Oðindísa Býkona (Laurel)

Order of the Laurel
Feast of the Seven Deadly Sins, Barony of Delftwood (Aethelmearc)
Awarded February 7, 2015 (AS XLIX/49)

Details:
Calligraphy & Illumination by Isabel Chamberlaine. Inspired by Flateyjarbok GKS 1005 fol. 79r. (can be found on "page 9" of the links in the top-right corner).

Surface: Goat parchment (single-side finish) from Pergamena.
Materials: Mitchel #4 nib for the calligraphy and a crow-quill nib for line work; Oak Gall Ink, Ruby Red Writing Ink from "Arte of the Booke" and Higgins (Blue) Pigmented Drawing Ink. Period pigments used - French ochre, green earth, vermilion, (home-made) verdigris; Windsor & Newton titanium white and purple.

Words by Fridrikr Tomasson

In Old Norse:
Þá á vetra stofnans fertugundi ok níundi, Rikardsmessa inn Konung, inn nótt tuttugundi ok annarr þorsmánaðar ok nótt sjaundi mánaðar fimti einvalds Titus ok Anna Leigh, Konunginn Æthelmerc ok Kvenna. Gegnum meðan hæstir eru stormar um vetrinn fóru á Vindkverns Staðd á hinna Syndar Sjau Dauðligra Hóf. Þar tala hinn skaldshvítskeggjaðr heyrðu

Ok hann sagði:

Engis gulla augar óðrærs æna smyrill; flugastinga súpa sæta mjölkblóms lævíss. Vængar með höggvanda vínsvelgr fljóta til býhus Þer hunangs ymrþjuða þrekliga stemma lækrgull. Meyja hroska meldrar mala luma hunangs - lærdóms glaðast landvörð ljoseld halda blossi. Runum Freyjas fela - fjarðlog herjar hirða. Riki býheims hrósa ræriróðs prúðlig meyja. Birtigulla býtár bekkr damstæð leka játir barajastars yndiligr bekkr vindsgnýr. Hrannir út hann dynjað Hárs á saltunnu skáldit siglað Óðinns segjað skaldskipit ok ölhrönn.  Ágæta Óðindisa afusa meyja gullin. Bóndar mikill býkongs berrat órdsmíðs bjórveig.

Þá er heyrðu þessa, Titus ok Anna Leigh fundu Oðindisa bykona, aldæll ok víta, mætr ganga í bönd með bróðernit lárviðs af vísi býhalda vítr ok læring hana af vísi þat. Gjöf gefu henni, nafn aeðlæst ok skjaldnafn: Fjólublátt, sól í dýrð hans, á æðstu gulli þrjú perur grænt, eiginn hennar af opið bref. Ok gleðusk állr! 

Þus endast nóttsaginn einvalds Titus ok Anna Leigh, Konungr ok Kvenna Aethelmearc.

English Translation:
Then, in the forty-ninth winter from the Founding, on the Feast day of Richard the King, being the 22nd night of Thor-month, and the seventh night of the fifth month of the reign of Titus and Anna Leigh, the King of AEthelmearc and his Queen traveled in the depth of winter to visit their WindMill Stead for the Seven Deadly Sins Feast. There they heard the White-Beard Skald speak. And he said:

Meadow´s golden-eyes gathers the hawk of wisdom The sting-fly sips sweet blooms' strong milk Drunkard with wings staggering floats to home at bee house There the buzzing-tribe strongly stems the stream-gold. Maiden of the mill wise measures golden honey. Brings to landward  brightest beacon´s light of learning. Keeps she Freya's secrets, keeps the baron's fjord-flame. King of bee-home praises wisdom's stately maiden. Bright-gold bee-tears frozen brook the golden dam-yard leaks. Charming bee-tear brook squall yields finest yeast-wave. Har's waves flow to high hall barrel quenches skald's thirst. Skalds ships sails all ways over Odin's ale-wave. Thanks to golden maiden, Oðindisa's glory, Bee-king's minions many bring to wordsmith strong drafts.


After hearing this, Titus and Anna Leigh found Othindisa bykona, gentle and wise, most worthy of taking the oath of a Companion of the Laurel Brotherhood for her studies in the science of keeping bees and her teaching of that science, and They gave her a gift of a Most Noble Name and the shield-naming: Purpure, a sun in his splendor, on a chief Or three pears vert, hers alone by Letters Patent. And all rejoiced! 

