[Ansteorra] Mooneschadowe Guardian

[April Gillilan]

Wow.  What a great event.  I can’t say that I’ve had a better time, and
worked so hard, in a long, long time.  

 

When JP and I arrived on site Friday evening around 6pm, there were already
as many people on site as there usually are for the whole event.  We were
quite surprised and a bit overwhelmed.  We knew that the Kings of Ansteorra
and Calontir had been talking up the event for quite some time, but never
were very sure what kind of response we would receive from the populace of
the two kingdoms.  Friday night was spent setting up camps, list field
pavilions, vigils, and reuniting with friends from far away.  There were
also a few frantic moments running back into town for more supplies to
handle the large number of people.  :-)

 

Saturday dawned bright, clear and hot.  I had volunteered to run the
chivalric list, as the current Queen of Grace and Wisdom was only 5, but was
woefully unprepared for the number of fighters in the list.  If it had not
been for Mistress Tamara of Calontir’s round robin pairing sheet, I could
not have run the list anywhere near as well as I did.  Also, special thanks
go to Lady Oestre of Grimfells and Lady Elspeth of Vatavia, both from
Calontir, who helped me run the list after I had signed all the fighters in
and realized 71 was going to be a lot more difficult than the 15 fighter
lists I was used to!  

 

After some discussion about the heat and size of the list, Nazir and His
Majesty Drake decided to switch up the tournament a bit.  They went from
seven rounds to five and moved the spear round to the first in order to take
advantage of the two large list fields.  After the first round, the two
fields were divided in half again so that there were four fields running
consecutively for the other four rounds.  Elspeth, Oestre, and I quickly
determined the best assembly line method to deal with the incoming wins,
count them, and pair them up for the next round.  I am very pleased to say
that we only had about ten minutes in between rounds, and if there was a
fourth list mistress we could have gone directly to the next round without
any waiting to pair fighters.  The Guardian tournament started around 10:45,
and was done around 2:30, leaving plenty of time throughout the rest of the
day for the fighters to participate in the other activities.

 

The feast was absolutely wonderful.  HL Marke von Mainz and his crew baked
the most wonderful bread all day Friday and cooked all day Saturday.  Very,
very rarely can I say that I ate and enjoyed every remove at a feast, as I
am a notoriously picky eater, but I was completely stuffed by the end of the
feast, even though I was serving two tables.  Everything was hot, juicy and
delectable.  The chicken and mushrooms were to die for, and I very
reluctantly gave away the last loaves of bread Sunday during cleanup.  I
would like to extend my especial, personal, thanks to Don Tivar and Duke
JoeAngus for donning a Liondragon tabard and helping to serve feast.  It
truly is a refreshing sight to see Peers down in the trenches with the
‘nobodies’ and I hope that someday I can make some other ‘nobodies’ event by
sweating alongside them unexpectedly.

 

Court Saturday night was beautiful.  Baroness Michelle and Lord Rafe outdid
themselves decorating and lighting the royal pavilion so that it truly
looked like a medieval court.  The lanterns in front of Their Majesties, yet
behind the Liondragon scutums, performed admirably by allowing the populace
to see the Royal faces while they were still sitting under the pavilion.  In
addition, Their Majesties, as benevolent and gracious as always, agreed to
the petition of the Shire of Mooneschadowe to conduct an official polling to
change their status to a province and will be happy to make their
recommendation to the BoD when the time comes.  The awards from court were
as follows:

 

Sabine Lefevre - Thistle (Cooking)

Aelfwyn Webbestre - Comet (Mooneschadowe)

Marke von Mainz - Star of Merit

Vladislav of Mooneschadowe - AoA

Peter of Mooneschadowe - AoA

Mylisant de Impinton - Comet (Mooneschadowe)

Vigge Jonsson - Centurian

Phoebe Hotham - Comet (Mooneschadowe)

Emma de Fetherstan - Thistle (Costuming)

Magdalena da Cadamosto - Comet (Mooneschadowe)

Oxlade Lachlann MacKinnon - Star of Merit

Owen ap Aeddan ap Trehearn – KSCA

 

And our new champions are:

 

Guardian - Joseph Angus Wilson of Clan Gunn (aka Joe Angus)

  and his Queen of Grace and Wisdom - Phaedra

Insegnante - Sheach ("Shay") mac Phadraig

  and his Queen of Love and Beauty - Olivia de Calais

Guardian Defender - Nazir Al-Tawil, but he gave the prize to Thorgrim

Yeoman - William Ironwyrm

Marksman - Daniel Arrownock

Artisan - Miriam von Schwarzwald

Chess - Anlon Greywolf 

Minstrel - Marcus de la Foret

Children's Bardic - Arthur Sparhawk

New Chivalric - Vladislav of Mooneschadowe

Youth Rapier – Andrew

 

Sunday morning was noticeably cooler than Saturday as I sat under the same
pavilion to run the Newcomer’s Chivalric Tournament.  The eight fighter list
was much easier for one person to handle than the large list of the previous
day, and I’m sure I would have been bored if it weren’t for HL Iggy, Sir
Dirk, and HE Siridean sitting next to me and keeping me “entertained” all
morning.  :-)  

 

I am so looking forward to next year, and an even bigger effort on our part
to reclaim the championships of Mooneschadowe for Ansteorra.  I truly hope
to continue to see our Calon friends at Guardian, as they always seem to
make events more fun in their own ‘special’ way.  :-)

 

Ya’ll come back next year, y’hear?

 

HL Gilyan Clonmacnoise

Matriarch of Mooneschadowe

 


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