SCA Starter Bow Recommendations

Hello friends! “What bow should I get to start out with in SCA target shooting?” is a question I’ve gotten a lot over the past year and so I decided to make a handy blog post so I didn’t have to keep sending my whole list out.

To start, I have linked Atlantia’s Target Archery Marshal’s Handbook. This contains all rules and equipment standards. Some of this stuff only marshal’s really need to know, but you  can find the basic info for what bows are permitted on page 7, which I have also copied and pasted below:

Bow Types: There are 4 basic classes of bows allowed in the SCA archery program: 

1. Period bow – a period bow that resembles the type of bows used during period times such as an English war bow, horse bow or Japanese Yumi. These are only some of the examples of period style bows. Period bows typically are not center cut or have a shelf cut into the riser. They can have period shelves such as bone or leather affixed to the grip as in period styles.
2. Long Bow – a long bow can be either the typical “D” style longbow or a “reflex/deflex” longbow. The difference between the longbow class and a period longbow would be the modern style of the longbow which has a “center cut” shelf vs. an add-on style bone or leather shelf. 
3. Recurve Bow – a recurve bow in this class is typically a modern style bow that has a center cut shelf and is made of modern materials. Also a recurve is defined as such if the string touches the upper limbs of the bow. A reflex/deflex long bow is not a recurve and the string does not touch the limbs.  Bows may be made of any material so long as deemed safe to shoot by the Target Archery Marshal. With the exception of “PVC” bows, “PVC” bows at this time are disallowed for target archery in Atlantia. Bows of unusual materials or construction will be required to pass the inspection of the DEPUTY KINGDOM EARL MARSHAL FOR TARGET ARCHERY or designated deputy1 .  NO Compound bows are allowed. There will be NO exceptions to this prohibition. 
 NO adjustable or peep sites, clickers, kissers, stabilizers, string releases, flipper rests or plunger buttons. 
 The use of simple rests is allowed. 
 Cut out windows are allowed. ‘
 Bows with cut out risers must have the openings covered to present a solid surface and an appearance in keeping with medieval archery equipment. 
 There is no draw limit on bows; however, the marshal should observe if a bow is too heavy or overdrawn to shoot safely. 

Cross Bow 
– a cross bow is defined as a shoulder fired bow in a gun style. There are many different styles of crossbows and Atlantia has very specific rules on what style is allowed and dis-allowed.  Prods of most materials are allowed, provided they are judged safe to shoot by the marshal (Aluminum, Steel, Fiberglass or wood). Prods of unusual material or construction will be required to pass the inspection of the DEPUTY KINGDOM EARL MARSHAL FOR TARGET ARCHERY or designated deputy.
 Center shot crossbows are not allowed. A center shot crossbow is where the bolt passes through the prod, or between two parts of a split prod. It does not matter how little of a center shot this is. A split prod is one that is attached on both sides by modern methods such as bolts or pins. 
 Non-period trackless crossbows are not allowed. Trackless crossbows have their string suspended in midair and do not ride on a shelf. 
 Modern constructed crossbows such as all aluminum frames and prods attached to the body via modern methods using bolts or pins as to gain the archer an unfair advantage due to lack of movement of the crossbow components. With the more period style of bridling, prods and other parts of the crossbow can move, also the string has resistance riding on the bolt tray made from wood. We are really talking about “spirit of the game” here.
 NO compound crossbows are allowed. There will be NO exceptions to this prohibition.  NO break-cocking crossbows are allowed.  A crossbow that is too heavy for the archer to span safely may be disallowed. 
 Simple rear sites are acceptable–no front sites.  No modern aluminum bodies or modern rifle or air-rifle style stocks or pistol grips on these modern stocks is allowed. Simple period gun shaped stocks are allowed. Arrows & Bolts  All shafts must be period materials such as wood, bamboo, etc. 
 No broad heads or other points which may excessively damage the targets. 
 Fletches must be feathers or other pre 17th century materials. Plastic vanes are not allowed. 

 Knocks, caps and rings may be of any material so long as securely attached.
Strings 
 Must be of the appropriate length and strength for the bow. Linen, silk artificial sinew and any modern bowstring material is acceptable as long as properly constructed. 

 Strings that have become knotted or been repaired by knotting strands together shall not be used. This rule does not forbid those string designs that incorporate knots, such as a bowyers knot, in their design. 
 A single knocking point may be attached to the string; the locator can be metal or tied on and may consist of two locators. 

“Can I use a modern fiberglass bow?”

The TLDR response is that a fiberglass bow would be fine, as long as it doesn’t have sights or stabilizers. Many people start out with fiberglass longbows such as the Bear Titan, and fiberglass and wood recurves are also very common. I currently shoot a 40 lb fiberglass and wood takedown. My intention is to make an English longbow but haven’t gotten around to it yet.  We don’t require bows to be absolutely period, just not blatantly modern. Ideally I’d like to see every archer find a bow for them that fits the style of the period they are reenacting, but there’s no need to make a big investment when you are just starting out and learning form. And it’s totally ok to use your starter bow forever! The joy of this hobby for me is people can play at the level that is good for them. If you let me know what time period and area you are interested in reenacting in the comments, I can definitely also tell you what kind of bow they would likely have used in that time and place.

“Where is a good place to buy?”

I am going to link to some sites that have bows that would be appropriate so you can get an idea of what you like the looks of. I would definitely advise trying different types of bows at events before dropping a lot of cash on a bow. I also advise against getting a rattan bow, they are cheap but the material wears out fast.

