How to be Dahrien

Many of you know Master Dahrien Cordell. One of his many talents is to create contrafacta instantaneously. I believe I recall him filking a song as the song itself was being written.  Since he took my name in vain in creating publicity for Bardic Skirmish, (formerly Border Skirmish, a Northshield/Midrealm event) I thought I'd get even by teaching a class in filking. It would contain a bit of background in SCA history and in period contrafacta, but the point would be to write a song, using "a tune we all know".

There were only a couple problems.  One is that most of the people who attended, including Dahrien himself, had already mastered the fine art of filking. The other is that Mistress Eliane's class was scheduled for the same time in the same 12x12 foot sunshade.  So we pretty much had a great conversation on the bardic arts in general, and then jumped headlong into a game of Bardic Kubb, which involved knocking sticks over by throwing other sticks at them, and coming up with bardic performance with any successful toss by the other team. (If you want a better explanation, ask Dahrien.  It was great fun.)