[Artemisia] Re: OH the YEARS

[Julia H. West]

How did I join the SCA, and how long have I been in?  WARNING, folks, this will be a LONG one.

Way back in 1977 I was at a Star Trek club meeting.  We had a speaker, and he mentioned the SCA and asked for a show of hands who had heard of it.  I had, actually--I talked to Ioseph of Locksley at a Star Trek convention in, I believe, Arizona some time before that.  But Ioseph kept harping about making sure a new group's *ss was covered as regards underage drinking and knowing the statutory rape laws!  I didn't think I'd like a group where that was a problem.  So I didn't pursue it at the time.

Anyway, several people at the Star Trek meeting (including me) raised their hands.  After the meeting, we got together and went, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to have our own group here in Salt Lake City?"  One of us, Sorcha O'Melachlin (later Ferelith MacDonald, founding Baroness of Loch Salann) had been in the SCA when she was in Germany with the army, so she told us everything she knew.  We sat down in Elaine of the Lion's Tale's livingroom, and decided who would be what.  I still have that piece of paper, where I wrote down the jobs and who would fill them.  I got to be the herald, because my mundane job was genealogist.  At the time, I knew nothing about heraldry.

I'm not sure when that first meeting was, but I have notes dated 3-13-77 on things like what autocrats do, what a household is, what the various officers are and do, and what nobility is and who gets to be peers.  My favorite note is "Once a month each of first five officers MUST write a report to regional superior officer."

Our first revel was held 23 April A.S. XI (1977).  Those of us who knew a little told others who knew even less about what was going on.  I remember it as being quite fun!  I have pictures, which someday I'll have to print out for people to gawk at (you know who you are--be VERY afraid!).

Our second revel was a May Day party, which ended up being held indoors because of pouring rain.  Rather hard to do a maypole that way!  I have pictures from that one, too.

Anyway, things escalated from there.  We soon figured out that our proposed shire's name, am Mor Salann Fasach, was not constructed properly.  (Well, what happened was, someone asked me to look up "The Great Salt Wastes" in a Gaelic dictionary.  I did, giving them the words as asked.  Unfortunately, no one thought to figure out what word order they should have been in.  We were all very young....)  That's why we eventually became Loch Salann (which people STILL don't pronounce correctly.  The Lock Sa-LON is the place you get your hair done.  Loch SA-lann is the barony.)

As we started to travel out of area (and the area was huge, back in those days--Atenveldt was practically sea to sea), we started getting to know other people.  I met Baldwin of Erebor and he taught me how to court herald and showed me how to do paperwork.  Then he coerced me into becoming White Stag Herald for the new Principality of the Outlands.  Eventually I got promoted to Aten Principle Herald.  I did much of the research for the name submission for the brand-spanking-new Principality of Artemisia.

I got together with my now-husband, Aelfric of Westbrook, at an SCA event.  After our mundane wedding we actually had =two= SCA weddings--one a simple one, jumping over a broomstick held by the Baron (Robert de Spencer) at Grand Outlandish, the other a full-blown medieval church wedding complete with priest and Latin.  My parents, bless their hearts, came to the latter, which bemused them no end.

Round about 1990, after we had two small children, I decided to get a job and finish my degree.  Raising children, working nearly full time, and going to school full time just were not conducive, at least for me, to continuing in the SCA.  The politics right then were rather nasty, and I've never liked politics, so we went to fewer and fewer events.  Finally, we packed our garb and feast gear in boxes, and our SCA-going days were nothing but very fond memories.  (We did get our garb out occasionally to wear to medieval feasts at the girls' school; the teachers loved it.)

However, I have nine mundane younger brothers and sisters.  Several of them have been in the SCA (one of them, Briony of Windermere, has even been royalty).  Long after I stopped playing, others of my siblings started playing.  So last Solstice three of my sisters got together and said, "We're going to kidnap you and take you to Solstice!"  I was completely amenable, and brought my daughters (then 14 and 15), too.  Unfortunately my husband works nights, and was sleeping that day.  We had a blast, and the girls kept saying, "Why haven't you been doing this all the time we were growing up?"  So we vowed to start coming back to the SCA.

So, I started in 1977, which makes it 26 years ago.  But I was out for 13 years, so I guess I can only count 13 of those....