Sweet Caroline
Nov. 2nd, 2025 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseSince my late teens I've done a basic calligraphy hand. It's pretty, but it's fairly simple and definitely modern. But since rejoining the SCA, I've had the itch to do scrolls, and so...
...oh, wait. Hold up. Let me backtrack a bit.
When I lived in Sheffield, I was in the SCA for a while; but I eventually let my membership lapse out of sheer frustration, because I couldn't get to any events. I think I was the only member in the whole of Sheffield at the time. The SCA, for those who don't know, is the Society for Creative Anachronism, and it often uses the tagline "the Middle Ages as they should have been". So we're more like living history than serious re-enactment; and, in particular, we're the Middle Ages with insulin and wheelchairs (and, in my case, colostomy bags, which is why I picked the specific time and place I did - I need emergency Sibyl access available at all times, so I went for Celtic British around 500 AD, because that means I can wear a tunic over something that looks like a robe but is actually a top and skirt). However, not so very long ago I discovered that there's an active chapter down here, so the moment I found out they could cope with the wheelchair I was back in like a shot. (I'm also not the only person in our shire who's in a wheelchair.)
And in the SCA, people get awards. Rather frequently. They get awards for things like fighting skill, creative stuff (known as "Arts & Sciences", or A&S for short), service, particularly awesome contributions to events, and all sorts of other things; and whenever anyone gets an award, they get a beautiful illuminated scroll to go with it. I can already do illumination, though it goes without saying I'm slow (that is not really a thing anyone can do very fast). But to do a full scroll, I also needed a mediaeval hand.
I asked for suggestions based on similarity to my modern calligraphic hand, and was initially pointed to uncials. So I tried, but I couldn't get on with them, and I decided there must be something else that would work better; and after a little while I found it. It is Carolingian (otherwise known as Caroline) minuscule, and anyone interested can learn to write it here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/ancientbooks/2016/05/23/how-to-write-caroline-minuscule/ (I have temporarily forgotten how to do "a href" tags. It'll come back to me when I have the headspace.)
After about an hour's practice I ended up with a piece of script that looked promising, but rather shaky. The letter h wasn't quite right (rather than matching i, l, m, and n, it matched p and f, which in this script both have descenders below the base line), and my spacing was a little off in places - largely due to the letter d, because you make the descending stroke before you make the bowl, so you have to allow space for that. However, today we had a church lunch, so I knew there was going to be a lot of sitting around. I therefore took my notebook and practice pen (I use a Pilot Parallel pen for practice, which is very good) to church, and while we were all hanging around after the service I got them out and started another sample. That was much better. I'm happy with it. I'd post it here if I had image hosting, but I don't at the moment.
I like to use Tolkien's poetry for practice because I have a lot of it in my head. I deliberately memorised some of it during my A-levels, because I knew very well that a) I was going to finish early, b) there were only so many times I could check and re-check my answers without doing my head in, and c) they weren't going to let me out of the hall till the exam had finished; so that was my sanity saver, because obviously they didn't let you bring in a book. Or even your knitting. But another thing I do in the SCA is what they call "bardic", which actually covers all forms of entertainment (we even have a few stage magicians), but I sing and recite. And what you sing in the SCA is either actual mediaeval repertoire (of which I know enough to keep me going for the moment), or songs actually written in the SCA, or... anything else that fits. Tolkien is very much considered to fit; and it is not widely known that Sam Gamgee's song about the troll has a tune. It does, in fact, and I sing it. It's an old English folk tune that originally had some rather ho-hum words about a fox stealing a goose, and the moment I read the troll song for the first time, I knew at once that that was what had been going through Tolkien's head when he wrote it. (Tolkien's words are much better, and funnier, than the original!) And because I've been singing that quite a lot, I now have it off by heart, which also makes it useful for scribal practice.
And, of course, there are also the fibre crafts. I do pretty much everything in the SCA but fight. It's not just that it's rather difficult to muck about with a rattan sword in a wheelchair; it never appealed that much even before that. But it is surprisingly skilful, therefore quite a lot of fun to watch!
