The Journey of a Sparrow (part 3)

We, Annais and I, soldiered on, pushing through our day jobs under sunlight, and becoming our own editors, publishers, curriculum specialists, and advertising agents when the stars were out. The event had morphed well into the heraldic boot-camp idea by now. Lunch was not going to be a break. Rather everyone would have 10 minutes to get their plates and then we would continue lecturing. That decision alone would save us an hour of otherwise lost time, and give it back as further instruction.  The decision was also made to make this an ungarbed event, and one where people were told to bring their laptops. The fact of the mater was that we didn’t need or want distraction. Frankly, I didn't want people talking about clothes and bags, or hesitating to bring their tech because it wasn’t part of their SCA attire. Heralds today did most of their work on the internet and through computers; "fight like you train, and train like you fight” I said more than once. This was boot camp, not a colegium, and I was going to make the most of that distinction.

A week out, the last module landed in my email, and I pulled it out and slid it into the Google document that had now become the master file. My eyes about fell out of their sockets when I saw the page count.

10 people, myself and  Annais included, had put together a 111 page document composed almost entirely of new material. It had everything I ever dare dream of, and a list of heraldic heavy hitters that I hadn’t actually seen standing together before in one place. It hat a table of contents, four parts, with fifteen chapters between them, and an appendix of information 11 pages long in its own right. For an unapologetic geek like me, this was the type of thing that I knew deep down in my soul would make waves all on its own.

All of this was put into a new perspective after a specific phone call later that week.

Erik Halkfdanarson, former Star Principle herald and log time friend, called me just as I was getting home from work.

“Ivo!” exclaimed, “Do you know what you’ve done?”

When he put it like that, I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but none the less, I responded, “Not a clue.”

“You’ve written The Book of the Herald!”

I had blinked at that, and then asked “The what?”

As it turned out, it had been an oft talked about pet project of Star Principle Heralds for years to sit down after they had stepped down and write a comprehensive textbook of all the basics a herald needed to know. For all the idea’s romance and scholarly framing, the fact, it seems, was that everyone was always too bloody tired to do anything of the sort after 2 years of leadership over the kingdom’s heraldic college (which I have heard compared to herding cats more than once).

Evidently I, without knowing anything about this tradition, had stumbled upon it, and then orchestrated it completion in the functional span of 3 weeks. Sure, this makes for good bragging rites, and I won’t say I wasn’t walking a littler taller after that for a day or two. But at the same time, I wasn't sure what type of a message I was sending to people, having accidentally done something that was likely seen as having political baggage tied to it. There being nothing left to say about it, let alone do with this new revelation, I shrugged, and said weakly “Well, I hope people like it.”

The next week, or rather the next few days, were exactly the type of nervous fit I had expected to be in. There was no metric for how this would turn out, and anything under 30 attendees would be a blow to my credibility. And besides that, I was on the verge of climbing the walls the night before, nervous of a hundred little things, fearful of some mistake or oversight, or just falling flat on my face for it all.

Of the teaches who’s contributed written material, few had been able to commit to teaching. In the end I considered this a benefit because part of the point was that someone else needed to be able to teach their modules. But still, to say ‘someone else’ in theory, and then to put it in practice were different matters entirely. That’s not to say we were lacking for  educational heavyweights, however. HL Estirl, the herald who managed the kingdom OP, was there to teach her own module on court reports. Master Etienne was there to tech armory. One of the up-and-coming heralds was another close friend of mine, Lord Thomas De Groet, a Mooneschadowe ex-pat who was now the baronial herald of NorthKeep. Annais and I were there, of course, as well as Castellana de Andalucia, another long time friend of mine, and fellow herald. In total, we had pulled in 8 teachers, exactly the number we needed, per our class plans.

I recall waking up that morning, and I recall being energetic. Perhaps it was anticipation, or just the per-event jitters, I don’t know. I know it felt weird going out the door to an SCA event in mundane clothes, even Red Tape did that to me, still. But this wasn’t red-tape.

My church is all of three quarters of a mile from my house, so it actually look me longer to get up, get dressed, and get in the car than it did to drive over there. Abigail was not long after, the boxes and papers for gate with her as he walked in the doors. I never knew how much I didn’t know about gate policy or techniques until I worked with Abigail that weekend. She had become the driving force of the event's financial policy when the barony named her as the gate steward. What to me should have been a simple task quickly availed itself to be much, much more. But my industrious money manager made short work of all of it, including running  a successful per-registration process that helped streamline gate to speeds unheard of only a few years before. Never once was I out of the loop, but never once was a penny unaccounted for.

Slowly, and surely, they started rolling in, from Namron, Wiesenfeuer, Northkeep, and the cantons. Young, old, new, and veteran, some there to learn, some there to see what there might be left to learn. And then, at about 9:45am, just before the start of classes, Abigail waived me over to the troll table with a smile. “We just made break even, Ivo.” She said simply.

And just like that, even if by some curse everything else went wrong, my commitment to the Barony of Wiesenfeuer had come though, and they would, when it was all over, not be out a penny for their investment.

The last moments of the morning before classes started was what I had informally called the opening ceremony. Reading from a hand-scrawled set of notes, I talked briefly about the thumb drives, then divided the class two sections, and make sure everyone either had a laptop, or was with someone who did.

Then… I pointed each section to their designation classroom and said to myself, ‘let the marathon begin’.


Even as we set to our tasks, I don’t think any of us really had ever decided on what measure we were going to use, between us or individually, as to how successful we were in this project. There are, of course, a hundred things we could do to mark progress, but in the thick of it that day, in the middle of 2 hour-long sessions, and back to back teachings, the whole thing was a slow blur of motion as we finally presented what we had nearly burned ourselves out on creating.

But, as the good lord is want to do, such a measure provided itself for me.