ALIBOW

If you are interested in shooting an Asian style, such as Mongolian, I have heard really good things about Alibow. A friend of mine let me shoot her how and there was very little stack. It pulled really smooth and sweet. The nice thing about their fiberglass bows are that they are very affordable, there’s a wide range of draw weights, and they are covered so they look fantastic and not modern at all!

https://www.alibowshop.com/fiberglass-bow

RINGING ROCKS ARCHERY

If you want an affordable option for a more European longbow that looks more period than the modern longbows, this store is right on the money! Please note that under SCA rules, for a bow to be considered “period” for the purposes of special period only shoots and the period class in Royal Rounds, the bow cannot have a built in arrow shelf, which disqualifies their right hand, left hand, and pistol grip handles. If that’s important to you I would recommend selecting the “off the hand” option and adding on a small wooden arrow shelf, as we do allow that to be considered “period”, just not the cut in arrow shelves.

This English Longbow (ELB) would meet our period rules, though at 71 inches its a little long for a short kid like me. (You want a longbow to be your height or a couple of inches taller than you, so a 64 inch bow is perfect for my 5’2″ self)

While this traditional wooden bow looks really good and less modern than a fiberglass bow, it’s design is actually pretty modern. If you catch me at an event sometime I’ll go into why. 😛

Its also great if you like a lil fantasy flair, they have LOTR and Katniss bows.

If you are the diy type and don’t mind sanding and applying a finish, they have a “you finish” section that is cheaper. Great for if you want to stain or customize. I dunno if you could get a cheaper period longbow than the you finish ELB. If you have your heart set on a wooden bow but are on a budget, you can’t get cheaper than their you- finish basic longbows. They also have a kids bow for 20 bucks.

**Note about wooden bows: While I prefer them over fiberglass bows, it’s a natural material so its less durable than fiberglass and will not last as long. They will take more set and eventually someday wear out sooner than a fiberglass bow will. By contrast, I can still shoot my dad’s 30 year old fiberglass PSE Wildcat.

3 RIVERS ARCHERY

Here’s some options from 3 Rivers Archery, they tend to be on the pricey side but their products are very solid and they have good customer service.Less “modern”, some are period:

https://www.3riversarchery.com/buy/bows/traditional-bows/longbows
https://www.3riversarchery.com/buy/bows/traditional-bows/primitive bowshttps://www.3riversarchery.com/buy/bows/traditional-bows/exotic-bows  https://www.3riversarchery.com/buy/bows/traditional-bows/recurve-bows

LANCASTER ARCHERY

Modern traditional bows for cheaper than 3 rivers:

Longbows

AMAZON
Amazon has good deals on modern take down recurves  and traditional fiberglass longbows  and recurves that fit within our ruleset, and often really good deals on Mongolian and other Asian style bows. Be careful to read reviews thoroughly, not all manufacturers are made equal.  Here’s a longbow and a horsebow style bow, both modern but close to period looking:

When it comes to takedown recurves, you can’t go wrong with a Samick Sage. I shoot a copycat version which I LOVE, but the fact that you don’t need a hex key with the Sage is nice. The nice thing about a takedown recurve is you can start with a low poundage and replace/upgrade the limbs as you get stronger.

Source for arrows (other than Amazon, which is my usual go to):

https://www.nofrontiersarchery.com/arrows-on-sale

See my post on arrow building for more thoughts on buying arrows on Amazon.

Happy Bow Shopping! ❤ ❤ ❤

Traditional Wood Arrow Building

I am teaching an arrow building class this Sunday, so I thought I’d dust off the ol’ blog and make a post bringing together all the resources for it in a convenient place. This is not a “how-to”, this is mainly a shopping list, plus some useful links that helped me teach myself how to arrow build. I use the phrase “build”, because in modern times, we mostly don’t make arrows from scratch, we buy the components and assemble them. In my opinion, you’re not “making” an arrow unless you make the dowels for the shafting, cut the feathers, etc.

I might change my mind someday, but I have no current interest in making shafting. It just looks so tedious! Honestly, I get just as much, if not more, satisfaction from building my arrows. I can design them exactly to my preference, for slightly less than a commercial arrow, and much much less than custom arrows.

Useful links:

A fantastic overview, “The construction of medieval style arrows” by Karsten vo Meissen mka Karsten Shein is on point. (Ahahahahaha see what I did there?)

When buying arrow shafting, you need to know what length arrow you need. Here’s an article that teaches you how to determine it!

On to the supplies list! I am assuming only 5/16ths or 11/16ths size arrows, given that if you’ve worked your way up to requiring a heavier arrow than that, you know what you’re about and don’t need this post. 😉

Minimum Supplies:
Shafting (5/16ths or 11/16)
Feather fetching
glue on field point tips
glue on nocks
Glues: (Those attending my class are welcome to borrow mine)
Hot melt glue
Duco cement
Fletching tape
Handy tools (Again, attendees welcome to use mine, asterisking what I don’t have):
Taper tool (11/16 and 5/16)
sandpaper
pencil/marker
knife
pliers
Heat source for hot melt glue (I use a candle, a **glue gun would be nice if ya got it)
**Fletching jig, if gluing on fletchings (I don’t use one, but they are very precise and nice for glue on fletching)
Optional:

thread (if you want to try spiral wrapping your fletching) Any natural fiber thread is fine, sewing thread will work.

