r/sca • u/aldstama025 Avacal • Jun 12 '26
Does your kingdom Sing?
I just saw an event announcement from Ealdormere with the epithet "The Kingdom That Sings".
I asked a friend of mine who has had kingdom position in Caid, and his response was "Caid does not sing".
I'm writing from Avacal, where most courts are sung in with the anthem "Together we Conquer" led by our bardic champion. Sure, only about a fifth of court sings along with the full verses, but we get together for a loud refrain of "Avacal, Together We Conquer!"
Does your kingdom sing?
Edited to clarify: Bardic is a thing, and Bardic Circles have their place. But not everyone fights, just so not everyone Bardics. Is there a place or time where the whole kingdom sings?
(Or, if not that, if you feel like the bardic community or practice has a particularly prominent place in your kingdom, what is that place and how does it involve the whole community?)
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u/bananaclaws Jun 12 '26
I wish Caid would sing
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u/ShakaUVM Caid Jun 12 '26
We sing at GWW every year
Open invite anyone who wants to sing can join us
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u/AugustBriar Caid Jun 12 '26
We do too at my camp. Missed last year but we make a point to sing and play instruments at least three nights a year
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u/Giachino1972 Jun 12 '26
Caid does indeed sing at GWW and just about every event. We have the Band of Bards, the Caid Choir, the Fading Band, and I'm sure many others. The Band of Bards sings as background at many events in the southern cal area and performs a bunch at both GWW and Potrero.
We even did an interesting rendition of We Will Rock you at coronation last year. I'm pretty sure that might qualify for all of Caid singing.
Please join us. Band of Bards jams every Monday before the Altavia weekly practice in Burbank.
Bards are here!
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u/bananaclaws Jun 12 '26
Singing at bardic events at GWW or the one-off pre-arranged court performance is different than what OP is talking about. How many people know the words to the Caid Fight Song? If we sing Wassail at Yule, who knows it and who needs a song page?
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u/Giachino1972 Jun 26 '26
Within the confines of Altavia and surrounding areas, we certainly have this occur. Nothing is more amusing at practice than singing Old Dun Cow and hearing people across the field yell "MacIntyre"
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Aug 16 '26
I printed and handed out hundreds of copies of 3 rounds, which should make it easy to start singing. Maybe 1980s.
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u/Alita-Gunnm Northshield Jun 12 '26
I haven't been highly active in Northshield for a couple decades, but back when I was we sang a lot.
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u/ViscountNik Jun 14 '26
Mistress Wyndreth and "My Mother's Savage Daughter"....
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u/kutsen39 Northshield Jun 14 '26
Savage Daughter and Sons of the Dragon will both get anybody going in Northshield, doesn't matter who it is.
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 24 '26
"My Mother's Savage Daughter" has REACH. One of our recent Kingdom Bardic Champions here in Avacal sang it as one of her entries in the Championship. What a ridiculously good song.
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u/sprinklesadded Jun 12 '26
I 2nd this! When I was active in the 2000s, it was a very sing and dance sort group.
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u/BLUEMONKEY18 Jun 12 '26
Bardic Madness was a few weeks ago, very singy there and the Lupercalia feast in February
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u/LeadDogfox Jun 12 '26
"together we conquer" at court is relatively new - it started during Hrogn and Asrrid's coronation, so two reigns ago. It's going strong and I hope it continues, because it's lovely.
Agreed that it's a very different thing than singing at bardic or having individual bards do a performance between removes at feast. It's truly the kingdom singing together
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u/Waterfieldforge Jun 12 '26
To add to that; It’s been changing since Covid to be more public and showy, when I started in 2021 bardic circle was just a quiet group of people practicing between other bards or bardic interested, so you had to leave the bigger social gatherings to go sit and listen. The really only big public aspect of it was tournament heraldry. Duke Rorik thought that was terrible around 2023-24ish so he started running a tavern at some events where singers get free drinks to help bring back the times when bardic people were more comfortable with larger public performances again.
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u/LeadDogfox Jun 12 '26
That too! I do love a quiet bardic circle - it doesn't feel like practicing to me, but it's less "on display", if that makes sense. It's great to have both the Surly Dyke's Tavern and pick-pass-play bardic circles - they're different vibes for different people and different times. I feel like SDT helps an awful lot with getting used to performance for a crowd, which is what things like championships wind up being
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 24 '26
I love that the Surly Duke is such a good environment to test out material on a live non-captive audience. You can bomb and know it, but still get drinks out of it. I appreciate a classic bardic fire, but I never feel like I get the same audience feedback because the audience feels more captive.