Eadwyn seo Gathyrde, wife of master Isaac Bane, was not a new fixture for me or for Wiesenfeuer. I had seen her at events over the years, first with one infant son, and now with two children who were every bit as mobile as they were inquisitive. Not surprisingly, her time was most often taken up with watching her charges, and seldom if ever do I recall seeing her without at least one of her kids. In this, she had always been, to my mind, the wife of Isaac. Truly meant as no slight I assure you, and I hold parenting in the highest of regards. Still, motherhood being what it was, she had seemingly found a role for herself, and that seldom saw her far from her children or her husbands side when we crossed paths.

Isaac and Eadwyn at Isaac's Laureling ceremony. 

So, imagine my surprise when she made her way in the door, alone, and child free, with her friendly smile and the look of an eager new student on her face. This, I decided as I saw her join her fellow students, would be it own new adventure for her.

The day was broken into four segments. First session, lunch session, second, session, and then closing session. Each one was packed tight, and each one was based completely off of the textbook. Each of us did our segments, and moved on, wasting little time in between. The few times there was lag (one cigarette break in particular ran long and I had to give them all a hard frown), we quickly recovered, and were back on track. We covered all of the material, answered all the questions, and then went over even more of it.

All of our theory, and all of our hopes were panning out, the plan was working.

And then came the last session. This was my last big outside-the-box idea of the event. I wanted something to cap the day off with that was fun, active, but not hokey. I have long hated mock courts in the SCA, and I personally find the comedy they invite both disrespectful of the idea of court, and distracting. People remember the stupid jokes more than they remember the critical parts of what they are studying. This was exactly why I had turned the idea on its head. Today, we would be hosting a an actual court, held by their excellencies of Wiesenfeuer, with actual business, one item of which would be a rock-scissors-paper (Lizard-spock, thank you Donnan) tournament, with full heralds and salutes. Rather than a comedy show where we would need to see through the ridiculousness of it all to learn, we would be enjoying a real, but lighthearted show while seeing the mechanics of court and list heraldry in action.

After getting four people to try their hand at this oddest of weapons choices, imagine my surprise as when I called for a volunteer lyst herald and Eadwyn put her hand up and said ‘Actually, I’d like to do it.”

There is something magical about a moment when you find that skill that you’re unexpectedly good at. For me, it was offering to go out and do morning heralds for a friend at my first Guardian decades ago. When I got back, several people were looking at me with big smiles, and one had said “Ivo, I think we’ve found your calling in life.” I think we call in the SCA, or at least most of us have something like that; a time when that things just… line up and all of a sudden you are good at this thing you’ve never done before. As we went though the rounds of that zany tournament that late afternoon, I saw the glint of childish fun and excitement in  Eadwyn’s eyes as she called the pairings and went through the salutes. When the  tournament was over, she walked back to her seat with the biggest grin on her face. It was almost infectious.

I think I was too tired to really celebrate the event’s success as much as it deserved. On top of the event itself, I had more or less burned myself to a crisp stressing out about it beforehand. But, it had all come together, and the students were thrilled with the training, the thumb drives, and the interactions not only with each other, but with the teachers.

The final gate count was 38, and after managing to come in a little under budget we had actually made the barony almost a hundred dollars.

And of course, we had the textbook, the crown jewel of our efforts. In the weeks to come I would give the text its own website, update the files, and advertise the hell out of it across every Facebook group that was foolish enough to let me in.

And the book is still making waves, believe it or not. Less than a week after the event I was contacted by  Actuarius Pursuivant who was looking for my input on how to rewrite the college of herald’s warranting test, a working relationship that has since added three chapters to the text itself, and has me as a principle adviser for the moment on matters evaluative.

The naysayers haven’t been put to rest either, rest assured of that. There are still deliberate, but none the less futile efforts to ‘convince’ me that my class needs to be broken down an taught as a track at AH&SS, something I had, and still do resists for many good reasons. That being said, the whole of the curriculum and the textbook is now freely available for any and all to download. The work of all of us is not for the few to enjoy.

I’ve been contacted by principle heralds or their deputies from almost every kingdom in the known world asking for a copy of the textbook, something I am glad to offer up. Maybe it will make a splash, maybe it won’t, time will tell, but in any event I wish them the best.

And perhaps there was no better footnote to that day’s events than what quietly took place that night as I was checking my email.

Master Isaac Bane messaged me just after 10 that evening. I’d known Isaac for years, but we’d only recently come to call each other friends. He is a kind spirit, and self admitted bookworm. Much like his wife, his soft spoken, deliberate tone and considered conversations made him easy for me to talk to, and seemed to add gravity to his words when he spoke.

His message to me read, “So apparently Eadwyn really enjoyed the classes today. She’s been talking about it since she got back.”

And in that moment I knew in my soul that we had, in fact, “moved the needle” on heraldic education like we wanted to. Only after that did I let myself believe we really had made a difference.

Three months, or maybe three lifetimes later, as I knelt before the crowns of Ansteorra, beneath a tent large enough to seat two hundred people with ease. Her majesty opened her comments by saying “So, Ivo ran an event this summer, a heralds retreat, and it was an major success, as I understand it. I really hope we see this become a regular thing in our kingdom.”

Vlad picked up the narrative just then by adding “Yeah, Ivo did all this on a really tight budget, too. In fact, I think he was turning over couch pillows there a few times to scrape up loose change so he could pull this off.” While that wasn't literally true, there were some moment where Abigail and I were going over numbers trying to make sure ‘close’ wasn’t ‘too close’ with our funds. “But when it was all said and done, he pulled off an amazing event that had a lot of people talking about it. And for that, we have these words.”

As the herald read the words for the Sable Sparrow, and the audience applauded, Vlad reached down and and fastened on my belt the metal ring and braided tassels of the small service award.

The next night, they would successfully call Annais in as well and recognize her for her work as well at the retreat, adding a sparrow to her awards resume as well.

We'd teamed up again for 40th year, I as the herald in charge, and her  agreeing to run a consulting table. The effort had almost come to naught when she 'was attacked by a set of stairs' the Wednesday before. But still, bruises and bumps aside, she had come out and helped, just like she always did.

