Crown Tournament

Saturday was Crown Tourney for the Kingdom of Ealdormere, the Society for Creative Anachronisim kingdom that covers a big chunk of Ontario. For those who are unfamiliar with how the SCA choses it's royalty, every six months an invitation only armoured combat tourney is held. Those invited are those who have expressed interest in fighting for the Crown and are usually some of the best fighters in Ealdormere. The centrepiece event of the Crown Tourney event is the tourney itself. Combatant's make an extra effort to spiff up their armour and the fighting is some the best you'll see on an SCA list.

We don't often attend Crown because, well, other than the Crown, there isn't much else happening. In order to keep the event focused, there usually aren't any other martial activities at the event. This time there were a some of items of business that needed to be taken care of and Crown was the event were this could be done. By the current rapier rules, as Kingdom Rapier Marshal, I'm required to teach the Rapier Marshal's Course at Crown, though I'm happy to teach it at other events. Also, I had some painted miniatures I needed to deliver to my friend Dave, an Eagle and Burhurdir the Hill Troll from GW's Lord of the Rings Line. The troll turned out really nicely and I was also quite happy with the Eagle. Eve also had done a scroll for a friend of ours, Mistress Nicolaa de Bracton, who was receiving her Award of the Scarlet Banner for her skill and service in archery. Eve was up until almost 5 am the previous night finishing the scroll. It was illuminated in a 13th c. style with Gothic calligraphy and it turned out very nicely. Finally, we were meeting with Kingdom and Baronial officials about the future of our local group, the Canton of Der Welfengau (DW).

Asa, I and a couple of others have been working to get the Canton more active, including recruiting at the U of G Club Days, holding regular meetings, hosting A&S Sundays, teaching classes etc. Our group seneschal (president) has not been active in these efforts, as her work duties often conflicted with meetings, but she did the important paperwork like file reports. Asa had agreed to be Exchequer (treasurer) and I had agreed to be Pursuivant, the person in charge of heraldic submissions from group members.

We headed out Saturday morning around 9 am and drove over to the University to pick up Harrison, one of the U of G students who has been attending meetings on campus. The event itself was in Oshawa, at a Polish banquet hall with some very nice grounds. It had rained in the morning but it had stopped early and the rest of the day was overcast and a bit nippy. We were all wearing wool so when we ventured outside at the event we were ok. Google said the event was a 1 hour 50 minute drive and we made it in an hour and 45 minutes as the traffic across the city was quite light. When we got there we signed in at troll, I delivered the mini's to Gunthar, Eve delivered the scroll to the Lady Rusalka and we went into the hall and claimed a table. The event was reasonably well attended but there was lots of room so it wasn't crowded. Eve and I spent a lot of the morning switching off chasing Elizabeth around. The tourney was being held outside the main hall in an open area that a nifty building overlooking it where the thrones were set up. Despite the chill there were a lot of people out watching the combatants and their consorts process onto the list. There were about 12 fighters in this years Crown list. I didn't watch much of the fighting myself but I heard it was a well fought, clean tourney. Matthew found some kids to play with and spent the day running around with them. Elizabeth was as cute as always and loved to run around in the hall and up onto the stage.

Eve was dressed in her Norse finery as was Elizabeth. Matthew was wearing a brown wool tunic and I was wearing my Elizabethan green wool doublet and slops with my nice black hat and a ruff. I also had a black velvet cloak with gold embroidery. The wool and cloak came in handy when we went outside. Harrison had a black wool tunic and my brown wool Norse coat which kept him warm.

Before the tourney finals, Eve met with the Kingdom Seneschal, the Kingdom Exchequer and several other officers about the future of our Canton. I was watching Elizabeth so I didn't attend. Eve laid out what we had been doing to revive the Canton and those attending were quite impressed. We had sufficient numbers and officers to keep the Canton going. At that point the Canton Seneschal announced she was resigning effective immediately which rather put a cramp in our plans as we cannot function without a seneschal. We've been given until Kingdom A&S in two weeks to sort things out. Hopefully we can find a seneschal and keep things going. We've worked pretty hard to get things going and the meeting ended on a real down note.

I did get to see the finals of the Crown Tourney, which featured The Honourable Lord Quilliam vs. Sir Wat of Sarum. The final was fought as a best of three rounds with three fights in each round, with Quilliam winning the first round, Sir Wat the second and Quilliam the third. Quilliam was now the Heir to the Throne of Ealdormere along with his Consort, Baroness Dagmar. In 6 months time he will be crowned King of Ealdormere, possibly our youngest King ever.

After the tournament ended we decided to head out early so we could get Matthew home in time to do some trick or treating. They had some stuff set up for the kids at the event but we had no idea when that was going to start. We'd brought all the bits of Matthew's costume just in case, and he wore them during the later part of the afternoon. He was Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series. Eve had made the costume herself by hand. The brown wool tunic, which she had made for him for the Althing event, turned out to be perfect as the undertunic for the costume. She made a sleeveless dark grey surcoat and a padded piece of scapular armour with shoulder pads to go over the tunic. He also borrowed a pair of my padded fencing gauntlets and had a belt and pouch to complete the outfit. We bought an Anakin light sabre at Zellers which he wielded with considerable zeal.

Because we headed out early we skipped feast and second court which meant that Eve didn't get to see her scroll handed out. We heard that it was well received though, and they had to scramble a bit to find someone to read it as it was in French and the recipient was also court herald.

We stopped off at Wimpy's in Ajax and had a nice supper. The waitresses were dressed up as salt and pepper shakers and enjoyed seeing us in our SCA garb. After another uneventful drive and dropping off Harrison we got home in time to take Matthew out trick or treating. Eve was exhausted and stayed home with Elizabeth while Matthew and I went out. The lightsabre was a handy source of illumination on our travels. There wasn't a huge number of people out but lots of houses were giving out stuff. We did a local cul-de-sac and a couple of streets, As I noted on my Facebook update, Matthew must have learned the Jedi Mind Trick judging from the amount of stuff he got. We've been enjoying some of it today along with a lot of taking it easy. We also enjoyed the extra hour of sleep this morning has we Fell Back. There is currently a roast in the oven crusted with Salish Alderwood salt which is filling the apartment with a wonderful smell.

I think that's all for now. Stay tuned for my next entry which will probably be after Kingdom A&S, where I fight my Provost Prize in the Ealdormere Academy of Defence.