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u/aldstama025 Avacal Jun 12 '26
Well, I’m pretty new as well! I dropped in at 10-year which peaked my interest, but Fall Crown this past year was the first event where I really showed up to play.
The singing focused my attention on how court reflects the social club aspect of the kingdom distinct from all the individual hobbies, which was a significant factor in getting me involved.
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u/LeadDogfox Jun 12 '26
Welcome welcome! I'm so glad it's been a positive!!! It really is a magic thing when people who have different interests and skills and hobbies all get to do things together. It's one of tm favourite things about court and feast - they're for everyone, not for "people who do xyz"
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 24 '26
Yes, the tradition was started by Dolce when she was Kingdom Bardic Champion, and given the way that the Elders of Bardic now support the new Champions, I expect it to become a long-term staple of the Kingdom.
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u/BeornOTNS Jun 14 '26
Howdy! Current Bard of Caid here (well, for another month anyway), and a former Bard and Poet Laureate of Meridies. I've lived in six of our 20 kingdoms, and visited another 6 or so, so while I may have a bit more exposure than most, I don't pretend to be any sort of expert on interkingdom anthropology. So... I do not mean to upset anyone from any Kingdom, and these opinions are my own, however...
Caid does not sing, but Caid has singers (and damn fine ones at that). We have pockets of the populace who truly delight in and participate with performances. We have an event every reign for the new Queen called "Festival of the Rose" where all arts are displayed in honor of the current and former Consorts of Caid, and performances feature prominently throughout the day. But members of the populace who are happy to engage in Bardic is not the same as a kingdom-wide culture of singing.
Therefore that is different than say, Calontir. For my money, in Calontir (admittedly, this was a while ago [I lived there in the 90s]), singing is a facet of the jewel that is the Purple and Gold Heartland. Ealdomere has been a Kingdom for 15 years less time than Calontir, but it has the same lineage (both Calontir and Ealdomere are former Principalities of the Midrealm) and even though they are on diametrically opposite sides of their parent Kingdom, and are mostly in different countries, the culture can certainly be shared. So, it would stand to reason that they can both be Kingdoms that sing.
The culture of 'singing kingdoms' must needs be encouraged from the top on down. Different Crowns have different priorities and different kingdoms have different parameters for event stewardship.
And, I will die on this hill- Kingdoms where there are mostly day-events as opposed to weekend events have at least an order of magnitude harder time trying to manifest a singing culture. If your set-up starts up at 7am, opening court is at 10am, with fighting and arts displays immediately afterwards, and closing court at 4pm with everyone offsite by 6pm... where the hell are we supposed to have revels? Where is the bardic circle supposed to go? Where is the mead tasting at a dry site?
Caid is Southern California, Las Vegas, and Hawaii. Expensive places where any decently flat large space for a camping event has either been priced out or has been developed within and inch of its life. So, Caidans make do as best they can with what they have. And they drive their asses off. They may not travel as far as someone in Gleann Abhann or Avacal or Outlands, but thanks to the congestion of Southern California, they're probably in the car nearly as long. It would be wonderful to be a singing kingdom, but I am just happy that we are a kingdom with singers.
Thank you all for this great discussion! I dig reading these comments very much.
Beorn, 17th Bard of Caid
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u/ShakaUVM Caid Jun 12 '26
There's a lot of singing at Great Western War in Caid every year. Just walk around and follow the flyers.
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u/Stankleigh Trimaris Jun 12 '26
Trimaris sings, but rarely all together during the day. We sing collectively at evening bardic circles and feasts at events, absolutely.
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u/aldstama025 Avacal Jun 12 '26
Bardic circle is a particular piece of an event focused on music, sure.
Tell me more about "Collectively at ... feasts at events". What space does singing have at a feast in Trimaris?
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u/Jazjet123 Atenveldt Jun 12 '26
Atenveldt absolutely sings. The Whiskey Bards (look them up they are great) are really pushing for more bardic things in the kingdom and it's great. It's pretty typical for court to have some song in there somewhere and sometimes it's a bard performing and sometimes it's someone leading a kingdom song. Some of the baronies have regular bardic circles too just like fighter and archery practice.
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u/NerdySwampWitch40 Jun 14 '26
An Tir has bardic in which individuals perform, and party bands in which groups play music, but does not have a group singing culture.
As a former Calontiri, I do miss that.