I firmly believe that awards mean more not when you are not looking for them, but when you aren’t looking at all. I’d given up –completely–  on rank of any sort before I got my Star of Merit. I was tired, burned out, and almost ready to quit. But when I stopped saying “where is mine” I found a whole world waiting for me. I got my star because I stopped asking “what can I do?” and started asking ‘what do they need?” That’s what took me to being a member of the order of the Star of Merit. Its what earned me my second thistle, this one for heraldic arts.

And its what earned me my first sable sparrow, for an “extraordinary act of sacrifice and service” to the kingdom, and for my fellow heralds.

The awards of Ansteorran, I have learned, are not ladder rungs to be climbed quickly. Rather, they are mile markers for the soul of those who care to go on the adventure of a lifetime.

Part 1| Part 2

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

The Journey of a Sparrow (part 2)

That weekend was the previously mentioned Wienesfeuer Baronial, an event I had long intended to drive out for no mater my own situation. Over the years, I had built up a strong friendship with several of the group’s officers and long-standing members. My time, in fact, went back to the days when Wiesenfeuer and Namron, its neighbor to the south were decidedly not on speaking terms with each other, an animus that matriculated down to the individual players of the day in large part. Now, of course, those chilly relations had thawed years ago into a warm comradery, including joint artesian meetings and fighter practices. Residence of one group were frequently officers in the other, and visa versa, only to switch later on. The whole blender effect was chaotic, but added to a sense of adventure for those looking to take the plunge into leadership.

One such intrepid officer had stationed themself at gate for the event. Abigail Lyle was the baronial reeve, and in her mundane life was the owner and sole employee of “busy bee book keeping”. The industries mother of five had also seen to her own children’s schooling, giving the short, early period Irishwoman part of her characteristic endless ‘second wind’ when tackling both children and papers, usually at the same time. Her Husband, Dunnan, had taken up the baton today of watching the younger crop of their family while Abigail was monitoring the gate volunteers.

The whole family was close to me. Months before, when my schedule had necessitated my staying in the OKC area a few nights a week, they had thrown heir doors open and welcomed me in like I were one of their own. I still recall fondly that fist night as I arrived at their house at some time close to eleven in the evening and the four older children had emerged from their own beds just to greet me with smiles and warm hugs. The only input their mother had on the process was to say “Okay, you’ve said hello to Ivo. Now, back to bed. All of you.” Theirs was a home that never met a stranger, and never let anyone leave hungry.

That Saturday I had the chance to sit and talk with Abigail in more detail about the latest developments with the planned, but still unnamed event. At the time, we were steering towards an idea of intensive basic training, a ‘boot camp’ of sorts. Speaking informally, Abigail told me that she not only saw merit to my idea, but thought it was outright good. That being said, the barony, for the moment, wasn’t going to commit to one penny until their event was behind them and the books closed. So, there I had it, our most likely backer for this endeavor was waiting to see how successful this event was. I now had more interest than ever in making sure they were successful.

As it happened, baronial was successful, and robustly so. The final numbers were not something I concerned myself with, but you could almost read the grin on Abigale’s face as she messaged me with measure jubilation over the accomplishment. But the remarkable thing for me wasn't the success, but the aftermath it of. Little had a realized that not only did the baronial reeve believe in my idea, but she was willing to advocate for me at great measure. To hear my friends tell it, she had literally not even closed the books on Wiesenfeuer Baronial before she had the senescence on the phone talking about my proposal. Aldric de Kerr was also a longtime friend, and knew me well, most of the officer core could say the same, truth be told. Within a few days, not only had the matters of baronial been closed out, and papers turned over, but even before I was contacted, designs were in play to formally back my proposal. I had hastily drafted and delivered a event bid to Abigail via email, with enough information to satisfy the legal requirements, but enough vagueness to give Annais and I the wiggle room we needed as we codified the actives to come. By the time I was messaged, I believe it was the Wednesday immediately after Baronial, the signatures were already in place, the papers signed.

We had a backer and undersigner. The idea had just become a fully funded reality.

That Tuesday following was when Annais and I fully piece together the scope of our mission here. In 7 weeks, we would needed to get the event up on the kingdom calendar, and blast Facebook top to bottom across the whole of the northern region. HL Lilliana would be our feast steward, and we decided early that we would be serving lunch at the event in order to keep the lunch break short. The budget was $100 for up to 40 people.

And then, we came to the classes. There was no central repository for how to be a local herald, no guiding text, no class that was anything close to what I would call comprehensive.

We were starting from rock bottom, zero, blank-sheet-of-paper, nothing.

I pulled up a blank page in Google documents, adjusted the mic on my gaming headset, and said “Alright Annais, lets brainstorm and see what we can come up with. What are the core topics we should cover to make someone a good local herald?”

And that was how we started it. I had no idea what we would do with the list once we had it, at least not at that moment, but it was more than nothing. The list started off short, but grew, as I expect it to. We got to talk about the soap-box issues that had haunted the college for ages. One whole section was going to be about specially how to fill out the quarterly report, no sooner had we written that than we knew we needed a step-by-step walk through for the OP, and then one for the court report. There was a class on officer ethics, and a string of classes on voice heraldry.

By the time we were done that first online meeting, we had a respectable list, but now what to do with it.

At first, I was honestly ready to give up right there. The weight of what we were doing hit me like a blow to the chest. We were talking about topics that would have drowns both of us together. Maybe, (Maybe), master Etienne could pull something like this off, but not us, not even with our respectable bases. But at the same time, in the same moment, I considered the opportunity we had. There wasn’t any one person who could do this, but there didn’t need to be. We had it broken down by topic, by modules. We needed to look for the best in each topic and let them go at it with all their mission specific knowledge.