Thus ends this night-saga of the reign of Titus and Anna Leigh, King and Queen of Æthelmearc.

Scroll ID: Isabel C 50
Time Invested: 17h
Completed January 25, 2015.

Entering K&Q Arts & Sciences

First the negative. I'm generally not a fan of A&S competitions as I feel that they're far to subjective to the whims of those judging. I also dislike that most entries are focused on dramatic finished pieces, I feel that the craft gets overlooked because they're so mundane. That said, I was talked into entering this K&Q on the premise that a number of us band together to concentrate on the craft components of our individual disciplines rather than the end product. That appealed to me.

The intention had been to display more, but mundane reality took over so that my entry was reduced down to just two pigments, sap green and verdigris. Both were considered important greens to the medieval artist.

Verdigris documentation.

Sap Green documentation.

My Experience.

I went into this with eyes wide open. It was about display with the aim of discussion rather than competing to win anything. I feel like this was an important distinction for me and helped relieve some of the feeling of obligation that I often get around this type of thing. My entry was based around what I wanted to show and how I wanted to show it, it wasn't complete and I willingly displayed my mistakes and failures, even pointing a few of them out. Documentation was written in a style that suited me and my thought process rather than trying to fit it into a set of arbitrary rules about how long it should be or how it should be formatted. Basically, I did this MY way.

Judge #1: This was a positive but interesting experience. The judge read my single-page synopsis and then semi-speed read my full documentation. I appreciated this as I feel like just as much work goes into writing documentation as the research. We then discussed my entry at some length, talking about what I had on display and how I could (and intend to) push it further. The thing that struck me the most about this experience was the open negotiation over scores, I've never seen this before. It's an interesting approach that I think I might adopt for myself if I find myself being a judge again in the future. I am my own worst critic and I already knew this, but it was interesting to hear someone else's take on my own thoughts in live-time. The only thing I think that I would change about this style of judging would be to later add a comment or two on the score-sheet.

Judge #2: Again, a positive experience and I appreciated my documentation being read in full, with some injected discussion. The comment on the score sheet from this judge was very uplifting and recognized one of my ultimate goals, so it was a little of an ego-boost for me and suggests that I'm heading down the right path for my personal journey.

Judge #3: This judge challenged me but it wasn't in any way negative, questions were asked that made me think. I did feel quite flustered and tongue-tied while talking with this judge as I just couldn't seem to find my words. I should have been able to answer at least one of the questions asked because I know for a fact that I've read the answer during my research. It's a really basic question too. The other question that stuck out was something I know to be true but I don't know WHY I know it's true. Yet. This one will send me down a research path and there will probably be an associated blog-post at some point. I thought this judge would end up being the harshest of my scoring, surprisingly they weren't (not that any of my scores were bad). This judge don't read my documentation, but they did take a copy away with them.

Verdigris Epic Fail

About a week ago I remembered that I'd forgotten all about the crock of verdigris I had "brewing" in the garden. We've had some pretty depressing weather since I sealed the jar with wax and set it aside. Granted, it was an extension of my Not-Even-Trying-To-Be-Period Verdigris which had been a success, but unfortunately this time it was an epic failure.

This is what I bought inside, a frozen block of teal-coloured water. The wax I'd used to seal the jar had melted and/or disintegrated at some point and the remnants were trapped in the ice, you can even see some on top. I set it aside for a few days so that the ice had time to melt and I could find time to clean up my mess.

Failed verdigris experiment. A frozen mass of copper acetate, copper piping, vinegar, wax and water.

I knew immediately that this was a bust, however I figured that I could at least see what I would get if I drained it through a coffee filter.

The answer, not much. Just a disgusting combination of sediment, teal-colouring, wax and soggy dead bugs. Definitely nothing useable. 

Remnants of the copper-water, a combination of sediment, teal-colouring, wax and soggy dead bugs. 

I threw it all in the rubbish with plans to start over.

The good news it that for my next foray into making verdigris I have purchased organic vinegar's (unfiltered apple cider with "the Mother" and a white wine vinegar) which attempts to get me a small step closer to what would have been available in period. I've also been donated some homemade wines so that I can attempt to create my own vinegar.