On Field Tip Points:

You want to make sure you get glue on field point tips, 5/16ths or 11/16ths. These also come in different weights, measured in “grains”. 100 grains is a nice safe default across the board, 125 grains will do you fine especially for the thicker diameter arrows, and is sometimes easier to find than 100 grain. These are glued on with hot melt or other “point” glues.

On Shafting:

I am assuming finished shafts, if you buy unfinished shafting you will need a finishing agent of some sort. There are many options, I really like Deft Spray lacquer because of the fast re-coat time. I would personally recommend against unfinished shafting or investing in a fletching jig until you are sure you like making your own arrows. I am not going to get into the finer details of spining, etc, but if you have the choice, go for shafts that have been weighed and spined to each other. General rule of thumb: if you are shooting 30lbs or under, you want 5/16, 30lbs + you want 11/16. There are many different woods that can be used to make arrows, the key characteristics being lightweight but strong and not brittle. Port Orford Cedar is like the Rolls Royce super premium arrow shafting material, but all the arrow shafting linked here will shoot.

 

On Fletching:

Generally arrows may be fletched with 3 or 4 feathers. You can fletch with all the same colors if you wish, but in the most common fletching style (3 feather) the “cock” feather will need to point away from the body of the bow. Making the cock feather a contrasting color saves you a lot of time when nocking the arrow. Therefore, you want to buy as many cock feathers as you have arrows, and double that number for the contrasting color. Color is irrelevant with a 4 fletched arrow, as they are arranged so you will never foul the bow no matter which way you nock. Fletching comes in “right hand” and “left hand” varieties, depending on which wing the feather was harvested from. Some people swear by a particular kind, but I’ve never noticed much of a difference. Just make sure the feathers you buy match, don’t try to mix left and right hand feathers on the same arrows (or the same set, for that matter!). This will seriously affect your accuracy. This may seem like an obvious statement, but if you get excited about right hand fletching in the color you want for your cock feather, you might neglect to notice that the best priced contrasting color feathers are left handed…
**Tip for my fellow arrow builders on a budget: You often get better prices if you buy in bulk. If you find a good deal on white feathers, you can sharpie the cock feather whatever color you want. Will it look as good? Aw hell naw. But black doesn’t look awful, and you *will* lose your arrows eventually, so it’s honestly not a bad strategy.

On Nocks:

5/16ths or 11/16ths sizes. Modern nocks are made from plastic and are glued on with duco or similar cementing glue. You have the option of buying indexed nocks, which I prefer. Theese have a small ridge on the nock aligned with the cock feather that you can feel with your finger such that you may nock the arrow correctly with the cock feather out without looking at the arrow, which is great for speed. They are more expensive, but honestly nocks are the cheapest component and the indexing makes life so much easier they are worth the splurge or me.
**Tip for my fellow arrow builders on a budget: You can sometimes find shafting with pre-cut self nocks in the arrow the same price. Self nocks are slots actually cut into the shaft of the arrow itself. This saves you a step, a bit of cash, and is actually more period. I don’t recommend the novice arrow builder cut their own self nocks, it is easy to cut off center and/or split the arrow.

On Colors, Materials, and Period Accuracy:

Colors: I like bright colors for my fletching and nocks, because they make it easier to find arrows in tall grass/buried in dirt. These bright colors (pink, purple, yellow, red etc) are not really period. If being or approximating being period is important to you, go with white, black and brown for your feathers, natural wood tones for your shafting, and self nocks or black or white plastic nocks, as this approximates the look of horn.

On Redundancy:

It is not a bad idea to get extra supplies of fletching, nocks, and tips. Nocks will fall off. Tips will break loose or get eaten by targets. Glue will loosen in your hot car or get brittle in January. Feathers will shred with all that hard good shootin’ lovin’ you’re gonna give em. But you will be unphased, with your backup pack of supplies, your glues, and your mad arrow building skills. If you can build it, you can fix it! 🙂

General Suppliers:

Pretty much all of this can be found at Three Rivers Archery and they provide quality stuff. They currently have the best prices on:
field point tips
feather fletching

and always have the best prices on:

hot melt point glue
duco cement
taper tool (actually on sale right now, you can get all three common sizes for 10 bucks, which is really good)
fletching tape

Amazon is a little more expensive  for all of these things but offers prime shipping, so is good for a time crunch.

I have found better prices on fletching, tips, and shafting shopping around on ebay and Amazon, but if you don’t want to fool with all that or take a risk on a internet stranger, 3rivers is always a reliable default. “Internet stranger” jokes aside, I have never had a bad experience with ebay or Amazon sellers. You have to be sensible and pay attention to reviews.

Shaft Suppliers:

The one exception where 3rivers is not competitive is shafting. Their prices are ruinous! You want to go elsewhere if you can.