In the span of a heartbeat I had gone from the edge of giving up to a reinvigorated rallying cry of “I have a plan!” We worked our way down the list three times, coming up with people we wanted to ask, and then people to ask if they declined, and then again more names, just in case. We needed time to compile each part, to possibly edit, and then to prepare them for the class. We had 7 weeks that night, I knew we needed at least 2 on our end.

So, there it was, we were going to reinvent heraldic training from the ground up in just 5 weeks.

Looking back, it’s a miracle we weren't shoved into straight jackets and shipped off to an asylum just for thinking it.

For all the glory of my plan, reality proved no easy field upon which to wage my campaign. Almost none of my first choice contributors were able to help, and half of my second list were any more available. We burned through the first week alone with nothing by way of reply, and we halfway through the second week before we got half of our answers. But, there were interested parties. People quietly eager to step up and offer their help to my cause. Some were just glad to help on the principle of help itself, others shared my grim opinion of the state of our heraldic education just then. Others still, were quietly intrigued at the whole idea, and perhaps for no other reason signed on to my little venture.

Something that became self evident almost immediately in the process was how much information there was. If we expected the handout to be 30 pages, times 30 people, the printing cost alone could easily top $200 of my 300 budget. My ace in the hole for this was born of a passing comment from a meeting of protegees at coronation months before. Someone had suggested giving out thumb drives rather than papers. While its true, thumb drives were not cheep, if we purchased them in bulk, the return on investment would pay off.

But the important part of this was less the decision to use the thumb drives and more what I decided to do with them once the decision was made. Functionally, we made back our money the moment the handout crossed 20 pages each. But each drive was 4 gigs, and the documents were the smallest fraction of a percent of that. This is where we decided to just go all in.

Annais and I compiled a library of software, and documents from the four corners of the internet. I included a copy of Libreoffice, GIMP, and a O&A search program written by a SCA member. We looked for articles on every topic, and in some cases threw on some of our own older papers. I included the Ansteorran Herald’s handbook, and a copy of kingdom and society law. Within a week after selecting the thumb drives and ordering them, I had a master file on my computer desktop totaling over a gig’s worth of data.

From a post just days before the event.

The files were agnostic, meaning any apple, Linux or windows PC should eb able to use them, and I downloaded 3 copies of each program. The Hope was that these thumb drives would be a one-stop-shop for new and interested heralds, enough stuff to get them off the ground and on the way, and enough tools to let them keep up with those lucky enough to have adobe Photoshop, or MS office. (of which I had neither, actually). As a marketing idea, and a money saver, we decided that these would be the site tokens, and I summarily re-branded them ‘the herald’s toolbox’, a moniker I would make considerable use of in the weeks to come.

Concurrent to all of this, we were making the absolute most out of Facebook, and I was doing weekly updates with substance, information, and graphics. I used my freeware word processor to put together logos and slogan and advertisements, and I blasted all of them all over the Facebook event and the group pages for every group in the north. I hit up every friend, every associate, every prospective herald I could. I made an absolute pest of myself as I shoved this and that advertisement into every new feed I could manage.

As manic as this sounds, it was also desperate. The break-even for out event was 30 people. Any less, and the barony would east the cost. It wasn’t that they couldn’t shoulder the hit, but people who didn’t know we mere trusting those who did, if I let them down it wasn’t just my good name on the line.

At the same time, the class handout had taken on a life of its own. Annais and I had quickly decided that one of the criteria for the written material would be that it had to be able to stand on its own. Complete sentences, fully spelled out concepts, and pictures when needed. I don’t recall who called it a text book first, but once the word was used, that was it, we were writing a herald’s textbook. As much as the first week was burned on just getting people to respond, the second week started to yield results, and the third saw the bulk of the effort being to come in. By the middle of Week four, the master document was cresting 50 pages, and we still had modules out.

The decision to call it a textbook gave it the mental framework that I needed to properly organize the whole thing. The word ‘book’ invited trappings such as appendices, tables of contents, chapters, footnotes, and attributions. These, little known to those outside of my inner circle, were the trappings and things I loved to dabble in when I worked on my computer. The idea of pages with numbers, and footers, and images, and titles were things that I found exciting, and interesting. The mastery, no… the capture of so much information into one tome was to harness an almost immeasurable power as far as I was concerned, and I was glad to do it here. The whole process gave our work a newfound feel of being right and proper, of being official.

Perhaps, I would learn later, a little too official.

The whole project had started, honestly enough as one step up from a revel. The original plan had been to collect heralds and let heralds do what they do when they have an audience. While that plan had quickly grown past those loose and casual origins, I had never really adjusted my mindset on the whole thing while I was flooding Facebook feeds and email in-boxes with news of my grand plan.
The first words heard from official sources were sincere enough, and not hostile. I was making more noise about this than some inter-kingdom events had gotten in times past, so there were the inevitable questions of who in the College of Heralds was heading this. Not long after, once I had said that it was an unofficial event, not sanctioned by the college, the nudges starting coming in that perhaps I should reach out to the college for help.

I wrestled with my response to these first few inquiries. The fact of the mater was that, to be blunt about it, the college had had 39 years to come up with something like this, but rather had thrown their efforts into AH&SS instead. In itself, this was not a bad thing, but the culture of the symposium had long ago been established that the college provided the facilities and let the teachers come as they will. Again, not a bad thing, but it proved a lacking response in the face of ever increasing demands for fundamental training as they grew ever more apparent in my home in the north. The College’s willingness to relinquish all control of the agenda and curriculum for its own colegium event was a decision that had its pros and con’s, and I won’t call it good or bad. But here, for our purpose, it was a culture that I specifically didn’t need, or for that matter have time to deal with if it tried to entrench itself in my event.

No few comments were directed my way about the proximity of my event to the symposium, some publicly, some privately. In truth, we would he hosting it 14 days before AH&SS. I knew that the two shared little in common in reality, but that fact seemed to land on deaf ears with some of my naysayers. The reality of the situation, however, as well as the barrier that protected both me from the college, and the college from me should this project be a disaster, was its unofficial status. I was just me, doing my thing, up here, on my own, with some of my friends. I no more needed the college’s permission or blessing for this than I did to made a run to the privy.

