SCA

Warning: Spoiler alert! There are articles here that have yet to be published elsewhere. All content copyrights belong to “True Thomas the Storyteller” (Robert Seutter) and/or the SCA. If you would like to re-publish these articles in your SCA newsletters, magazines, etc. please feel free to contact THL Thomas Whitehart (True) and he’ll be glad to help you.

• ABC-SCA, The SCA Alphabet Primer
• A Shield Wall of One!
• Bad-Bard, Bad-Bard, Whatcha' Gonna Do?
• Born in the SCA
• Crag's Lyst, (April Foolish!)
• The Medieval Diner
• Sunny Valhalla SCA Retirement Home
• Secret Stratagems
• Siege Towers 101
• The Boke of the Dyseases le SCadyian
• The Fyne Art of Combat Brewing
• True’s Glossary of…EVIL!, Version 3.0!
• Happy Hanu-Kwana-Solsti-rismas!
• The Fyne art of Feast Warfare
• SCA Heraldic Zodiac Bling
• Welcome to the New Middle Aged-ness
• The Fyne Art of Picking a Nemesis
• A Visit From Sir Sven A Claus

• Class Handouts

Happy Hanu-Kwana-Solsti-rismas!

By: THL Thomas Whitehart

Ahhh, The Yule-tide is rolling in. It is a tide that floats many hopes, if not boats. The merchants are all snug in their beds, while dreams of credit card purchases dance in their heads. I love the “holly-daze.”

Last year at the 12th night celebration, I led folks in a rather mutant version of the 12 days of Christmas. It seemed a natural fit, and I had always wanted to do it. I mean, where else can you find 12 lords to do your leaping, and 10 ladies to do the dancing? It was great fun, and I thank their Excellencies Faizeh and Edric for their patience and great good humor. (Note- one must be careful who you give the squirt guns for “Swans” a swimming!”) the turtle-doves were two rubber sea turtles bedecked with pink and blue feathers (a breeding pair, straight from the fjords of Norway, I assure you!), and a non-firing shell hanging from a branch- (a cartridge in a bare tree.) The drummers drumming led to a brief moment of medieval disco from the high stage, which was thankfully short. Aah, The Holidays ala SCA.

As a storyteller, I often have to research various holidays and events. It goes with the territory. I try to wrap interesting factoids into my storytelling program, since one of my schticks is “historical-ish.” Of course what I think of as interesting might not be what they had in mind. Thanksgiving for me includes the more grim details of the Pilgrims story. For instance, most traditional accounts rarely mention the secret graves, the “cold war” on the ship, and how the ship was saved by a printing press. Or the fact that there was an already established colony, just down the coast when the pilgrims landed.

The Christmas season is no exception, and it has a lot of interesting facets that go way back. If you think “The Pumpkin King” invented the Haunted Christmas, Au Contraire! You can’t shake a Christmas tree without some hoary old pagan tradition falling out. The Yule season has always been kind of a ghostly one. Dickens was definitely tapping into that when he wrote “A Christmas Story” with its “three ghosts a-visiting.” The scary overtones are very natural and traditional, really. The winter solstice is upon you, and the nights are long and cold. Whatever stores you’ve laid aside have to get you through the brutal winter and the even leaner, meaner, spring. So folks huddle around the blazing yule log. To keep their minds off the wind and wolves howling outside they break out the legends and stories.

A good example of a scary Yule-ish tale might be the legend of the Green Knight. In the story, the Green Knight arrives in the middle of King Arthur’s Yule feast. Without banquet reservations. (horrors!) The Green Knight challenges the Knights of the Round Table to a fun game of chopping off heads, starting with his. No dummies, the warriors deduce something magical is a-foot. (Hey, Bors, is it just me, or is that guy like 9 ft tall and glowing green?) Fortunately for storytellers, brave Gawain takes up the challenge anyway. He chops off the Green Knight’s head, and hilarity ensues. Nothing like a little recreational de-capitation to liven up those boring medieval office holiday parties. It’s a fascinating story if you get a chance to peruse it again, and it points out some interesting ideas of what folks (or at least storytellers) thought of as chivalric behavior.

Supposedly the tradition of Christmas tree ornaments derives from the practice that the Germanic tribes had of hanging the heads of defeated foes from pine trees. I can only surmise that they were either very large trees, or there’s a reason we don’t see many hobbits anymore. Later on, decorating the Christmas tree with lit candles must have seemed very romantic, and very pyro-technical. But they did it anyway. Being raised in Minnesota, I can tell you that a match and a good sized dry-ish jack-pine can warm a house in, oh, say three minutes. Mind you, there won’t be much of the house left. Now we have all the really cool twinkly lights and the cables of doom. And that’s a good thing! {Author disclaimer- I have a thing for lights.}

Even Jolly St. Nick has some dark stories surrounding him- one story relates that the early St Nicholas once found out that a pub owner was accused of pickling his customers. As in three kids, and three barrels of brine. Fortunately, St. Nicholas finds out about this, and marches down into the basement. In a blast of miraculous Saintly power, he bursts the barrels, and the children step out whole and hearty. The innkeeper is duly chastised by St. Nicholas to amend his ways, which he does. My guess is then three children promptly asked the good saint for “Mario Galaxy 2.” The Santa Claus and St. Nicholas stories blend together as the years go on leading to something pretty unusual, a “Jolly old Elf” who is also coincidentally, a Saint. My guess is that this must be one of the few examples of dual citizenship in both the fairy realms AND the celestial realm. And it still seems to be working- Santa’s elves make toys that end up under trees that often have a little angel on top.

As the Santa Claus legends evolve, we also lose his partner Dark Pieter. He was supposedly a “dark elf” or imp who traveled along with Sinter Klaus, punishing the bad children, and leaving coal in their stockings. I would not be surprised if we see a resurrection of his role in the upcoming years. With the energy crisis going the way it is, he might be more popular. “Dad, Dad! Look at my stocking! I got Low Sulphur Content Anthracite Coal! Woo! Can we thaw out the cat and dog? Please?” Or if we want to keep the negative side of him going, it might go like this; “And when any boy or girl is naughty, Dark Pieter waves his hand, and all the batteries for all the toys and remotes go completely…Dead!” (At which point much shuddering and wailing ensues- mainly from the parents.)

SCA folks, of course, pick the fun stuff to recreate! While other people are getting into the post holiday season, we are still living it up, driving to all the Yule celebrations we can, and enjoying our 12th nights feasts. Hopefully our regular families will still speak to us at the end of it all. One downside of SCA style holidays, is that we do have bigger challenges when it comes to gifts. I’ve got to get busy on finding that Corvus Action figure for my son (complete with &*^% throwing hammer.) I’m also looking for that pintle mounted arbalest for my lady’s siege tower. I wonder if they come gift wrapped?

Have a happy Hanu-kwana-solsti-rismas! –Yours in Seasonality!

Thomas “Fiat LUX!” Whitehart