I got my 11/32 shafts off Amazon, unknown wood, I suspect ramin. I really like them, roughly $26 so most economical, downside is they are coming from China. I got mine faster than estimated but it’s not a guarantee. Finished shafts, and you can opt for self nocks for the same price, which are more period. I prefer plastic indexed nocks, but that’s personal preference.
Cam recommended Nofrontiersarchery. They seem to have the best pricing domestically. They do Sitka Spruce and Port Orford cedar 11/32 arrows, $37 p/dozen, 5/16 cedar shafting $14 p/dozen, discounts for bulk, if people are interested in group orders speak up.
Rose City Archery is a well known supplier of Port Orford Cedar Shafts. You can find them on Amazon with prime shipping, but they don’t have 5/16ths on Amazon.
Surewood Shafts does unfinished Douglas Fir shafts. 11/32 shafts per dozen are 42 and 36 dollars for premium and hunter grades, or they sell 100 hunters for $225, roughly 27 per doz. 5/16 “kids” shafts are $15 per doz, but down side is they are unspined and unweighed. No frontiers is likely better unless you have an attachment to Douglas Fir.
Good “cheater” option: If you can get away with a 26 in or less draw length, Dicks Sporting Goods sells complete cedar youth arrows for what works out to be $36 per dozen, all you’d have to do is remove the plastic vanes and slap feathers on
For if you decide arrow making is not your game: This guy on ebay has dirt cheap complete arrows from China, I was very happy with the set I got from him but you are limited in your options and colors. Can’t comment on the quality of his bare shafts but they are probably fine

Fletching Suppliers:

As with field points, 3rivers is an excellent go to, Amazon will have similar products for slightly higher prices but generally better shipping costs and time, and you may be able to snag a great deal on ebay.

If you know anyone who raises chickens or hunts turkey, you may be able to snag some feathers for free! Wing feathers are preferred, particularly the pinions, which are the long sleek strong feathers on the edges of the wings. However, tail feathers will also make an acceptable fletch.

Nock Suppliers

Nocks are dirt cheap. Buy them anywhere. Don’t like the kind you put on originally? Pull them off, put different ones on, who cares, they weren’t even $4.

These are my favorite, indexed and bright yellow
but if you just can’t swing the extra 55 cent, the non indexed ones will do ya fine.

You can get 100 indexed for 15 dollars on ebay. Nocks for dayyyyys!

 

 

 

So much has happened…

…and I’ve blogged about none of it! I’ve been pretty busy. Just last month I got certified as a live weapons marshal and feastcratted for the first time ever. Then, last weekend, I had the honor of winning Golden Lily’s bardic competition. 🙂 The first winner chosen was a bard who wrote a lovely song and delivered an excellent performace, but he was Trimeran and thus couldn’t commit to coming back and running the competition next year, which is one of the duties of the winner, so as I was runner-up, the title passed to me. The theme was “The Weather of Spring” and the poem I recited was an untitled, tongue-in-cheek response to the prompt. As it references Greek mythology, I chose iambic trimeter for the rhythm of my lines, as this was the meter that they typically used for less serious works.

Is it the flowers or Zeus
Responsible for spring?
For with the warm weather
A golden shower brings
An excess of humor
A face that swells full ripe
Full of the golden seed
That stretches the skin tight
With the unasked for child
Of the breeding season
Savage punishment in
Nature’s lovely treason
The whole length of my throat
Now a shredded sore hose
Head of rag, nose of rose
Cavities of my skull
Battered by unseen blows
And the worst of it is
Tis difficult to know
Whether this torment is
Fathered by the bloom, or
By great Olympus sent
For like fair Leda I
truly did not consent
To be invaded by
this airy golden rain
Though some do welcome spring
To me it brings but pain

I think it ends nicely here, but I also wrote a bonus stanza which I didn’t recite, but am nonetheless fond of. (The last four lines need work but I gave up fiddling with it when I decided not to include this in the final version.) 😛

Think upon Athena
Surely a child of May
Given that she sprang forth
From head divine that day
His phlegm her origin
His tears not sprung from mirth
His wheezing her labor
His mighty sneeze her birth
Indeed it does make sense
that thus is wisdom born
Needed for the late year
Beginning as a thorn
That drives us to madness
Though in further season
We greet it with gladness
Pollen does not well suit
But pays for suffering
We love the summer fruit
Born of relentless spring

Fabliau

For Dreamstone A& S competition this year, I entered a poem to fit the French “Feast of Fools” theme, and won the Scholars Choice Prize! (It may have been because my entry was the only one that was theme appropriate, but hey, I’ll take it!) 😉 The fabliau was a genre of medieval poetry, most popular in France in the 12th-14th century, which dealt with bawdy subject matter and were generally humorous and silly. Fabliaux were usually based on common folktales that were in circulation throughout Europe at the time, and in French were formatted into octosyllabic rhyming couplets with a total poem length of 100-200 lines on average. I had a friend comment upon seeing the manuscript that my poem was rather long, but at 103 lines, its actually on the shorter side for a  fabliau. I based mine on a European folktale, The Snow Child. This folktale already had a fabliau written about it, but in French (L’enfant de Nieve), which I can’t read, so I felt pretty free in writing an English version without fear of inadvertent plagiarism. To make it a little more original, I added a twist ending and a punch line to the end of the tale to make it my own.

 

The Snow Child

 

Once there was a merchant free .

Lived him there in fair Picardy,

And had him there a fair sweet bride ,

Whose chaste modesty was his pride.

They loved each other both full well,

Though it must be said, truth to tell,

After a time found their love hard,

For their life was oft sore marred,

By the journeys he needs must take,

To tend the trade and riches make.

Long and far afield he must go,

To make their future fortune grow.

For this it was all well and good,

But true it must be understood,

When a fire is unattended,

Often that is swiftly mended,

By a wife who finds on her own,

The warmth that she has not at home.

Thus it was on one fine day,

As he returned in the month May,

From a two year trip to the west,

He found indeed that he was blest,

With a red cheeked and rosy son,

Who of years had not even one.

When in his face his wife did spy,

The ire that grew in his black eye,

She swift began to him proclaim,

That miracle last winter came,

To her as she walked out one night,

To view the gentle snowfalls sight.