Some time later, as the textbook was entering it near final stages, a message reached me that ‘the college’ looked forward to looking over the book before it was handed out.

As to what fraction of that was direct but direct mandate, and what was a sincere offer of help will probably be permanently lost to the shadows of antiquity. But the fact remained, that the signatory of that message was an officer of the college. My answer, whatever it was, would absolutely be heard by official ears. I replied, carefully, that, ‘just as soon as the event is over and we’d processed the feedback from the students back into the book, I’ll be glad to make a copy available to the college for feedback”.

While it is easy to imagine I was afraid of interference, the reality was I was afraid of dead weight. Any commitment, or even overture to let anyone review the work meant that we were adding days, maybe even weeks onto the process. Each new set of eyes meant a new set of edits to be applied, or upset emotions if I told someone ‘no’. It was gambling with time we didn’t have. The book was coming together fast, but there was still much to do. In reality, I didn't have any truly spare days, let alone weeks, and for all the college has done for this kingdom, and for all the praise it rightfully deserves, it had the editorial agility of a hippopotamus. I was not going to even consider letting myself, or the book, be pulled into a development hell.

While I have never considered myself any master of the world of politics, I am no amateur to it either. More to the point, I fully understand the power of words to do more with a few strokes of ink than a person could do with an hour's worth of talking.

The textbook title, so far, had been ‘the 2019 Ansteorran Local Herald’s Training and Resource Textbook’. While absolutely accurate, and considerably more down to earth than some ideas I had flirted with over the previous weeks or so, the title still left room in our College of Herald’s centered culture to be implicated as an official document. More to the point, there were still those who not only wanted it to be official, they wanted it to have the oversight that came of officialism.

Then, one night, I went into the mater file, and edited it. The crisp, black, Arial-fonted title was now broken with the word “unofficial” in a signature  type font, and in red letters. For all purposes someone had just come in and scrawled it in magic marker on the cover. It was, in it own way, a editorial totem of protection, both from me, and for me, while also being a line of distinction between me and the college.

Rise or fall, success or failure, that one word would assure that all credit, or blame landed where it belonged, squarely on my own shoulders.

Part 1 | Part 3

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

The Journey of a Sparrow (part 1)

“The crown does call Ivo Blackhawk into the court.” 

- Adalia VonderBerg, Golden Staff Herald

The words were not expected, let me just say that now.

But unlike every other time, they were not a complete shock. It was Friday of Ansteorra’s 40th year Celebration, my wife was the event steward, and as her event herald, we had both been hard at work since Wednesday morning  setting things up, directing traffic, and in general getting ready for what was promising to be the largest event in the kingdom’s recent history. The effort wasn't small in the least, and the planning, which dated back 18 months, had expected the grand magnitude when the whole thing was little more than ink-marks on a page. Borrowing from four years at Gulf Wars, a decade and a half  of event stewarding experience, and a decade as a director for a non-SCA convention in Oklahoma City, Their Ladyships Lillias, and her co-steward Liliana had laid out the framework for 40th with the express purpose of letting it be massive in every sense of the word.

Towards that end, I and my cadre of site heralds had gone to work making sure the half mile wide site was thoroughly cried three times a day, every day. By the time the Friday afternoon court was upon us, all of us were tired, but I was feeling it specifically in my back, and my voice-box. The walks were bad enough on me, I wasn’t as young, or as active as I used to be, or should be now, honestly. And my ambition to get information out to the masses had pushed the voices of all of my heralds to the near edge of our collective limits.

The afternoon court was still in daylight, the air was warm, but the breeze took the oppressive bite out of it that the warmer, muggier early afternoon had brought. And we were all glad not to be reliving Thursday’s oven-like treatment at the hands of the vengeful mistress that was mother nature this time of year.

My wife and I rose quickly from our chairs, and I was glad that I had remembered to pull on my awards mantle before sitting down to court. All of my medallion awards hung from it, and shared the space with a line of ceramic beads first assembled by my first heraldic client, and longtime friends of years prior. We were near the front of the court, to the Crown’s left, and just outside the “BFT”, a monster of a tent, easily large enough muster an SCA army of no small consequence.

We made our way up, across the out edge of the front of court, where we turned, faced the crown and knelt. My wife remained, and I approached, my head bowed.

In this moment, there was a quick mix of ceremony and pragmatism as I knelt before their majesties. The pillows meant for those to kneel on before each of the royal thrones were there, of course, each bright yellow with the arms of the the respective royals stitched across the large face. But I didn’t kneel on either of them. Instead, I dropped to one knee just short of both. The cautions, I noted, were clean, immaculate in fact. The knees of my pants, however, were not, thanks to kneeling down to to help someone pick something up earlier that afternoon. Tired though I may have been, I was not so fatigued as to bring dirt into the arms of my own kingdom.

Both of their majesties laughed and gave me a momentarily puzzled look. Queen Margaret saying “you don’t have to kneel in the dirt,” and King Vlad adding “You're allowed to use the pillows, Ivo.”

My mind latched onto the queens words for a moment, and recalled something. At gulf wars a number of years past, a man from another kingdom had noticed my Star of Merit, a yellow and black garter I wore around the top of my left elbow. He’s said to me, as part of our ongoing conversation, that perhaps I shouldn’t have worn it so often, or else the bright yellow would be covered in dirt and mud from all of my walking around as a herald.

For the briefest of moments then, I had considered that, and gave it more than just a passing thought. He had been correct, of course, the award was going to get the hell knocked out of it if I kept wearing it like I had been. But in that same moment, I clearly recalled every literal white scarf, every red centurion’s cloak, and and every dish soap splashed sable crane I had ever laid eyes on. Dirt was not a disrespect to this award, it was a tribute to the blood sweat and tears that had gone into the journey towards each of them.

