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About Ursula von
Bremen...
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How
I First Heard About the SCA |
I first heard
about the SCA when I had a brief glimpse of some people in costume
jousting (on horseback) in a field next to my school in rural
Western New York in 1976. I
asked one of the participants who they were.
That’s where I first heard the phrase “the Society for
Creative Anachronism”. I
was thrilled that there were people that did this sort of thing,
and looked forward to learning more about them, but that was the
last time I ever saw or heard of the SCA until seven years later.
In 1982 I joined the fencing club at Fredonia State
University, where I learned just enough about fencing to have fun
at it. We were a warm
fuzzy group that did everything together.
Although we didn’t realize it at the time, our customs
were very much akin to those of the SCA.
Members of the club took on alternate club names.
We held weekend melées on campus, splitting up into teams
and playing various capture-the-flag scenarios.
We enjoyed the occasional role-playing game, and twice a
year we’d have weekend getaways.
The getaways were held in the summer at one of the guys’
parents beach house on the shore of Lake Erie, and in the fall at
the college lodge in the wooded hills of Arkwright.
One of the guys had a VCR.
It was at those getaways that I first saw Monty Python and
the Holy Grail and The Princess Bride.
We’d dress up as rangers, fighters, amazons and elves for
the weekend. Some of us would write a storyboard based the characters that
showed up, and photograph the members acting out the storyboards,
resulting in an interesting set of scrapbooks.
One of our members would do paintings from the photographs
and add fantasy elements. Somewhere
out there is a painting of me with pointy ears getting ready to
cast a glowing orb-thingie at pterodactyl-like beastie.
The painter (Mike Wick) went on to work for Industrial
Light and Magic. One
of his projects was the giant two-headed beast in the movie
“Willow.”
Over the summer of my first year at FSU, one of my fencing
compatriots, David Sheets wrote to me from his parents’ home in
a suburb of Buffalo about a group he’d discovered called the SCA. He wrote about squiring to a local knight at a huge event
called Pennsic War. The
Barony of Rhydderch Hael, now based in the Buffalo area had
actually been born at FSU, about ten miles from my high school,
and had moved 50 miles away to Buffalo when the founder returned
home after graduation.
My next brush with the SCA was in
Syracuse in 1986, when I saw an
ad in the paper about the local SCA group, the Barony of Delftwood.
I called their number and talked for a bit with “Friar
Chuck.” Unfortunately,
I had no transportation, and Delftwood, the nearest group was over
an hours’ drive away. Not
an option at that point in my life. |
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How
I First Joined the SCA |
Shortly after
moving to Chapel Hill, NC in April 1988, I stumbled over a fighter
practice of the Barony of Windmasters’ Hill on the UNC campus.
Back then the practices in Chapel Hill were well attended
on a regular basis by people throughout the Barony, many of whom
came in garb. I spoke
with the seneschal of the Chapel Hill group (now Duchess Luned),
and copied down the address to order a copy of the Known World
Handbook. Until I
found a job, there would be no playtime for me, but in the
meantime, I read my Known World Handbook from cover to cover.
Although I popped in occasionally at the fighter practices,
I didn’t attend my first meeting until the following Fall, after
I’d settled into my job as Accounts Payable Coordinator at a
national trucking company. I
wore a Tudor gown that I’d made by hand (because I didn’t know
how to use a sewing machine) a few years before.
After that, I began attending meetings regularly.
Immediately people began suggesting an SCA name for me.
Sir Fern suggested “Catherine.”
Period, yes, but too ordinary for me.
I liked the name “Theora,” but was informed that as a
Greek name, it would not be permissible.
I learned later that this was wrong, and that at any rate I
could have used “Thjora,” which sounds exactly the same and is
a perfectly good Scandinavian name.
I decided that instead of trying to find a name, I would
wait until one found me.
My first event was Harvest Tournament in the
fall of 1989 at Camp
Durant in Durham, NC. It
rained that day, so the tourney was held in the hall – the only
indoor tourney I’ve ever seen, by the way.
Brian O’Duff was the head cook, and Lady Brie provided
enough her homebrewed mead to serve everyone at the feast.
I’d brought my youngest son, Gavin (then age 2) with me,
in a little green t-tunic that I’d made for him by altering one
of my shirts. It was
nice to have him there with me, and watching him chase a little
girl in a red gown and a bell around her neck, waving his little
chicken drumstick at the feast, shouting “vivat!” along with
the crowd at court, and enjoying songs by the fireplace afterward.
