Flaming Gryphon 12th Night 2017

Yesterday, January 21st, 2017, A.S. 51 on the SCA Midrealm Kingdom calendar, I went with my friends Slany Bean Uillic and Uilleag Balbhain, plus their grown daughter Sarah, to a city about an hour away for what I think will be the LAST 12th Night celebration for this year. I never realized that Twelfth Night could last quite this long! 😛

The neighboring Barony of the Flaming Gryphon, whose event this was,  holds their annual Artisan Championship at their 12th Night celebration. One of the entrants this year was my friend Jerusha a’Laon (Johanna Garcia Stomel) with her gorgeous embroidery:

Jerusha was a Baronial Artisan, as well as a Kingdom Officer, in her old Kingdom of Atenveldt (modern-day Arizona). She has only been in the Midrealm Kingdom and the Barony of The Flaming Gryphon for a year next month. She didn’t win this year’s Championship, but I fully expect her to win in a future year. Here she is with her husband Yehoshua Ben Abram (Joshua Stomel), who was the Hall Steward for Feast:

Jerusha taught her Embroidery 101 class again at this event. Uilleag and I attended the class and learned eight basic Medieval embroidery stitches. But I must say that the young girl in the class with her parents was much more of a dab hand at learning the stitches than I was!

But let me back up a bit. The very first class that I attended yesterday, along with Slany, was Court Heraldry. Our teacher was the very experienced and knowledgeable Baron Dafydd Blaidd.

(However, except for Baron Dafydd, and the current territorial Baron and Baroness of Flaming Gryphon,  I’ll be omitting titles throughout the post. There will be few names to attach to folk in the photos, as well, because I just don’t know them. Anyone who would like to have their own or a friend’s name added should message me or put it in the Comments section below.)

I took reams of notes during this heraldry class, because I would like to try my hand at it sometime (actually I’d be trying my voice–because the herald is the one who announces events and people during each Court session).

My favorite photo of Slany yesterday:

I was really impressed by how she could sew while taking classes and also while riding to the event in the car. She was working on a pair of medieval Japanese pants for Sarah.

Slany, who in modern life heads the Food Sciences Department at Ohio State, gave a great class on chocolate in and around the year 1600, with a global perspective. Her handout was in quiz form, but luckily for me, she didn’t grade us. One of the weirdest facts I learned from her is that the chocolate bean pods grow straight from the trunk of the cacao tree, instead of from the branches. Sometimes botany can be so bizarre!

Slany and Uilleag’s daughter Sarah also gave a wonderful class on the trickster god Loki from Norse mythology. She took a class on the subject at Ohio State under Professor Merrill Kaplan. I hope to take that class next fall semester. I learned that Loki’s father, per one of the two authoritative treatises on Norse mythology, The Poetic Edda, was a giant, while his mother was a goddess and a member of the Aesir. This isn’t what I remember from the Chris Hemsworth Thor movies. ROFLMAO! 😛

While we’re on favorite pictures of the friends I traveled with, here’s my favorite of Slany’s husband  Uilleag from yesterday:

He in turn took a photo of me, also across our table:

I’m wearing a ‘wimple,’ which is the white thing around my face, neck and head; there is a ‘barbette,’ a plain band, underneath it. The wimple is in turn underneath a 14th C. ‘Flemish hood.’ Here’s a better photo of a Flemish hood from Revival Clothing, where I ordered mine:

These particular Flemish hoods are reversible; mine is gold and burgundy. I’m wearing a gold sideless surcoat in my photo that I also got from Revival Clothing. Here it is in another view:

Although I do love being an Icelandic woman from the 10th century during the Viking Age, it is also fun to dress up in garb from other periods and places. 🙂

I took photos of several of the entrants in the Baronial Artisan contest, in addition to Jerusha, and some of their exhibits:

What’s in this bag, below, are arrows for Combat Archery as practiced in the SCA. You can see an individual one that its maker is holding in the photo, above.

Finally, here is the winner of this year’s Flaming Gryphon Baronial Artisan Championship, Aminah al-yazici bint Ismail (Jen VonStein):

Her entry was medieval Middle Eastern sweets and coffee from Arabia and Turkey. It was super delicious! You can see how His Excellency the Baron enjoyed his visit to this exhibit:

I just happened to be sitting one row ahead of the winning Artisan entrant during Court. Here she is, before the announcement of her Championship:

And here she is as she approached the Baronial Presence to accept her award, after which she stood on the dais for the rest of the Court session (my little point-and-shoot Canon Elph, rather an antique too, doesn’t do action shots very well):

Also, the new Flaming Gryphon Youth Baronial Artisan Championship was awarded to Ben Timsson.

More shots from Court:

An amazing set of shields, a Viking round shield and a buckler, plus a third one not shown here, were made for the Baron by the outgoing Baronial Artisan, Audin Hrafusson (Christopher Hudson) and presented to His Excellency during Court:

But there was fun before Court was held, too. Here are some scenes from the afternoon:

And of course, after Court was Feast! Yummy–you can see the menu for Feast in my earlier post, Coming up! There had also been a Chili Cook-Off competition for lunch tavern, as well as a Bake Sale throughout the day. All-in-all, a most pleasing to the tummy event!

I congratulated the Event Steward (also known in SCA parlance as the Autocrat) on running such a fine event. His name is Orn Askelsson (modernly known as Michael Klefas):

He was kind enough to stop what he was doing (and he was ALWAYS busy doing something essential!) and pose for this photo. Thanks so much for everything, Orn Askelsson! And thanks to Their Excellencies the Baron and Baroness,  Master Edward Foxley and Baroness Allegra Ginevra Soave da Napoli (Jason Butsch and Nancy Terselic), for their enthusiastic support of the Arts & Sciences, as well as their warm welcome to children and to folks from outside their Barony. I’m really impressed by this Barony! ❤