All of that was at the forefront of my mind as I said back to the queen, “Someone once told me,” I replied in a quiet voice, “not to wear my awards while I was working, or else I would get them dirty. I told him that I got these awards by getting dirty in the first place.”

“Actually,” Queen Margaret said, looking suddenly thoughtful, “That is a good segue into why we called you up here.”

Months, or perhaps lifetimes, before my life was not the quiet ball of resolute confidence that it was that Friday afternoon. I had toyed with the idea of an intensive training session for new heralds for years by then, the concept shifting and changing this way and that, and evolving while I slowly watched as time and time again this or that local herald in the north of the kingdom departed their office in an untimely manor. Interspersed between these thankfully distance announcements was a slowly growing chorus of ever more untrained questions from both heralds and their deputies. for those who looked, it was clear that the average level of heraldic knowledge was, slowly, declining.

Now, I don’t want to make this sound like the whole of the north was poor at heraldry. In fact, little could be farther from the truth. Arguably some of the strongest heralds in each of the core fields call the northern region their home, and their work was known, and respected. But at the very same time, the local heralds in some groups were struggling with some of the more basic of jobs of the office of local herald. In fact, I’d watched one group change over its own herald for the 4th or 5th time in less than three years, this particular time due to a lapsed membership.

It was easy, at first, a decade ago, to look at such examples for what they actually were back then, isolated incidents that were quickly back-filled by a robust heraldic community. But the evidence of the past half decade did not offer the honest appraiser such an easy dismissal now. Numbers were down, skills levels were down, activity was down, and training was, to be blunt about it, falling apart.

If someone were to become a local herald in 2017, they would have, presumably, 6 months to get warranted. King's Round Table, held twice a year, was the usual go-to for such things, with our own Heraldic and Scribal Symposium being the second such choice each summer.   The problem, however wasn’t that the class was hard. No, it wasn’t. The problem was… well, the class.

A good local herald (which I categorically am not, by the way) should be functional in armory, name, and voice heraldry, and absolutely must be proficient, not just adequate, in the local paperwork of the job. None of these subjects can be adequately taught in less than an hour, and if you want to do them any semblance of justice, I would say two hours of training.  The math on that is an unforgiving sum of between 4 and 8 hours of training. And that assumes 100% retention, which as we all know is nearly impossible.

In 2017, our warranting class was functionally 45 minutes long.

The science of the situation only got worse from there. If you looked at the schedules for the Ansteorran Heraldic and Scribal Symposium, basic, local-officer type classes in these subjects were sparse, if available at all. In fact, Assuming one got their warrant within 6 months of the office itself, it could be another year before most, if not all of these classes were available in total. The end result was that a person with the time and resources to travel and attend events frequently 2 or 3 hundred mules away, still might not be sufficiently trained in their office after serving a year and a half of a 2 year warrant.

At first I had made polite notes about what I saw as the beginning of the trend. But three years later, my notes were outright complaints, made as plenary meetings and in social conversations. Some had quipped that it was my new soap-box topic, and others had said it was the hill I was willing to die on. Neither was wrong, but plenty were glad to offer hollow assurances, some that openly dismissed me, others I felt, were simply a more polite way of saying “What can we do?”

By Spring of 2019, the situation, at least as I saw it, was coming to a head. Two people I knew were openly admitting that they were simply place-holders in their group so that there was that officer. And more still were admitting that the people who were traditionally deputies, and long-time resources, were either too tired, moved away, or tied up with another role to help support, let alone teach newer members. The vaunted ranks of experienced heralds were demonstrably thin, and the stress was being felt by herald and client alike.

By March, I had resolved that whatever was to be done about this, if anything at all, would not come from the college. Even when I could get some measure of support for some idea, the inherent sluggishness of the college did not lend itself well to a new event with new ideas, and I was full of the latter in spades.

The first person I had sat down with and codified my ideas, such as they were, was my long-time friend and current northern regional herald, Annais de Montgomerie. Our shared sense of humor, adventure, and perpetual ‘thinking outside the box’ made such talk easy with her. The earliest iterations of my idea as I shared it with her was a ‘get together’, a roughly choreographed study session where old and new heralds could congregate. I had honestly thought such a thing could be pulled off in someones back yard at that point, complete with a quadruple order of pizza and a few cases of soda.

Annais De Montgomerie

But the more we talked about it, the more we knew that that wasn’t the answer we really needed.

The first big realization of that March, for me, anyway,  was that our training for heralds at this point was one step removed from oral tradition. So many of our classes were written around the teacher, and had handouts that meant next to nothing if you weren’t at the class first. Requests for instruction in armory, names, or administration would almost invariably result in someone saying ‘well, who knows that stuff?” It was maddening, not only because those people were often scarce, and usually busy to boot, but it meant we were at a point where a heart attack or a car accident could set back education and training by months.

And while you think that proclamation histrionic, this week alone I have seen notices for 3 society members who met with untimely end’s and one good friend who had the misfortune of being bit by a copperhead at an event. The latter is alive and quickly recovering, but such outcomes are not assured to any of us. Mortality is not the humorous quip it was when we were all twenty years younger.

If we were going to make a difference, we needed handouts that took the next step. These couldn't be print outs of the teacher’s bullet points. They had to be thorough, independent documents that in their own right conveyed the information completely and clearly.

While there might well be documents, or even volumes worth of information that could guide us through the process, neither Annais nor myself had, or had knowledge to any of it that spring. Neither of us were heraldic renaissance men (or woman in Annais’s case), and while we could fumble our way through most of the heraldic arts, there would be gaps that we just could not cover with any confidence. This admission between us, as well as the nebulousness of our own situation on the gathering itself was more or less our static position for most of march and though April. While the rest of the kingdom was returning from, and celebrating the events at Gulf Wars that year, we were quietly swapping ideas and thoughts over email, and instant messenger, circling the concept of some heraldic meeting that had not yet fully taken shape in our minds.

