Fw: Re: Bards - old tales.

[jonwillowpel at juno.com]

Many of you know of the Old Lion's Tourney but I am sure you didn't know
about the Bards involvement. Master Jonathan, two years before the first
Loin's Tourney , stated he wanted to do a "period" tournament. There was
a big problem.  Almost no one in the kingdom knew anything about a real
tournament . They didn't know about "ransoms" or "yielding" or how a real
tournament would be run, or how champions would be chosen. First Jonathan
put on the first Drakemoor tourney which introduce some concepts and then
he and Mistress Branwyn put on the Cloth of Gold Which introduces some
more including the heraldry styles and the squire's tourney. From the
first he commissioned the bards to tell stories of "real" knights and
historical tournaments. I remember Selva of the Treeless Plain did some
of the first research on William Marshall.   (William Marshall is Duke
Jonathan's persona model.) Bards went all over the kingdom telling
stories. They made historical tournaments come alive for people. About
that time Sir Jan got an idea to have a tournament and he got to talking
to people. At first he was going to have a standard SCA tourney but then
he discovered that people knew about historical tournaments and so he
decided to make the Lion's Tourney a historical tournament and it went
very well.   
 
Duke Jonathan was not the only one who gave commissions to the bards to
promote ideas. When Sir Simon was Prince and he was having his tournament
of Chivalry he commissioned the bards to tell stories of Chivalry. Master
Bjorn, first baron of Namron, commissioned the bards to tell stories
about the nine worthies. We didn't know anything about them before that.
In early Anstoerra it was common for the bards to help autocrats promote
their events. In fact, in the Queen's Bard's oath there was a line to the
effect that they would help autocrats. Many of past Kings and Queens used
the bards to promote noble and good things. Of course sometime we were
commissioned to do things for fun. Sir Rowen had us tell stories about
white bears. The bards have had a huge impact of the culture of
Ansteorra. Many of the special things we have would have never  come into
being without the bards.

Performing is Living
Duchess Willow de Wisp
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