Thoughts on Unwanted Awards, Award Resignations

[Matthew R. Popalisky]

On Wed, 27 Nov 1996, Gunnora Hallakarva wrote:

> When Gunnora found herself the recipient of a similar honor many years ago,
> it translated persona-wise into a small landholding upon which she
> considered herself extremely wealthy because she had SIX pigs!!  The foreign
> title "layh-dee", in young Gunnora's ears, was the Ansteorran equivalent of
> O.N. bondi, or small farmer.  "Mistress" is no more appropriate now than
> "lady" was then, in terms of my persona... any woman in charge of a medium
> to largish farm-holding (as Gunnora is now, with outbuildings, 18 pigs, 20
> sheep, a horse, five cows and a gaggle of geese) would certainly be much
> more a "master of the arts" of spinning, weaving, dyeing, cheesemaking, food
> preservation, husbandry, etc ad nauseam than  I mundanely ever will be in
> the SCA!

Lady Kateryn is the daughter of land-holding people who married a
knight who rather convieniently died.  Thus does one make a persona to
fit the circumstances.  Marrying out of station isn't unheard-of after
all.  My mundane husband's persona is roughly 200 years old than mine, so
no problem there.

 And my mundane Scandinavian correspondents see the "Herskerinde"
> title (the Danish equivalent of "Mistress" since Gunnora lives near Hedeby)
> on my e-mail signature and have visions of a 6-ft tall blonde in black
> boots, leather corset and weilding a whip!! (then immediately upon having
> this unlikely vision, they fall over and roll on the floor, laughing)
> (unless it's one of my apprentices... No not really.  I don't beat my
> apprentices. Yet.).

I *really* would love to see a Blackfox rendering of you as this person
:)!
> 
> The "Resignation in Spite" is evil.  Flat out evil.  I feel it is an insult
> to the Crown who gave the person that award, an insult to the sitting Crown,
> and an insult to every other person in the SCA who has that award.  And
> maybe an insult to everyone else who holds an award at that level of rank,
> in some instances.  The nasty thing about the "Resignation in Spite" is that
> 90% of the time, the person who makes the threat does not actually resign
> the award... they were just waving their weenies around and showing what a
> big bad person they are, and never had any intention of maintaining their
> personal honor by following through on their stated word.  None the less,
> even with our current system, in my opinion people who say they are going to
> resign an award, especially when it is part of a threat or power play, have
> proved themselves to be honorless nithings and not worthy of consideration.  
> And in the few cases where someone does actually resign the award in a
> "Resignation in Spite" case, going through all the steps, notifying the
> heralds and the BoD if necessary, frequently they somehow get the award
> given right back to them later.  In Gunnora's Perfect World (which is NOT
> the SCA as we now know it, and which I never realistically expect to come to
> pass) anyone who commits "Resignation in Spite" should not only be stripped
> of the award immediately, but should never be allowed to hold that award
> again for the rest of their SCA career.  

AMEN!
> 
Kateryn
Grimfells

(come to think of it, I haven't made a real big deal out of my AoA,
either)