Experiments are pending.

Not-Even-Trying-To-Be-Period Verdigris

Verdigris has been used throughout the medieval period as a green pigment. It has a fairly fine particle size and usually has a teal-like blue-green colour.

A number of recipes can be found within the medieval art treatises and they all seem to be variations of the following; suspend plates of copper over vinegar in a sealable jar for a number of days and keep the vinegar warm either by keeping it in a warm place or burying it in the dung/compost heap.

For an assignment I needed some verdigris, and I needed it quickly. Perfect timing for a quick, initial experiment before looking at this pigment more in-depth. There has been, and will be, more reading involved which no doubt will spawn another post at a later time.

Scrap copper pipe.

Day One (June 1, 2013): All I have on hand are very non-period tools and materials since this is a slightly spur-of-the-moment experiment which was born of a burst water pipe. When we opened up the wall to fix the leak I was really happy to find copper pipe, it's been sat waiting for me ever since.

My first step was to cut the pipe into more manageable pieces and discard the welded joints, for this I used a standard pipe-cutter available from any hardware store. I wasn't too concerned with the lengths being even so they range in size from about two to four inches.

Materials used.

For my "sealed pot" I used what was on hand, in this case a plastic tupperware bowl and and a zip-lock bag. To suspend the copper pipe I made holes at the top of the plastic bowl with a 1/4" diameter screw and then used wooden skewers fed through the holes and pipe. Into the bowl I poured about half an inch of Heinz Distilled White Vinegar (5% acidity).

Some translations call for the sealed pot to be buried in dung, but since I believe this is more to do with available temperature I'll be leaving my "pot" in a hot sunny location.

Day Two (June 2, 2013): Surprisingly, I already have an obvious patina of acetate forming on the copper pipe that was set up yesterday. I honestly wasn't expecting to see much of a result for at least a few days, if not weeks. That's not quite 24hrs and I already have some verdigris pigment forming.

This actually leads me to wonder just how much of a role temperature plays in this reaction? Would the acetate form just as quickly during the cold winter months?

 It looks "damp", which is most likely due to the amount of condensation visible in the ziplock bag but it definitely has the bluish-green colour typical of verdigris. I expect that when I harvest the pigment, the colour will dry a little lighter.

Copper acetate forming on the pipe.

Day Four (June 4, 2013): One drawback I'm discovering about doing this in a plastic ziplock bag is that it's creating a lot of condensation which drips onto the copper. (Is vinegar condensation, vinegar or water?). I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't happen in a sealed ceramic or metal pot, or maybe it does and that's why the period texts tell you to bury it in dung. It would certainly keep a more even temperature which I think would reduce or even eliminate the condensation.

Day Twenty Two (June 22, 2013): I got bored with watching it, not to mention I need to use it on something I'm working on.

It's a beautiful if not slightly windy day, so I set up my work area outside on the deck. To prevent the wind from blowing the pigment around I placed one of the stoneware dishes made for me by Bruni into a large plastic ziplock bag, this was to be my pigment catch-plate. I carefully opened the bag containing the vinegar and copper and proceeded to remove the first of the tubes with the help of tweezers, transferring it to the catch-plate. Wearing a fine-particle mask and latex gloves I then scratched the green pigment off the tube with a small metal palette knife, allowing it to fall onto the catch-plate. These steps were repeated for all five tubes. Once all the pigment had been scraped I transferred it into a small glass jar. This is known as "basic" verdigris.

Not-Even-Trying-To-Be-Period Verdigris being scraped from the copper piping.

Materials for the next batch.

Since I want this little experiment to continue, and to be honest I would like more verdigris since it's such a common medieval pigment, I've created a fresh container of vinegar and copper. My container this time is an old ceramic countertop compost pail I've had sitting around for the longest time, it's the closest I can get to a period "sealed container" without specifically buying something (I'll be checking out pottery wares at Pennsic). I've used the same Heinz Distilled White Vinegar (5% acidity), contained in a glass cup at the bottom of the pail which I've secured with wax to prevent slipping. I've used the same copper piping, albeit more of it which I've just randomly dumped in the pail, as opposed to hanging. I've used wax to secure the lid on the pail and to fill the vent holes, effectively sealing the container. My intent is just to leave it forgotten in the garden until the weather turns cool in the autumn.