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Rhiannon's SCA Vita

(Kindly written by my laurel Mistres Talana)

She has served her home shire of Mooneschadowe as Arts & Sciences Minister, has repeatedly taken the office of Hospitaller, and as deputy Chronicler trained a succession of Chroniclers in newsletter layout and the use of desktop publishing equipment. In 2007 she was given the award of the Province's Honor, an award given to one individual a year for their service.

• August, 1993 – Mooneschadowe Minstrel
• March, 1995 – Bard of Wastelands
• May, 1995 – Bard of Northkeep
• November, 1995 – Bard of Gnomen Vale
• September, 2005 – Bard of Wiesdenfeuer

She has won the following static A&S prizes:

• Northern Regional Artisan, 1998
• Artisan of the Wastelands, 2000
• Blood of Heroes, 2002
• 2004 Gulf War competitor (both as part of a trio, and as one of the Merry Musicians of Mooneschadowe)
• 2006 Gulf War presenter (both for book binding in static arts and for singing while playing an Anglo-Saxon Hearpa in performance arts.
• 2007 Gulf War competitor performing a Cantiga with Two Harps and a Flute, and also competing in the static competion with a paleographical analysis and musical reconstruction of a 14th c. antiphonary page.

She has taught classes on:

Rural life, singing rounds, shoe making, bookbinding, drop spindle spinning, making juggling bags, making T-tunics, and fibers in period.

Academic Medieval Conference Presentations:

"Arming Arthur: The Middle English Inheritance of Arming Scenes from Classical Epics." Mid-American Medieval Association Conference. 2005. (Winner of the Jim Falls Paper Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper at the Conference.)

"Bold Bawdry: Malory's blend of Christianity and pragmatism in his treatment of sexual infidelity." International Congress on Medieval Studies. 2006.

"Singing by the Book: Reading Punctuation as Performance Notes in a 14th century Commonplace Book." International Congress on Medieval Studies. 2007.

Major projects:

• Developed and for two years autocratted the Mooneschadowe Valentine’s Day Fundraiser
  
• Organized fundraising to pay off a substantial debt the previous SCA student group had incurred with the OSU Bursar’s office, and this year assisted in restarting the Medieval Studies Group on campus.
  
• For over a decade, organized and managed a Rogation Day event to inventory and repair the shire’s possessions.
  
• Has organized countless campus and community demos.  Regularly gives talks on spinning, music, and medieval life for local schools.  Organized SCA demos for the regional end-of-year Boy Scout dinners.
  
• Organized SCA lobbying efforts to prevent the city government from closing the Stillwater Community Center.  The campaign was successful, and both Mooneschadowe and Northkeep use the center for events.
  
• Assisted in locating new event sites, most notably the Will Rogers Boy Scout Camp in Cleveland, OK, which is used multiple times a year by Mooneschadowe, Northkeep, and Chemin Noir.
  
• Organized a “trencher making day” for the shire’s kitchen gear, and with the making and maintenance of pavilions by the shire.
  
• Obtained 5 fleeces and organized volunteers to pick, wash and card the wool; then taught all the volunteers how to spin.
  
• Designed, cut out and organized volunteers to make and embroider Gunnhilda’s Pelicaning clothes.
  
• Since 1994 has compiled and updated the “Red Wolf Songbook,” a collection of period and SCA songs that are in the oral tradition within Northern Ansteorra; and has collected documentation for most of the songs.  Has recently been recording MP3s of the songs to help people learn the tunes.
  
• Assisted with recording dance music for Kingdom Dance event hosted by Mooneschadowe.
  
• Organized and ran Merry Musicians as a regional dance music group off and on from 1995 to 2000.  Continued to provide a meeting space and organization as needed for the next five years.
  
• Has written several broadside ballads about Ansteorrans, including Sir Mahadi, Sir Sheridan, Baron Pepin, Baron Frederick, King Kein, Mistress Gunhilda, and others.  These are available on her website.
  
• Taught the populace of Mooneschadowe to read modern chant notation in order to do period Gregorian chants, as was done at Crown Tourney 06 and the feast at Guardian 06.

Publications:

• Numerous local newsletter articles and factoids about medieval life
• “How to” articles for newcomers
• Most recently a humorous but factual account of the Battle of Hastings

• Bookbinding
• Songwriting
• Playing the Harp
• Calligraphy and quill pen making
• Spinning flax
• Gregorian chant
• Carols
• Goliardic Meter songs in the vernacular
• Medieval daily life
• Soapmaking
• Reading knowledge of Latin

Philosophy:

At Crown Tourney, after the Gregorian Chant performance, someone made the comment “Ah, Rhiannon.  The woman who makes period fun.”  This is what she tries to do.