Baron's Howe, 2016

By Fáelán Ruadh ua Aodha [See the original post on her blog, complete with pictures.]

Baron’s Howe – an SCA event in Ealdormere that is near North Bay Ontario, Canada – has recently just passed by during the Labour Day Weekend here in Canada. It was another great event hosted by the Ubershire, BrennisteinVatn.

We had a Bardic Circle that was great fun – particularly when Her Majesty contributed one of her favorites that all present participated in, “Crúiscín Lán“… and Aethelbert had just filled his cup full (in this song you have to down your drink at the end)

There were friendly games of Hunker Hausen and Maide Leisg (pronunciation here);

Here is some better footage of the game that I took during Trillium War this year.

While I played the Hunker Hausen game, my spouse had made a remark that ended up in the Camp’s Notebook of Interesting Things Said at Camp; “This is the first time I’ve told me wife to yank another guy off”.

There was also axe throwing + a night throw (lots of fun hitting the glowsticks on the target and seeing the spurts of glowing ‘blood’ – even though you’re supposed to hit the center and miss the glowstick ring, which makes ‘losing’ a bit more fun); Along with archery, heavy fighting in “the bowl”, and a whole lot of personal crafting among participants that was a nice social in itself.

We also had the pleasure of having their Majesties of Ealdormere present, Queen Adrielle III & King Nigel III. I really enjoyed being able to get to know her majesty and hang out with fellow northern folk from the Shire.

At court Olaf Smeds was awarded the Scarlet Banner.
And there was a bit of a surprise for my spouse and I – we both were awarded Orions!

Thanks to TH Lady Catriona and Master Brand for this lovely scroll – and to those who thought what I was doing was worthy enough to put it to the royal’s ears for this honor!

I am impressed by the amount of attention there is to my persona with this scroll (600 AD [+/-200yrs] and earlier Dal Riata / Pict). Not only is there a beautiful Celtic stag, but the poem style is “Based on the 6th century poem ‘Pangur Pan’, one of the earliest examples of Irish Poetry” Simply Amazing.

This imagery of Aethelbert is well suited – as seen in this following photo of him at the event… as well as in the background of the first photo and the crafting social photo.

On the Saturday Morning I also had a different surprise…[picture of spider]

And one other funny thing happened that weekend. Their excellencies of Ramshaven had some gifted cherries soaked in vodka and orange peels that they cracked open to try and share on the Sunday Night. The verdict was it tasted of pin-sol. So we then decided to try to flambe them, and this is the result.

It was a fun and relaxing weekend with fabulous company (though Skrael was missed) and gorgeous setting – notably completely free of poison ivy. I recommend any in the great Kingdom of Ealdormere who haven’t been to try for next year.