Morris

April 30 was the date of Rokeclif's "Games People Played" event. I taught Merells (Mills, Morris... I've seen 29 names for the game.) The picture here is not of Morris, but of a chess set that I adapted. I haven't documented the use of rubber duckies for chess pieces, but this has to fall under the rubric, "if they'd had rubber duckies in the thirteenth century, they'd have played chess with them."

Magic Numbers at Bardic Madness

Since this was Bardic Madness XXI, I thought I'd go with the magic numbers theme and prove that LXII is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Kudrun explained some of the significance of numbers, with reference to Aristotle, Augustine, Plato, Fibonacci and Boethius. Of particular importance for this event was Pythagoras's observation that all musical harmonies could be expressed in simple ratios.

Bardic Madness is probably the only event I'd travel 700 miles (each way) for a one-day event -- it was worth it. Thank you, Schattentor.

Persona again

Falcon's Gate invited me to reprise "Meeting your persona". This is a college group, so there are always new people coming in. What a delight to meet such enthusiastic kids, ready to learn all kinds of new stuff.

Publish or perish?

No one has to worry about tenure in the SCA, but it's nice to be published anyway. I wrote a couple articles for Northshield's newsletter -- one on saintly heroes, and the other a review of the Luttrell Psalter film on YouTube.

AandS 50 get-together

A handful of Northshield participants gathered in the presence of Jadwiga's magnificent "tapestry" at Boar's Head in Caer Anterth Mawr. (Milwaukee WI, for the geographically challenged.) It was inspiring, as always, to get together and share.

SUN Shines

Half a foot of snow couldn't cast a shadow on the the Stellar University of Northshield, November 13 in Nordskogen. I offered two classes, both taught in persona. (Karyn did sneak in a few comments, but not many.) The Alphabeticall Bestiary came out of the vault with a few new pictures, and Kudrun's Herball was spiffed up and repeated. The Herball features pictures from period sources and from my own gardens juxtaposed with each other. It was fun testing Torch flower (mullien).

Their Majesties saw fit to invite me into Northshield's Order of Bridget's Flame, the grant-level arts and sciences award.

Research Day

The Shire of Rokeclif enjoys occasional trips to the library for research. We met at Murphy Library at UW LaCrosse on Monday, October 4 for some persona research. The question was, "How do you choose a persona?" I provided a sheet of suggestions and some library reference service. Is this a class? Sure.