[Bards] Kenneth's story discussion - was Situations...

Katherine of Scarborough katofscarborough at yahoo.com
Tue May 1 16:03:53 PDT 2007


Sir Kenneth,

I believe you are referring to the grand and ancient
tradition of "boasting."

While there could be some argument as to whether your
garden variety fighter-boasting really qualifies as
bardic performance, I think there IS room, and some
period evidence, for the (well-performed, in-persona)
"no-****-there-I-was" story.

Let's take Beowulf, for instance.  Beowulf itself is
an epic in verse, but there is evidence within the
text that boasts and stories of the sort we're
discussing did occur, and were frequently measures of
a warrior's worth.

In Hrothgar's hall, Beowulf first describes how he
"came down from combat/bloodied by enemies/where I
crushed down five/killed a tribe of giants/and on the
waves at night/slew water-beasts..."  I'll grant that
this is less bardic performance and more a sort of
review of his qualifications to slay beasties.  

But later, more of the same occurs at length in the
mead hall, while at the same time "At times the scop
sang/bright-voiced in Heorot..." as Unferth challenges
Beowulf's claims and declares another warrior, Breca,
to be the stronger.  He proceeds to recount one
version of the tale of a swimming match that took
place between the two.  Then Beowulf replies:

"What a great deal, Unferth my friend
Full of beer, you have said about Breca,
told of his deeds.  But to tell the true story,
I had more sea-strength, power in swimming,
and also more hardship, than any other man.
To each other we said, as boys will boast,
--we both were still young--that we two alone
Would swim out to sea, to the open ocean,
Dare risk our lives, and we did as we said."

Change a few names, and this is the same conversation
you can hear around a fire on any given night at an
event.  Now, I realize the question is--do these
things really qualify as "period performance pieces"? 
Maybe first we need to examine what counts as a
performance venue, and what doesn't.  

Do we have period evidence for an equivalent to the
standard SCA bardic circle as we know it?  (that's not
a hypothetical--I'm really asking :)  How much overlap
is there between "court performances" (Hey, Beowulf,
stand up, the chieftain wants to hear that story about
the time you...") versus "sitting around the fire"
performances (Hey, Beowulf, have some more mead, let's
hear that story about the time you...")  How much
distinction do we make--I know it will vary from
culture to culture--between the professional
storyteller and the one who's just keeping folks
amused through a long winter's night?

When it *was* just folks sitting around a fire,
telling tales and singing songs, was it exclusively
that, or could boasting and the improvisation
sometimes bleed over into the night’s entertainment? 
Who's to say that some of the tales later put into
verse weren't born from the ramblings and
interjections of some drunken old warrior, recounting
the battles of his youth?

I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe, sometimes,
the hairs don't split as finely as we can begin to
assume when we're looking at the past through
thousand-year-old texts and archaeological remnants. 
I can appreciate the need for clear and definite
documentation of the things we do, but I also think
living history can benefit from the consideration of
circumstantial evidence, of the things that we *don't*
see.

And of course, none of this has any bearing on whether
the “no-****-there-I-was” story is actually desired or
welcome at a particular bardic circle.  I know most of
us can't brag with the flair that Beowulf does, and I
know that a weekend event affords us different
attention spans than a long and lonely winter in the
Middle Ages.  I’m just throwing out the possibility
that it IS a period thing, and I would hate to miss
out on a tale well-told because it might not be a
documented format (have you had the pleasure of
hearing some of Duchess Willow's stories of the
history of Ansteorra?)

I ramble--forgive me.  This is what happens when you
work in a library and have nothing to do.

Discuss.

In service and song,
Lady Catrin ferch Maelgwn



--- Ken Theriot <kentheriot at ravenboymusic.com> wrote:

> No one hearing Duke
> Cariadoc tell a story would
> see any resemblance to a "there we were"
> presentation.  A prose story done
> this way, in character, I have no problem with.  One
> thing I think we CAN
> agree on is stories of the: "Back in AS 20 when Duke
> XXXX and I were at
> Pennsic, we were in the shield wall and....."
> variety are really not to be
> found in period as performance pieces.  
> 

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