My second event was Boat Wars the following March.
For the next two years, I attended an event about once a
month. That first
summer I attended my first Pennsic
(XIX) in 1990. |
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How
I Came Up With My SCA Name and Heraldry |
When asked by
the Troll to give my SCA name at my first SCA event, I blurted
out, “It’s….uhhh….. Ursula.” Wow. It just
jumped out of my mouth, and it was perfect.
At the time I thought my family background was
Irish, German and
Norwegian. I
eliminated Irish and Norwegian personas, because the garb of those
countries during the SCA period doesn’t really float my boat.
Whenever I looked through costume books and tallied up my
picks, I always found that most of them were from 15th
century Germany and Flanders.
I wanted to be Ursula von something, so I started looking
up German city names. I
liked the sound of Hagen, so I submitted my first stab at a full
SCA name to the College of Heralds:
Ursula von Hagen, with the arms, “argent, and estoille
azure within a bordure sable, and a chief counter-compony”.
Ironically, I learned from my father just a few years ago
that his entire side of the family was in fact 100% Scottish.
(So, adding Scottish to the mix, my heritage reads like a Viking
raid itinerary.)
A few months later, I got my answer back.
Hagen was rejected, since it wasn’t incorporated as a
city until after the SCA period, and my device was rejected
because it had the appearance of a shield-within-a-shield, which
falls under the heading of “arms of pretense,” (http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/rfs.html#11.4)
which isn’t allowed in SCA heraldry.
I resubmitted the name as Ursula von Bremen (Bremen being
the setting for the fairy tale “The Three Musicians of
Bremen,”), which was passed on April 1991.
I received my Award of Arms
from at Ymir in
February of 1992. This
prompted my second attempt at heraldry, which passed as “argent,
an estoille gules, on a chief rayonny sable, three roundels
argent” in August 1992. I
got the good news from a herald friend who signed me in at troll
at Pennsic XXII. I
decided later that I’d rather have gold instead of white, so in
November 1993 I changed to “Or, an estoille gules, on a chief
rayonny sable, three roundels or.”
Finally, having decided that my design was boring and way
too awkward to look good on a banner or shield, I changed to
“quarterly gules and pean, an armored arm fesswise embowed
maintaining a rose argent slipped and leaved vert,” which passed
in November 2000. |
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About
my Persona |
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Ursula
von Bremen is a 15th Century German lady of either the
merchant class or the lesser nobility. I haven’t’ gotten any further than that, and I’m not
sure that I ever will. Although
I like the garb of my chosen period and region, I haven’t found
a lot in that period of German history to fire my interest in
developing a full-fledged persona.
I recently learned from my father (who I haven’t seen since I
was three) that his family were not Irish as my mother had assumed
(my maiden name was McKeever), but were in fact of strong Scottish
decent. Their
original name of MacIver had been Americanized to McKeever, and
several other branches of their family were also of Scottish
descent. I still
claim Irish descent from my mother’s side (O’Donovan), but if
I’d known when I was first looking for a name that I can also
claim Scottish decent, I’d probably be Ursula
Mac-Something-or-Other. Aye,
well… But I’m
happy with my name, so there we are. |
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So
Why Do I Like the SCA? |
In a
nutshell, I like creative people, costumes, and creating and
experiencing magical moments.
These have included:
Leading eleven couples in renaissance dances by torchlight on a
warm May evening,
Seeing eight of the colorful and stylistically accurate heraldic
banners that I’ve made flying proudly in the breeze over the
clash and pageantry of a medieval tourney,
Singing rude songs with some friends as they hammered out a steel
round shield at three o’clock in the morning,
Watching our war standard streaming across the battlefield of
Pennsic XXVII at the head of a column of Kittyhawk tabards
speeding in answer to Baron Wookie’s shout of “Windmasters to
me!” as I nocked an arrow for my next shot.
(Wordy, but true.)
And there’s plenty more where that came from.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved books and movies in period
settings and period costumes, especially if their creators took
the trouble to do some research.
I’ve enjoyed a bewildering variety of arts and crafts and
performance arts, and in the SCA I found a large audience who
could understand and appreciate the effort I put into the things I
make, and an abundance of people that were willing to teach me
everything I was willing to take the time to learn from them.
I also found a low-pressure environment where I was allowed
to make mistakes and learn from them.
Looking back on everything I’ve done in the SCA, I can’t
remember a single instance where my success or failure wasn’t
completely in my own hands. I
always get out of it what I put into it. |
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