As she looked up into the sky,

Gave she a huge and mournful sigh.

Into her mouth a snowflake fell,

And caused her belly soon to swell,

As in her large began to grow,

This magic child of winter snow.

Indeed, said he, how blessed we are,

Upon us shines a lucky star,

That our family might still increase,

Though I travel and never cease,

My jouneys for our fire and meat,

I can return to a babe sweet.

And so it was the merchant came,

To raise the child that bore his name,

Until the boy was near full grown,

As if he was his very own.

His son he had of years fourteen,

But in life was like a bough green.

Because of this the trader said,

To the woman he hath wed,

“Now that he is nigh a man made,

Tis time that he learn well to trade,

And so our horse I will equip,

That we may make a merchant trip,

To season him in worldly way.”

And once he did her fears allay,

They left apace that very week,

Together did the south coast seek,

Till he found an Italian port,

That dealt in trade of blackest sort.

Found the merchant a slaver there,

And sold to him his son and heir.

Making himself a profit thus,

He counted his shaming a plus,

And returned him home most well pleased,

With the vengeance he had seized,

From his wayward straying wife,

And thought him then well set in life.

Then he trumped his wife’s story well,

To her he did sweet retell,

Her own story, a winter’s tale,

Then told of how, in great detail,

In the southern sun one hot day,

Her son did sadly melt away.

But his success was not complete,

Indeed he found himself well beat.

He found him there upon return,

Another name for him to learn.

For in his abscence most prolonged,

Another child had come along.

He had himself a daughter now,

And again his wife did disavow,

Charges of her dishonesty.

For as she walked along the sea,

Sighing her sadness to the scree,

She tired as her hunger fierce grew.

She worried not, for she well knew,

That truely there can be no fault,

In swallowing a grain of salt,

To allay her strong hunger pain,

But knew not she would soon gain,

Another child, bonny and new,

For the salt was magical too.

At this the cuckold could say naught,

And felt that he was truely caught,

For now he could very well see,

She had achieved the victory.

Once more his anger did grow large,

And unto her he did so charge:

To you, wife, I do needs must tell,

That if you ever loved me well,

When next that heaven sent white mote,

Unto you doth swift approach,

Tremble upon your open lip,

My love, do not swallow—just spit!

Fail-time Lesson!

Last week, I had another bow failure, this one on the range at Gulf Wars. Happily, this wasn’t a catastrophic failure, but was sad nonetheless. The bow had been shooting really well and I was pretty happy with it. This failure happened at the upper limb nock, actually. As you can see, I had chosen to go with the period appropriate longbow side nock, but as I don’t have any antler or horn to work with at the moment, I hadn’t tipped it with the period appropriate horn. The pressure of the string downward on the nock actually split the limb in half lengthwise, rendering it useless. The bow itself is still intact and that’s probably the least dangerous way a bow can break in use, but it was still a sad day. I didn’t even know that could happen! Lesson learned: In the future I would not recommend anyone using the period side nock style unless reinforcing with a horn tip. I’m aware of some non reinforced Native American style bows that have the side nocks and do just fine, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. On the upside, yay for proof positive of the practical purpose of horn nocks!

 

 

***UPDATE***

As per request, here’s a photo of the bow before it became all broken and sad. This was at our baronial championship shoot. I shot in a terribly mediocre manner,  but with enthusiasm. The bow itself performed well. I’m actually holding the bow too high at center, because I put my nocking point on in a hurry five minutes before we were supposed to hit the range.  😛 #procrastinator4lyfe

Jueju: The Last Rose

Here’s the final form of the Lushi that I wrote for the Rose competition at Tournament of Foxes last year. I won’t go into a great deal of explication, as I’m currently mid-read on a book that was a serendipitous bookstore find, The Art of Chinese Poetry, that will be informing some modification on my attempts at a method of writing “faithful” (insofar as one can in a non-tonal language) original jueju/lushi in English. It corrects a couple important fallacies in the scholarship I was drawing on, though does confirm a lot of other points as well, so I won’t have to scrap everything, just rework it a bit.

The Last Roses

For the last time, I meet you in the rose garden.

Though seasons pass, quickly for all men,

To next spring, is a journey of ten thousand li,*

For these roses, will not bloom again

Anyways, on to the poem itself. I’m actually pretty pleased with this poem, as I was able to adhere to the strict formal rules while at the same times creating the thought/mood/affect that I wanted. The theme was roses, so of course I set the scene in a rose garden, used a traditional rhyme scheme of AABA, and followed the rules I’d laid out in an earlier post to build a five character (character meaning “major concept word” in this sense) line. I also followed the two character/ceasura/three character format, which looks a bit odd to my no doubt Western eyes, but reads nicely. Chinese formal poems like this tend to be square on the page, where the trend for English poems is to flow downwards. Hence:

The Last Roses

For the last time,

I meet you in the rose garden.

Though seasons pass,

quickly for all men,

To next spring,

is a journey of ten thousand li,

For these roses,

will not bloom again

^ has a more “appealing” layout that looks entirely different, and radically altered page flow, but reads exactly the same aloud. It conveys a mood that is more fluid and less formal. The above layout is (to me at least) reminiscent of how Pound poems look on the page, in that respect.

*a li is a unit of measurement that at various points in history has ranged from 1/3 km to 1/2 km. The unit “ten thousand” is often colloquially used in Chinese to indicate a number too large for measurement. Therefore, used in this sense, the phrase “ten thousand li” refers to an impassable or impossible distance. For example, a folk tale may state that a hero travels ten thousand li to reach a mythical land.

