[Ansteorra] SCA slang

[Harris Mark.S-rsve60]

Amerinda said:
> The piece of SCA slang that alway got me was calling a
> roped off fighting field an "Eric".
>
> I've heard where it comes from (don't know if it's
> true).

Yes, the creation of that term is fairly well documented and can
be found several places in my Florilegium.

Here is a selection from one of the files:
West-hist-msg     (25K)  1/25/00    Histories of the West Kingdom.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/STORIES/West-hist-msg.html

THLord Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net

----------------------
From: djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: What The Eric IS
Date: 28 Jun 1994 22:03:37 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

Harold Kraus Jr <harald at ksu.ksu.edu> wrote:
>I asked:
>>>What were the four colors of the original "eric"?
>
>Dorothea answered:
>>Red, white, and yellow; only over time they all faded to an
>>anonymous uniform grey.  There wasn't any fourth.
>
>Really?  Oh well, what were the other names refered to in the KWH?
>(e,i. Eric the "Red")  (If this isn't SCA urban legend.)

OK, it was like this.  We got big enough to need something to
mark off the fighting area from the spectating area.  So Marynel
of Darkhaven and her mother Ellen Cross Quills (now in Paradise)
went to a cheap-fabric place and bought lots of cheap fabric in a
soft red color, because that was the cheapest thing they had at
the moment.  Marynel and Ellen sewed the fabric into long strips
umpteen feet long and about eight inches high, with vertical
sleeves at regular intervals, and Master Beverly Hodghead twisted
wire into ~ foot-high spikes to fit into the sleeves.  It was a
nice area boundary marker, and we called it "Eric the Red."

But we kept growing and after a while the Eric wasn't big enough
any more, so Marynel and Ellen went back to the cheap fabric
place but they didn't have any more cheap red fabric.  So they
bought lots of cheap yellow fabric and made it up and called it
"The Yellow Peril."

And again, they went back to the fabric store and got cheap white
fabric and called it "The Great White Hope" or "The White
Russian."

But by now it was all a sort of dingy grey and we called it
generically "The Eric."

I vas dere, Sharlie.....

Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin		Dorothy J. Heydt
Mists/Mists/West				UC Berkeley
Argent, a cross forme'e sable		djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu
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