept on the stage or back stage. Friday night was spent mostly in visiting with friends who I don’t get to see very often, as they live a few hours south, and, of course, I spent some time in the shire hot tub, which has been lovingly repaired by the Frostheim Archery Mafia, and now looks much better than it has for years.
Saturday morning I had thought to sit inside and keep making progress on my sewing, but then I was asked if I would keep score for the non500 tournament. That turned out to be fun watching the points pile up–they run this tourney as a “bear pit”, with the victor of each bout getting one point, and staying in the ring to face the next person in the queue–the first fighter to get to 25 points is the winner of the day. His Royal Highness won the day, while the second place was at 7 points.
This event was attended by Queen Isabel, Crown Prince Æríkr, Crown Princess Jacquelyna, Princess Jovi of Nordmark, and Baron Gilbert of Aarnimetsä, which meant for a lovely display of royals for court. Each of them had a little business, and recognised many worthy people for their good works. For me I think the highlight from court for this event was when Princess Jovi asked the Norrskensbard to entertain us at court with a song he’d performed last month at Höstdansen, during the competition to become our bard. Then, instead of letting him resume his duties as her attendant, she presented him with the Vita Porten (Nordmark’s fighting award), the scroll of for which (written by her own hand) echoed lines of his song (Otuk, otuk…).