Warsong: Bryn Madoc’s Children

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated, I have been busy busy busy with regular life things on top of all the SCA things on my to do list. 🙂  A work trip to South Carolina didn’t help much, either. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing SCA things! Here’s a warsong for my barony that I wrote while I was bored at work one day. My friend Mathias, who has an excellent singing voice, unlike myself, performed it at our Barony’s 12th night celebration this January. Ideally this would be for two singers, male and female, with the first and last stanza’s sung in concert, with the rest alternating between the two. The 4th and 5th stanzas have dirty versions, with “dance” being substituted for the offcolor verb of your choice. 😉

Bryn Madoc’s Children 

Bryn Madoc’s children, purple and gold
Covered in glory when stories are told
We’ll take the black road, we’ll take the white road
We’ll take the south road that leads us to war 

Son of Bryn Madoc, doughty and strong
My heart beats in time to the war marcher’s song
I’ll take the high road, I’ll take the wide road,
I’ll take the straight road that leads me to war 

Bryn Madoc’s daughter, honest and brave
My foes fall back from my spear and my glaive
I’ll take the sharp road, I’ll take the fierce road,
I’ll take the red road that leads me to war 

Son of Bryn Madoc, bonny and bright
I’ll fight all the day and dance all the night
I’ll take the hard road, I’ll take the rough road,
I’ll take the rock road that leads me to war

Bryn Madoc’s daughter, southron’s delight
I’ll fight all the day and dance till first light!
I’ll take the wet road, I’ll take the salt road,
I’ll take the sea road that leads me to war 

Son of Bryn Madoc, never will yield
Steadfast stands my sword and my shield
I’ll take the hot road, I’ll take the dry road,
I’ll take the sand road that leads me to war 

Bryn Madoc’s daughter, quick to the fray
My kinsmen and I shall carry the day
I’ll take the cold road, I’ll take the snow road,
I’ll take the ice road that leads me to war 

Bryn Madoc’s children, faithful and true
We’ll not shirk when our service is due
We’ll take our lord’s road, we’ll take our queen’s road
We’ll take our king’s road that leads us to war

Chaucer puppet plays!

As per a request, I am posting links to two puppet plays that I wrote for a Chaucerian themed event. They are directly adapted from two of the Canterbury Tales, and are fairly faithful. One, based on the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, was for children, and the other, based on the Miller’s Tale, was performed that evening for adults. They were a hit, even though I really didn’t practice enough before I performed them. What can I say, kids love cute stuffed puppets and adults love dem dirty jokes! 😉

Miller’s Tale Puppet Show:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwz6qErvNvYLbE9WUnpmTmNYX28/edit?usp=sharing

Nun’s Priest’s Tale Puppet Show:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwz6qErvNvYLam1wMVdIQ1pJdFE/edit?usp=sharing

Writing a English Lushi (and/or Jueju)

There is an upcoming contest at Tourney of the Foxes with the theme of “Roses”, and I’ve decided I wanted to enter a poem. I mused a while, and decided I wanted to attempt to write a rose poem in a Chinese style. It appealed to my sense of appropriateness, as most modern ornamental garden roses are hybrids of Chinese roses. Then, I realized I didn’t really know what that entailed, as Japanese poetry forms are much more popular. So, I looked it up! I wanted a form that had strict enough rules to give me a challenge, give me a framework to work in, and also “feel” recognizably Chinese. I rejected fu, as it’s a form that’s highly ornamental and thus not my style, and ci, because a ci poem requires the work to follow patterns based upon lyrics to traditional songs. Which is super neat, but basically, to even begin to understand how to write a ci poem, I’d have to learn Chinese, and I’ve got too much on my “To Learn” plate as it is. The lushi and jueju forms, however, are much more my cup of tea. Both are composed very similarly, have an appealing economy to them, and have a fairly similar structure. I’ve linked the Encyclopedia Britannica articles for definitions of the forms, but I’m not one hundred percent sure of their accuracy. The sources I’ve found online seem to all differ on what the precise rules are (rhyme scheme for the jueju being AABA or AABB, for example) but all agree that the lushi is 8 lines of 5, 6, or 7  characters/syllables/words (pretty much the same thing in Chinese, where the vast majority of words are monosyllabic and written with one character). However, I found this article, A Critical Study of the Origins of “Chüeh-chü” Poetry by Charles Egan, which seems pretty legit, and I will be drawing upon this heavily. It’s worth a read, if you are into literary criticism. For my purposes, I’ll summarize what I’ll be taking from it to influence construction of English Lushi/Jueju:

1) Rhyme on even numbered lines

2) Confirmation that lines were of fixed length (5,6,7 etc)

3) Lines in a couplet arrangement

4) The lines contain a caesura before the final trisyllable (or triword, tricharacter, etc). Possibly trochee line endings?

5) Tonal pattern, referring to an alternation of stressed/unstressed. Tone in Chinese is imperfectly replicated in English, but iambs will be used to approximate this.

