ANSTHRLD - Opinion Query

[Kathleen O'Brien]

At 11:05 AM 4/28/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I humbly asked:
>>> A household name submission of the format "House of the <adjective>
>>> <noun>" 
>
>Daniel fairly inquired:
>>A fair number of those are registerable, I think mostly due to
>>ignorance of period inn signs and because SCA households usually don't
>>fit period models.  I know I'm gonna regret this question: what's the
>>adjective and what's the noun?  (It's never something nice like "House
>>of the Red Cow"; it's always "House Sesquipedalian Bellydancers" or
>>"House Roaring Cricket" or other unlikely things.)
>
>Initially, it was "House of the Meandering Bovine" but we determined that
"bovine" is not even
>a period term.  So, the submitter is now trying to get "bovinus" and
"migrare,"  latin for 
>"bovine" and "meandering."


Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

I think this name (in any language) will fall afoul of the following Laurel
ruling regarding a household:

"Avram Ibn Gabirol. Household name for House of the Wandering Dragon.
     The Rules for Submission (III.2.b.iv.) require that "Household names
must follow the patterns of period names of organized groups of people.
Possible models include Scottish clans (Clan Stewart), ruling dynasties
(House of Anjou), professional guilds (Baker's Guild of Augsburg,
Worshipful Company of Coopers), military units (The White Company), and
inns (House of the White Hart)."  Despite what was stated on the LoI,
Wandering Dragon, does not follow the pattern of inns such as House of the
White Hart. A white hart could be painted on an inn sign and be
identifiable as such, a "wandering dragon" could not. Barring documentation
of participles of this sort being used for inn names, this must be
returned." (Jaelle of Armida, LoAR March 1998, p. 21)


How would you paint a meandering cow on a sign?  It's the adjective that's
the problem here.  It's really too abstract to be an inn sign.  


Is there a more concrete adjective that the submitter would accept?
[Assume "Cow" in these examples is referring to any period word for a cow.]
 "House of the Red Cow" or "House of the Six Cows" would likely pass since
you can paint a red cow or six cows on an inn sign and have people
automatically know what the name is.  "House of the Sleeping Cow" is
borderline.  But I would argue that a "sleeping" cow could be drawn and so
would be registerable.  


How flexible is the submitter on this?  Is meaning or sound more important?
 And if meaning, what meaning is he going for with "meandering"?  One cow
that wanders all over?  If it's something like that, I wonder what
travelling troupes were called?  Maybe we could base his household name on
one of those.

Anyone have an example for a period name for a travelling actor's troupe?
Or some other travelling group?  I don't think I have examples of those in
my library.

Hope this helps,
Mari

=================================================
Lady Mari Elspeth nic Bryan
Bordure Herald, Kingdom of Ansteorra
mka Kathleen M. O'Brien
kobrien at bmc.com
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