...oh, wait. Hold up. Let me backtrack a bit.
When I lived in Sheffield, I was in the SCA for a while; but I eventually let my membership lapse out of sheer frustration, because I couldn't get to any events. I think I was the only member in the whole of Sheffield at the time. The SCA, for those who don't know, is the Society for Creative Anachronism, and it often uses the tagline "the Middle Ages as they should have been". So we're more like living history than serious re-enactment; and, in particular, we're the Middle Ages with insulin and wheelchairs (and, in my case, colostomy bags, which is why I picked the specific time and place I did - I need emergency Sibyl access available at all times, so I went for Celtic British around 500 AD, because that means I can wear a tunic over something that looks like a robe but is actually a top and skirt). However, not so very long ago I discovered that there's an active chapter down here, so the moment I found out they could cope with the wheelchair I was back in like a shot. (I'm also not the only person in our shire who's in a wheelchair.)
And in the SCA, people get awards. Rather frequently. They get awards for things like fighting skill, creative stuff (known as "Arts & Sciences", or A&S for short), service, particularly awesome contributions to events, and all sorts of other things; and whenever anyone gets an award, they get a beautiful illuminated scroll to go with it. I can already do illumination, though it goes without saying I'm slow (that is not really a thing anyone can do very fast). But to do a full scroll, I also needed a mediaeval hand.
I asked for suggestions based on similarity to my modern calligraphic hand, and was initially pointed to uncials. So I tried, but I couldn't get on with them, and I decided there must be something else that would work better; and after a little while I found it. It is Carolingian (otherwise known as Caroline) minuscule, and anyone interested can learn to write it here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/ancientbooks/2016/05/23/how-to-write-caroline-minuscule/ (I have temporarily forgotten how to do "a href" tags. It'll come back to me when I have the headspace.)
After about an hour's practice I ended up with a piece of script that looked promising, but rather shaky. The letter h wasn't quite right (rather than matching i, l, m, and n, it matched p and f, which in this script both have descenders below the base line), and my spacing was a little off in places - largely due to the letter d, because you make the descending stroke before you make the bowl, so you have to allow space for that. However, today we had a church lunch, so I knew there was going to be a lot of sitting around. I therefore took my notebook and practice pen (I use a Pilot Parallel pen for practice, which is very good) to church, and while we were all hanging around after the service I got them out and started another sample. That was much better. I'm happy with it. I'd post it here if I had image hosting, but I don't at the moment.
I like to use Tolkien's poetry for practice because I have a lot of it in my head. I deliberately memorised some of it during my A-levels, because I knew very well that a) I was going to finish early, b) there were only so many times I could check and re-check my answers without doing my head in, and c) they weren't going to let me out of the hall till the exam had finished; so that was my sanity saver, because obviously they didn't let you bring in a book. Or even your knitting. But another thing I do in the SCA is what they call "bardic", which actually covers all forms of entertainment (we even have a few stage magicians), but I sing and recite. And what you sing in the SCA is either actual mediaeval repertoire (of which I know enough to keep me going for the moment), or songs actually written in the SCA, or... anything else that fits. Tolkien is very much considered to fit; and it is not widely known that Sam Gamgee's song about the troll has a tune. It does, in fact, and I sing it. It's an old English folk tune that originally had some rather ho-hum words about a fox stealing a goose, and the moment I read the troll song for the first time, I knew at once that that was what had been going through Tolkien's head when he wrote it. (Tolkien's words are much better, and funnier, than the original!) And because I've been singing that quite a lot, I now have it off by heart, which also makes it useful for scribal practice.
And, of course, there are also the fibre crafts. I do pretty much everything in the SCA but fight. It's not just that it's rather difficult to muck about with a rattan sword in a wheelchair; it never appealed that much even before that. But it is surprisingly skilful, therefore quite a lot of fun to watch!
