In 2015 I made the Norrskensbard Cloak, and started an annual bardic competition for Norra Nordmark. I fell in love with that cloak while it was still in progress, and these feelings have never lessened over the years. As a result I have worked hard to compete each year for the chance to wear that cloak for a year, and have written some nice pieces over the years. Luckily for us, we have a variety of talented bards, so even when I did really well, someone always managed to do a little better, and the winner was always the people in the audience.
This year I played to my strengths by writing a short Shakespearean style play in verse, and making signs with photos of the characters, upon the back of which I had the script, so I could read as needed, and still look at the audience. Having written it a little close to the deadline, I needed that backup. That was round three, which turned out to be my best round of the day.
For round one, period piece, I sang Blow Thy Horn, Hunter. Three of us tied for second place that round, with Gerdis, who did a wonderful job playing Lady MacBeth failing to wash the blood off of her hands before heading to bed, winning that round. It amused me greatly that we both chose to do a bit of theater this year, luckily for different rounds.
and for round two, piece in a period style, I did a very short poem that will do for making a mini runestone for my AoA scroll:
Höra mig alla
Hedrade vänner
på festen med fina
Furstinnan Anne
och Kylson kallade
Kareina framför
till ringa gav ringar
av rang och en sång
And I printed out a photo of a runestone, with the runes for that poem written over the orginal runes. It was another fun prompt, especially as the stone fit exactly taped to the back side of the metal shield with my coat of arms on it, which I had hanging on the wall (coat of arms side out9 near the performance area, so I could just get it, turn it around and display the runes at the right moment.
It was fun, but it didn’t get me as many votes as some of the others got that round, because we are a talented group.
For my three words out of a hat round I pulled ”Balrog, Kraft, and Eierschalensollbruchstellenverusacher” (or, in English: Balrog, power/strength, and ”tool for making a perfect circular cut to open a soft boiled egg for easy eating with a spoon”, that last word is in German). This lead to an immediate full-blown plot in my head, about the poor, poor balrogs whose favourite food is soft boiled eggs with the yummy, gooey, runny yolks, who are so very strong that they are completely incapable of opening a soft boiled egg without destroying it and losing all of the eggy goodness, which is why they have all moved to Germany, where they have invented Eierschalensollbruchstellenverusacher, which permits them to get their eggs open and enjoy them. Therefore, I sang:
En Balrogs kraft är stor
Den kan krossa allt
Att förstöra är helt enkelt
vad de gör!
Men en balrog har en problem
När det är dags att äter frukost.
De älskar mest av all ägg som
Har kokats bara tills gulan
Bara bli lite varm.
Men…
Om man har en Balrogs kraft,
hur kan man då öppna sina ägg
utan att krossa den till mosa
Och förlora alla mumsiga mat?
Därför har alla balrogar tagit sig
Till Tyskland, den lan de älskar bäst
För i Tyskland har de
Eierschalensollbruch-
stellenverusacher, som är perfekt
För att öppna deras ägg med precis
Lagom kraft för att kunna
äta alla deras mumsiga ägg!
I don’t know if it was the fact that I managed to use a mile-long German word in a Swedish song, or that it was just a funny story, but I managed to get the most votes that round, which, combined with those I pulled in for the play gave me the win.
I can’t really begin to describe my joy at finally earning the right to wear this wonderful cloak, but, perhaps, you can see it in the photos.
In addition to this super highlight, the whole event was amazing. As I wrote on FB directly after the event:
I had a truly amazing weekend running my favourite event, Norrskensbard Tävlingen, an all day long feast (potluck this year) and bardic contest. I was joined by around 20 wonderful people, who between them cooked an amazing feast. We sang, we danced, there was music played on a variety instruments, we took a tour of the local Medieval church, across the street from the event site (which is a 12 minute walk from my home). We had four entrants in the contest, all of whom did an amazing job, and the entire event, from set up on Friday afternoon to cleaning up this morning was a joy. Everyone was so helpful and pitched in with what needed doing, so rather than thank you all by name I can simply point to the registration list and say that these people made the event wonderful, and I thank them all from the bottom of my heart!