SCA: East Kingdom Crown Tourney report

Well, it's time I actually write something in this journal about my involvement in SCA rather than lazily talk about it in the various voice posts in the past few weeks - maybe then it will show up in the search engines and aggregators.

So....I'm hooked. I had been loosely following the exploits of my good friend aka Lady Sibella Denton of Talmere who has become quite involved in both her Shire and Kingdom.

Finally, I decided to try and go to an event- "Falling Leaves" held at Wellesley College a few weeks back. Becoming involved in the SCA seems like natural progression for me. I am an Eagle Scout and spent my first 14 years living in Southern Maryland, (Atlantia), with *10* acres of gulleys, creeks, streams, hills, trees and woods to explore. I've always been enthralled by history and since I graduated from college, I've finally gotten the bug for life-long learning.

As young as I can remember we were always going to Celtic Festivals like the Virginia Scottish Games and the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival. We spent several years going to the Maryland Renaissance Festival in garb, no less. My mother played fiddle and eventually harp with such luminaries as Cathy Palmer, Sue Richards, and Maggie Sansone. I even dared, in my gawky teenage body, to bring out my fiddle and play a bit there - I think there's a picture of it.

So the SCA being next on my "list" was a wonderful thing, but I wanted to make sure my wife, () got involved and this was something we all, (Will, , included).

Today we went to the East Kingdom Fall Crown Tournament held in the Barony of Stonemarche. The actual event was at the Lone Tree Scout Reservation.

We got there about noon and parked way at the "top" of the entrance area. We headed down and found friends Dave the Piper and Sioux the Artist - the two of whom I met at Falling Leaves. They were incredibly accommodating, helpful and friendly so I thought I would seek them out first. They graciously let us keep our stuff behind a table in their lean-to and we went down to the field to look for Baroness Böll von Bayer, (), (with whom I participated in a butchery workshop a few weeks back), as well as Baroness Johanna who has graciously acted as a deputy chatelaine in answering my questions about the Canton of the Towers - a subgroup of the Barony of Carolingia for those of us in the north region.

After a few minutes of chatting we all headed over to the lodge for a lunch feast. There I met Baroness Mairi Asan T'eilean Sgithenach aka Ruadh and her *5* children! They were incredibly well-behaved. We partook in the wonderful fresh cheeses, bread, meats, and pies going back for more when they brought out hot chicken drumsticks and chicken stew. I poked my head into the kitchen to offer huzzahs to the cooks and do so again here. Yum.

Will got antsy pretty fast so Kirky brought him over to the table behind us which had crayons, coloring books & paper, and yarn and felt for making hand-puppets. It was wonderful watching Kirky get so excited both with Will and Ruadh's children helping them with their puppets. I joked with Cassandra that we had found our next Youth Officer of sorts. However, I was careful not to "abandon" Kirky and wanted to make sure she felt free to go off and do other things if she wanted to but she appeared to be having a great time.

We milked the warmth of the lodge a bit longer and headed back out to the field. I stood around for a bit and decided to trudge back up to the car only to realize the car was locked and I had left the key back at the camp. Twenty minutes later, I was back at the car with keys and decided to drive all the way down to the very edge of the path to the field, where I found a parking space in the lot there. Phew.

I setup the chairs in front of the unofficial Canton of the Towers area and looked for my wife. Turns out she was right on the edge of the fighting area with Will asleep in her lap and him wrapped under the folds of her cloak. He actually slept for 45min - very cute.

I'm afraid I missed a great deal of the tourney due to the car mishap and Cassandra tried to fill me in a bit when I was asking questions but I think I need to hit a practice after work some week.

We decided to skip Court because it was getting late for Will and we headed out a bit early - another thing I have yet to see. I've watched a Baronial Court but not a Royal Court or Kingdom Court or whatever the differentiation is.

We had a sleepy ride back to the house, and Kirky was asking lots of questions about the SCA and next week's event - East Kingdom University. She's hooked as well. So I hope we'll go to events once or twice a month and get her involved in some Guilds. I'm so excited - a family activity!!

So I'm home, writing this and responding to some of the new LiveJournal posts of people I've become acquainted with through SCA. I added them to my "friends list" as well as a few Flickr photo tag feeds to my RSS Reader so I can see any pictures tagged with "eastkingdom" or "carolingia". I also have plans to hook my mother, brother and new sister-in-law. They're in Western Mass. where I grew up and would be in the Barony of Bergenthal. I made a point to join their email list and introduce myself since I feel WMass is still "home" for me.

Alas, I'm still truly struggling on a name right now as well. MacIntyre is the Scottish clan I'm a part of through my father's line as well as Dutch. I've got some good English stock in the Strongs. I just don't know what speaks to me...what to be. The strict canonist in me wants to choose a legitimate ancestor right down to the name and town, as well as the dates he lived. So it's still a bit slowgoing. Kirky wants to use Kiekre claiming it's Welch or Gaelic. It's really based on how Nate pronounces her name when he's being all Scottish - "Keer-keh". I don't think it has any historical validity.

A name, a name....my kingdom for a name. I just keep hitting dead-ends in the late 1600s which drives me crazy. I don't have the time to add genealogy to my already large list of interests and hobbies but if I want to go back deeper, I'll have to use my intuitive research-foo.

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