[Sca-cooks] Lainie's vigil was Re: Weather

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 06:37 AM 10/12/2006, you wrote:
>So, when ya gonna tell us all the details, girlfriend? ;oD
>--Maire, imagining that condensation would be a pain in the patootie in a
>canvas tent!

Well, my pavilion is actually nylon Supplex, which breathes well but the 
moisture beads up instead of soaking in- and drops on you! It was rather funny!

I have a variety of primary texts on Chivalry, and several of them have 
details on the vigil before being knighted. Since as far as I'm concerned, 
the three Peerages are all the equivalent of knighthood, the vigil docs are 
equally applicable. So I went through and cobbled together a plausibly 
period ceremony for the vigil bath, and went from there. (If anyone is 
interested in seeing the ceremony, email me offlist and I can send you the 
Word doc.)

My sweetie brought his French bell so that we could have a place to sleep 
without dragging all of our stuff in and out of the tent. We set up the 
poster frame from my bed inside the blue pavilion, and put the bathtub (a 
plastic 140 gal stock tank- perfect size and shape for one adult) inside 
the frame- with the bed curtains it afforded quite a bit of privacy for the 
bather. We borrowed one of those giant 2-burner propane stoves (something 
like 30k BTU) and heated water in big stock pots. I put herbs and such in 
the tub before adding the water (sage, rosemary, mint, lemon balm, some 
oregano blooms, rose petals and a little rose water) so as the hot water 
was poured in, we had scented steam- the smell was heavenly. :-)

The ceremony going into, during, and exiting from was a series of readings 
and recited Latin prayers. We even incorporated the pre dieu, which was way 
cool. My friend Katrine (who is also being Laurelled at Yule feast) went 
first. She didn't want to get out of the tub. :-) I went next, but the boyz 
got my water a bit (ok, more than a bit) too hot and even after adding more 
cold, it was hard to sit and scrub. But I managed. We all stumbled a bit 
over our Latin (even the herald, who was my student Laurence) and there was 
lots of joking around, but it was all really pretty special and I'm glad we 
did it.

After the baths were done, the boyz emptied the tub again and we dismantled 
the bedframe, and set up chairs and such in the pavilion, for peers to come 
and talk to us. We'd planned to stay up all night, but it was so cold that 
we packed it in about 4 and crawled into our beds. I was so cold I dreamed 
that someone said that is was -60 and I believed them! (That's cold!)

One of the best parts? Getting up in the morning and having leftovers for 
breakfast! Yum! Mushroom tarts and White Torta and marzipan for breakfast! 
That's stylin'!

Any questions Maire? Anyone else? Bueller?

'Lainie
___________________________________________________________________________
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our 
abilities."  -Albus Dumbledore