6) The conflation of natural imagery with personal mental states

7) A preference for dense words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc) and avoidance of empty words (grammatical particles, adverbs, etc)

8) Parallelism in the second and third couplets (only applies to lushi). To quote Egan’s explanation, “In a parallel couplet, words in the first line are complemented with corresponding second line words that have similar syntactic function but contrasting meaning. Each line is independent, yet tied to the other through a series of equivalences.” For example, “Red flame lights the empty sky/ Green water darkens the swollen earth.” Parallelism does not have to necessarily be this rigid, but for a quick example direct opposites are easiest to compose. I really like this as a technique, for reasons which are off topic, so I will behave and not go into them. 😛 Suffice it to say for an accurate attempt at a lushi, parallelism must at least be attempted. Parallelism sometimes appears in jueju, but is not a requirement of the form.

Next I’ll discuss the issue of how to actually translate the 5 (or 7, etc) character/word/syllable line structure into English. The easiest way is to simply write 5 syllable line quatrains or octets and call it a day. However, I find this method unsatisfactory. English has so many multisyllabic words one ends up either being constrained in expression or nuance. “Brittle” has a different shade of meaning than does “frail”, “terrible” introduces a different feeling than “bad”, but if you use the longer word, the extra syllable may eat into your allowance for other ideas you wanted to express. This can be a fun exercise in challenging composition, but Chinese writers are not fettered by these multisyllabic words, so an English jueju written in this manner is going to be much less “dense” than a comparable Chinese poem. In this manner, I feel that you are sacrificing the spirit of the lushi for the letter, as it were. Professor Jonathon Stalling has invented a method for composing jueju which limits composition to only monosyllabic English words and prioritizes the use of “full words” (nouns, etc) heavily over empty ones (particles of speech), and uses a chart to aid composition, basically a simple table that can be filled in with the desired monosyllabic words, a neat trick which is a big help when setting up parallelism. Here is the pdf for the instructions for an annual contest run for child poets which very neatly explains his system. Here is the website for the contest, which has posted example poems, winners from previous iterations of the contest. Disclaimer: He invented this system, full credit to him, etc, so on and so forth.  The thing I like most about his system is the use of the table, which make it easier to visualize that Chinese characters are word “blocks” that convey meaning through arrangement and word order. However, poems composed with this method give the impression of caveman talk. To use a tongue in cheek example, composed by the illustrious Master Lorenzo:

***UPDATED NOTE about this example as of 2/23/21: “Me love you long time” is, in fact, a super racist offensive mockery of spoken English by an Asian woman in the film Full Metal Jacket. My Laurel, who wrote this mini poem, as a person of Asian American descent, is better positioned to make this joke, as this is an in group joke for him, but I no longer think its appropriate for me, as a white American, to have this as an example and I’m very sorry that I, in my ignorance about the origins of the phrase, thought this was appropriate at all in the first place to post at all. I don’t think its acceptable with context, either.  I’m going to leave this, and my sincere apology, up for as long as it takes me to write a replacement example.****

Me love you long time

You been here four hour

You go home right now

My wife get home soon!

If re-composed to follow the caesura rule discussed earlier:

You, me, love long time

Four hour, you been here

Right now, home you go

My wife, get back soon!

This rhythm is improved, but if you look at many examples of jueju and lushi translated into English, like the following jueju by Jing Changxu or the examples in the Egan article, they are distinctly more elegant:

“Spring Lament”

Hit the yellow oriole perch,
Curb its singing on the branch.
The song broke my dream,
And kept me from Liaoxi!

In the translation, strict syllable and even character/word rule adherence is abandoned in order to incorporate parts of speech, the more empty words like “the, on, and” that are generally rendered unnecessary in Chinese because they are implied by word order and arrangement, but needed in English in order to form a complete grammatically functioning sentence with elegant flow. Yet, these translations abandon much of the structure of the original, in terms of meter, rhyme, the caesura, and so on. Understandable, given the limitations of direct translation. However, when composing an original composition, one has less of an excuse for this. I have been meditating on a method for composing a more faithful approximation of Chinese lushi/jueju. From this point on, this will be more me thinking aloud than authoritative instruction, and is admittedly tentative, and may be perhaps too complicated to be practical, but I shall make an attempt. One would start by composing a poem using the Stalling method, though it would be my personal preference to allow the inclusion of multisyllabic words. This compromises metrical accuracy for the sake of thematic variety, but I think more is to be gained than lost by doing this. The Stalling method then gives you the bones of the poem, as it were. Think of this as how the poem would look on the page, if was to be written in ideograph form. Think of these as the images and ideas you want your poem to hold/convey. To make less work for yourself later on, it would be best if you already have the rhyme scheme set at this point. For this, example, I went with an AABA rhyme scheme:

Autumn field gives harvest dry
Red flame lights empty sky
Green wheat darken swollen earth
Ending bring life silent cry

From this point, place a caesura, so that each line ends with three syllables. Conveniently, this was mostly already done:

Autumn fields give, harvest dry
Red flame lights, empty sky
Swollen earth, green wheat dark
Ending bring life, silent cry.

Rearranging the third line disrupts parallelism, but as this is only mandatory for lushi, this is acceptable.  Next, give the lines grammatical structure to eliminate the “caveman” effect, while attempting to maintain an iambic structure, pre caesura.

Autumn fields gave us, harvest dry
Firelight red gave us, crimson sky
Swollen earth gave us, greening wheat
Ending life gave us, voice to cry

At this point, the poem went completely out of my control, it went in a weird direction, and this was not the end result that I wanted, though I don’t hate the poem. When read aloud, it sounds distinctly western, as well. Somehow every line now has the equivalent of 6 ideographs? I don’t even know what this meter is, but it’s not iambs.  Perhaps monosyllabic vocabulary cannot be dispensed with for the right sound? I will have to think on this. And try more poems, which will hopefully not careen out of control. Sometimes poems be pushy, y’all.

