I was asked to write a scroll text for my friend Rufus, who received his Silver Hammer (Grant-level, Sciences, Calontir) for his pottery at Coronation. Rufus’ persona is a Saxon/ Viking orphan, found by the red painted old Roman 10 mile marker outside London. This was delayed due to Coronation being postponed thanks to a predicted monster ice storm. Today, though, was a beautiful day, and I am pleased to have the opportunity.
Since he had a persona from Anglo-Saxon England, I headed straight towards Anglo-Saxon poetry. There are a couple of different forms, both with and without alliteration. I opted for no alliteration, but made sure there were plenty of kennings, that is, a compound expression in Old English and Old Norse poetry with metaphorical meaning, e.g., oar-steed = ship.
When there had passed in the circuit of years thirty
and two winters of this world,
accounted by numbers, in the reckoning of time,
since the purple-clothed falcon had slipped her jesses, the Glory of Kingdoms,
in middle-earth the land close to the heart, the golden song of the people,
there was the reign of King Ashir, ring-giver, and Queen Ashland, cup-bearer.
He, who sat battle-dressed, elevated to the rule of Calontir
She, who bore war needles fletched with raven’s wine
Across the earth, illuminated by certain goods, worldly treasures.
One may be destitute, a hard-fortuned man, who is nevertheless
wealthy in the mind’s crafts. One takes up a burden
greatly strong besides. One is handsome, ruddy in his form.
These rulers, bearers of rivers-fire, they sought a worker of river-flesh, who saw vessels made from river-bone
from dolphins’-home to falcons’-flight.Rufus Tenstone was called before King Ashir, feeder of eagles, and Queen Ashland, bearer of valkyrie-mightHe who creates vessels, bearers of the honey wave,the spreader of red-hot embers of the sea, to him is granteda hammer, of the snow-drift of the falcon’s land,gifts of sea-amber and the hawthorn’s moorand a hearth’s-ship near river’s edgeLet the carriers of tales sing of his mind’s worth.Done by Our hands, the twenty-first of January, thirty and two years after falcon’s flight.
Ashir
cyningAshlandcwen
Based on The Gifts of Men, Elene, and Battle of Maldon.
Kennings are as follows:
“worker of river-flesh, who saw vessels made from river-bone” – river-flesh is clay, river-bone is rock, which happens when clay is fired.
konstantia kaloethina 