There was no ‘moment’ where we realized that this plan of ours, still largely undefined, was not going to fit inside someone’s home. Rather, at least for me, I gradually came to the realization that we needed more formal facilities. Logistically, we needed a room, power, water, restrooms, and as we were coming to the summer months, air conditioning. I looked around to several options, but really, there was only one place that survived each of our criteria and might, possibly be affordable.

Over a decade before, I had walked into the doors of Highland Park Methodist Church, seeking a new place to worship. In the intervening years, the church had seen three ministers, the first of which had prayed with me as I overcame a cancer diagnosis, and then the subsequent ugly work schedules that threw my life into chaos. I had come to step up as their head AV tech when the newly installed video system needed more technical skills than their own sound man was able to muster. To this day, the AV desk is staffed by my former deputy and still good friend. In return, the church had welcomed Mooeschadowe into its halls, hosting multiple King’s Round Tables, regular rapier practices, and both of the kingdom’s Heraldic and Scribal Symposiums that I had stewarded. Like neighbors that knew each other well enough to like one another, but were distant enough to not annoy the other, the local SCA and HPUMC had fallen into a healthy relationship of community these past few years.

It was the second week of April when I pulled up the church webpage and drafted a quick email requesting the use of the church on an open weekend, and a quote for it as well. I honestly wasn’t expecting this to pan out, even as I wrote the email. The church was honorable, and religious, but they also had their fair share of obligations, including the basic need to keep the lights on. Sure, every time we had used their facility in the past they had been most generous in their pricing, but at that moment, our budget, such as it was, amounted to whatever paper bills Annais and I had in our wallets.

What few overtures we had made to other groups had been met with respectful caution, or a lack of reply all together. Perhaps Wiesenfeuer was the most reserved, but not without outstandingly good reasons. For two years previously, the literal forces of nature itself had compelled them to cancel their own event, a financially bruising development for any group, let alone a barony. This year, they were quietly putting all of their efforts into making this event work for them, and not taking any chances in the process.

A week later, all of the excitement and juvenile energy of Annais’ and my little conspiracy were abruptly reframed by a single phone call. I was at work, and by chance on break when my phone rang and the screen read “HPUMC”. The conversation was short, and to the point. The church was mine if I wanted it, on the day I asked for, no questions asked.

And the cost would be $45.00.

The date I had reserved was June 17th, only 7 weeks away.

I had no sponsoring group, no money, no financial backing, no curriculum, and no teachers. Not to mention the fact that I had no tangible evidence as to how many people would even want to come.

But, through something between good fortune and a miracle, I had tackled the single largest obstacle standing in my way. The normally 3 or 4 hundred dollar rental fee for the church was now literaly only pennies on the dollar, Good sense, if nothing else, demanded I jump headlong after this and see it through.

The event, not even having a name yet, had just been given a date and a deadline.

We were committed committed.

This was going to happen.

Part 2 | Part 3

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

Lonley I am...

Over a decade ago, a young, ambitious, obnoxious, young man set out to train himself in court heraldry.

That journey would see me travel from Mooneschaodwe (which had no 'court' to learn from) to Wiesenfeuer, Namron, and Northkeep every month for the next year and a half. It was the foundational decision that shaped much of my relationship with the rest of the SCA today, and it was groundwork for so much of my future within (and outside of) the Ansteorran college of heralds.

I never once set out seeking any awards of recognition, but my work there was directly responsible for my Sable Crane from the crown, and my service award from Northkeep, two awards I still am fiercely proud of.

But, these things did not happen without cost, and that cost was to be paid locally.

My decision to pursue court heraldry as an art was always met with luke-warm interest within Mooneschaodwe, and I knew it would be even before I set out. Inf act, I was openly branded an 'outsider' on multiple occasions for not being happy with what was offered within the group.  There were, and still are those who see only the most selfish of motives behind my every action, and not once in eleven years did that criticism or skepticism ever really quiet.

My own life hasn't helped, with various points in my life where work or illness, or money, have pulled me away from the group for months on end.I've had to come back just after some huge changes, or in the middle of projects. Its not an easy situation to be in.

True friendships  endue such challenges.
Their partners grow, they learn, they teach, and they engage with each other.
Friendships are what make the hard times worth worth dealing with, and are what make  the extra effort of facing those challenges worth investing each day.

Over this past year, I've slowly (and at times painfully) come to accept that I have no such relationship left with Mooneschaodwe.

The last of my close circle of friends had left, most (not that there were ever a huge number) moved away for mundane reasons.

I'm not a saint in this equation, my own conduct is not universally praiseworthy, and I don't care to say or imply it is.

And this is not to say that I hate or even dislike every, or even the majority of Mooneschowe's current members. That too is categorically incorrect.

But in the end, when I need to reach out for someone to offer counsel,  or advice, or company, there are none in Mooneschadowe's ranks I feel even remotely comfortable seeking that from. Some I am not that close to, some I don't know that well, and some, sadly, I simply don't trust at all.

The result, in all its sole darkening glory, is that I am dreadfully lonely right now.

I don't have a 'lets go grab drinks' type of relationship with anyone at work. I don't 'hang out and watch the game' with anyone. Its made me jaded, and tired, and is slowly stripping me of my purpose, my drive, and my reason to get up in the morning at times.

This has to end, and its going to end very soon.

Starting next month (necessitated by family obligations and an associated big trip coming up), I will begin tracking down regular meetings for A&S, heraldry, scroll painting, and other activities in the Baronies of Namron, Wiesenfuer, and the Canton of Myrgenfeld.

(The only reason I don't list Northkeep is because I can't practically reach them on a weekly or monthly basis, but that is strictly a factor of money and nothing else.)

But the important this is that.I am going to invest time in the people and groups who still have expressed the will to invest time in me.

And for the foreseeable, and likely distant future, I am sadly confident that I will probably not call Mooneschaodwe home again.

Ever.


His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

The SCA ethics of online classes

I can confidently say I was one of the last of the old-guard of my group to carry a mobile phone at events. In fact, the only reason I really do now with any consistency is personal safety owing to some medical considerations.