Faux Mary Rose style bracer

Yesterday, I had mentioned to Lorenzo that I was wanting to make a bracer for archery, but not anytime soon, and he sent me a link to one he had made. This led me on a merry rabbit trail to this, and this,and that, and also this! So then, I was like, I’ll just cut out a practice one on some scrap armor bend leather “just to see”. “Just to see” is a trap, as indicated by the tooled cuirboilli bracer drying on my kitchen table.

After much internal debate and looking at the examples, I went with an imitation of this bracer, the fanciest one, mostly because my stamp set had similar stamps (acorn, leaf, and flowers). However, I do want to make the point that this is a much less accurate method for reproduction. The decoration on the Mary Rose example is embossed rather than stamped, a more time consuming process.  Thus, the only real similarity in the decoration is motif rather than method. In addition, I used a much heavier weight leather (14-16 oz), because it was scrap leftover from armoring and thus free. 😉 The Mary Rose bracers were constructed from approximately 8 oz leather. The example I used was approximately 5 inches long. The scrap I used was 5 and 7/8 inches long, which I figured would be fine given the leather shrinks in the hardening process. So far, the bracer is now at 5 1/2 inches long, but has not finished drying. It is a little small in width at 4 and 7/8 inches wide, but given that I am a wee short lass and not a burly Tudor yeoman, I figured that would be ok. I probably would have made it a little wider, but my scrap wasn’t that wide.

It was unclear to me from the pictures whether both corners of the example bracer were curved, or just one side, and the other flat, so I just went with the latter as I thought this would conform more naturally to the shape of the arm.

It is super cute and also super annoying when you are trying to cut a curve into 14 oz leather with a box cutter and your cat decides it’s time for him to groom your arm.

Once I had it cut out, I traced it onto a piece of computer paper and roughed in a design. Since my bracer was narrower than the example, I omitted the upper lettering portion, found my center points, and laid out the design with the aid of a straight edge and the stamps, which I traced onto the paper.

I have never tooled leather before, so I looked up a bunch of different how-tos, all of which gave different advice. They all generally agreed you have to wet the leather, but not too wet, and it will be all soggy and won’t hold the impressions. Too dry, and it won’t take an impression at all. I went with this method, because I was too excited about this project to do the techniques that want you to let the leather dry over night. It was also probably the most helpful video out of all the ones I saw. Basically, I wet the leather down several times over the top grain, till it felt cool and pleasantly damp, but not soggy, a little bit like firm clay. Then I waited about 30 minutes, until it started to turn back into the lighter tan dry color. While I waited, I set a pot of water to boil and used a dead pen and the paper design to trace the straight lines of the design onto the damp leather, making a light impression.

Hopefully you can see how it’s just lightly pressed in. At the bottom edges, the leather is beginning to turn its normal color. I began tooling shortly after this point.

I’m missing several important tools (seeder, beveler, backgrounder), but I do have a skiver and the stamps I need for the design, so at least there’s that.

I’m clearly a novice, and you can see where my stamp slipped on an acorn and a couple leaves. The dots on the edging could also be more even, but over all not too shabby for my first attempt.

 

 

 

 

 

I wish I had thought to take a video of the actual curboiling process. That may be a subject of a later post, when I have a better camera (read: better phone). Anywho, I boiled it according to the method described here. I prefer this method of hardening leather because I believe that this was most likely the period way of hardening leather, at least in the west. After boiling the leather according this method, I removed it from the water, wiped off the excess drippage, then placed it on my arm, which was protected by a towel I had prewrapped around my arm. I used a long hair band to hold it to my arm, as tightly as was comfortable. You can use a form like a glass bottle or something, but I prefer to use myself. 😉 Ensures a perfect fit! You need the towel though, and for the first few minutes it will be uncomfortably hot. Wiping the excess water off helps with this, less scalding water soaks into the towel. You have to do this fast, btw. The leather is extremely flexible right when it comes out, but stiffens quickly. If you want a close fit (which I did), as soon as it stops being uncomfortably hot I removed the bracer, then redid the binding to my arm, this time without the towel. Then, for the next 10-15 min, I went about my daily tasks with it strapped to my arm.

Then I took it off and left it to dry for a day. I left the hairbands on it, not super tight, just to keep it from relaxing too much in the drying process. This was probably overkill, as it was already pretty stiff at that point.

Here you can see the design has lost crispness in the hardening process, but nothing too awful. You can still tell what the stamps are supposed to be, at least. I wonder if this is less of a problem with embossing? It would be an interesting experiment.

Then I painted her like one of my French women! 😀 With about as much subtlety. 😉 All I had on hand was acrylics, so it’s very…vibrant. The original was painted, and gilded in the places where I have painted it yellow. Yellow acrylic is not even a good halfarsed attempt to substitute for gilt, so it would have been better to leave it brown. But hey! It’s cheerful.

The lighting in my project room is terrible, but I riveted the strap on with some hardware store nails. I cannibalized a thrift store belt, which is always nice because the buckle is already put on there for me. 😀 (I hate riveting) However, you can see I did make an attempt to mimic the shape of the period straps, a “Y” shape. The bracer is now functional and done, I just need to remember to take a picture of the final product.  80% of this post was written a month ago, but I derped and published it on the wrong blog. Ooops! Gave me time to get around to riveting the darn thing, at least.