I still twitch when I see laptops at events.

And I'm none too happy with the sight of tablets, either.

And I'm only marginally tolerant of cameras. (Its not that I don't live some of the photographs, mind you, but the sight of a $700 Nikon showing up in the middle of a field of view when I'm looking at $20K worth of court garb at an event is jarring, I will say)

Lets face it, the line of acceptability at events when it comes to technology had moved a mile since my first event in fall of 1997. We all thought email was a revolution in communication when it finally found us in Mooneschadowe, and our yahoo group was as close as some of us ever thought we would get to Star Trek.

And then Facebook rolled in, and the world changed forever.

I get it, as a society, we exist in a world where wristband sized PCs are no longer fiction, and are probably going to be practical home tech before my son turns twenty. That type of revolution is hard to keep out of our game.

But at the same time, we have to ask ourselves about some of the steps we take.

One of the hallmarks of SCA culture here in the north of Ansteorra is the collegium event, a chance for instructors to take center stage and teach what they know. The events are not terribly common, but they are respected and usually well attended. They, of course, build on the idea of the local class, be it A&S, heavy fighting, history, whatever the subject may be. The point is that a huge part of what we do involves coming together to learn.

Right now, the absolute last thing any of us what to do is to offer even the slightest incentive for people not to get out of their homes and come to local meetings or events. We do not want to do anything that breaks the community metric of learning that so much of The Dream is built on.

On the surface, an online class does that. Taking your class to video and offering it online, even in a log-in environment, more or less says up front that you don't wish people to get out of their chairs and come together to learn whatever it is you are teaching.

Like it or not, however you want to spin it, that is one of the major net effects.

And this is a large part of why I have avoided online classes, both giving them or taking them, in the SCA. Doing that, I felt, and still largely feel, diminishes from the social aspect of coming together to learn more. This is not trivial, and I feel it is a large part of the social contract that goes into medieval recreation.

So why, you might ask, did I just post a Facebook event notice for my "Introduction to SCA Lyst  (Tournament) heraldry"?

Well, let me tell you, it wasn't a simple question for me, and it wasn't something I just jumped into.

On the one side, we have a social metric and educational method that builds community and helps standing and new players better understand each other.

And on the other, we have a now largely free online platform that can allow us to easily reach a much larger audience than most people would be able to manage without a major event to bring them together.

So, I have compiled this list of questions that I asked myself before deciding that this online class is more beneficial than detrimental to the SCA.

Q. Is it practically useful to the SCA?
A: Yes. The overwhelming  majority of events in the region have tournaments that require heralds. 

Q. Does it encourage increased SCA participation?
A: Yes. people learn lyst heraldry in order to cry a tournament, and those are at events and some fighter practices.

Q. Does this teach a skill that can be used outside of the SCA? | Are we creating a way for people to skip the SCA all together and just gather information?

A. No, Lyst heraldry has almost no application outside the SCA. People who learn it are very likely to be at least intending to come to an events. 

Q. Does this do something an in-person class can not?
A. Technically, no. However, the current state of voice heraldry in our region (the north of Ansteorra) is exceptionally weak, with trained heralds few and far between, and most of what few new ones we have being worked too hard. The fact of the matter is that there are too few heralds across too large an area right now to make relying only on in-person classes practical. Lyst heraldry has to be taught, practiced, and and relearned semi-regularly in order to keep those heralds from getting rusty. What an online class does is it lets me reach a larger audience more frequently in order to refresh and teach skills that are needed at events.

Note: When heraldry in my area is healthy enough to self support, you will probably see me stop teaching my class online, but for the moment, this is the way I see this equation sorting itself out.

This is hardly a complete philosophy. In fact, I'm sure as I move forward, I'm going to change this perspective a lot. But this is where I am starting with this concept at the very least.

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

An important next step

Today the kingdom of Ansteorra took an important next step forward in the principality question.

All of us in the north had been looking to the second week in January with different mixtures of excitement but also concern. As a mater of law, a crown has immense power over questions of policy and officerships, including the power to potentially remove a senechal, and the power to stop a petition to the society senechal.

Now all of this is said with the understanding that a sitting king has to eventually go back out into the world and 'play' with his one-time subjects as an equal yet again. This balance had worked well in our kingdom over the years as a firewall, part of the overall culture of the kingdom to keep the crown's powers in perspective with the consequences of his actions.

In short, the simple rules was that people could stay mad at you longer than you could stay on the throne.

But, even that was not an absolute. There was always the question, at least in some minds, of what could, or would be done with 'big' issues, issues worth burning a few bridges over in the name of a strongly held personal belief.

I know for some of this, reading this "now" (whenever 'now' is for you), all of this might sound like a mountain out of the metaphorical mole hill, a want of drama that was never there to begin with. Let me assure you, my fears, at least, are not born of hyperbole or theory, but of having lived through conversations where the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb was brought out in response to an unwanted challenge. Ive seen kings and Barrons willing to say the most unspeakable things in defense of their aspect of The Dream. To consider such an option now is hardly far flung, or foolish.

For those of us not part of the inner workings of the principality movement or the kingdom administration that is managing it, we are left to watch the process move forward, and hope that the next senechal, the next BoD member, or the next king does not cast an unfavorable eye on the idea.

Today, Sir Vladislav took the field and faced all challengers with the type of honor, dignity, and courage that one would expect from a man who has made honor a hallmark of his SCA career.I have known Vlad since his earliest days in the society, and was there when he was named as candidate to the chivalry. I know his heart, and I know his love of the game.

If he friendly towards the the question of principality? That is a question that he can answer.

But a more important question is this: is he a person who will honor the law of the land, the rules of the society and the will of a people in the most just way possible?

And to that, I can say with all of my heart, is a resounding yes.

Sör Vladislav Strelec, KSCA,
Moments after winning the winter crown tournament, 2019
Photo by Zubeydah Al-Badawiyyah

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"