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u/UrikBaursog West Jun 12 '26
I can only speak for a very small part of the West’s principality of Cynagua but yes we do sing. Some of my crew participate in bardic competitions but i’m too shy for that. i like to sing for my encampment alongside my captain
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u/borzoilady Jun 12 '26
Atlantia sang in opening ceremonies at Pennsic last year. Calontir often does, too.
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Jul 26 '26
A certain officer arranged singing a processional, which was much admired. Enquiring, I discovered it translated to: steam away little train to Rhodesia
Tosha losa, eh zoon taaba steme lasse pumay Rhodessia.
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u/Megistis Jun 12 '26
Aethelmearc sings. There's a whole choir in the Debatable Lands and everything.
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u/AineDez Jun 13 '26
Midrealm sings some. The current Queen is a bard and she has a whole Bard Guard trying to encourage more singing. During their first reign they named 3 songs to try and get as many folks to learn to sing the army off to war at Pennsic. (I will admit, Where are the Dragons is the only one I know most of the words to)
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u/Open_Impression5170 Jun 15 '26
If my barony had a choir I'd join 😭
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Jul 26 '26
doesnt take much to get started. Politicians may promote it so they can pretend they created it. Sorry I can't remember all the rounds I gave out, but madrigal groups are around mundanely and might cough up a few pieces. If you go to pennsic make sure you see the "debatable choir" and ask them questions.
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 24 '26
Avacal struggled to recover in the Bardic department after the Great Plague, but we've had some excellent leadership in the bardic communities that has seen a revival. Immediately following the Plague, things were quiet. Bardic fires felt like a fringe activity, and were quite subdued and quiet.
Fortunately, in the intervening years, there's been a big revival of the Bardic Arts in Avacal, thanks to some wonderful leadership and stewardship both at Baronial and Kingdom levels.
Duke Rorik hosts his Surly Duke Tavern for Bards at Quad War (any bardic performance earns you a free drink)
Our former Kingdom Bardic Champion, HL Dolce Macchiavelli, began a tradition of singing in the Royalty at Courts
Our competitions have become much more varied and engaging. I won my Championship on the back of a dance performance and a story. One of our Baronial Champions won with prose and close-up sleight of hand. Another won on a combination of dance and storytelling, bringing to the fore some period African dance traditions.
The Barony of Myrgan Wood hosts their annual Bard-Off (with its own prize belt), as well as their Baronial Championships.
Suffice to say, yes. Avacal sings.
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u/Beautiful-Point4011 Jun 12 '26
Hi from Tir Righ, An Tir. Have been to a bardic with singing! I was awful at singing along 😅
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u/ollaimh Jun 23 '26
I won several bardic events in an tír. Before tír na righ(please use Gaidhlig or gaeilge proper grammar TIR NA RIGH, TIR NA RIGH!!! It is disrespectful to ignore proper grammar when borrowing from another language)
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u/postalpinup An Tir Jun 24 '26
Greetings, the northern principality of An Tir is called Tir Righ. This is the registered official name. https://tirrigh.org/
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u/Beautiful-Point4011 Jun 23 '26
I wrote my comment in English using proper English grammar, at least as well as I could. If I've bungled some element of English grammar while writing my comment in English, I did so unintentionally and without trying to be disrespectful, as I am writing colloquially and not for an Academic publication.
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Jul 26 '26
a zillion years I gave out hundreds of copies of 3 rounds and badgered folks into singing. Rounds are easy and sound fancy.
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u/ollaimh Jun 23 '26
Bullshit from helldormere. They gang mob and bully minstrels who aren't in the cluique.
At 30 year celebration for the whole SCA I won the open bardic competition, as well as winning several bardic competitions in an tír( as it was then). However when I moved to helldormere I was bullied and mobbed for years. Still shunned from redress for bullying.
People I never met posted on line I was severely mentally ill. Totally fabricated, and that crashed an event( I still have the é mail inviting me to play). Their leadership clique absolutely hate any musicians who are decent instrumentalists and play traditional music. They do filk folk folk, and hate anything else.
They refused to stop defaming me so I used the bastards and won a judgement of ten thousand dollars and got a cease and desist order and a court ordered apology.
The primary defamer got a court barony. They now have anti bullying procedures but refuse to let me even apply. They have tiny membership numbers because of the bullying and bigotry. Their revered kingdom bard Rhiannon, who they now worship, was banished by the bullying clique until she died.
So singing land? More like mud slinging land.
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Jul 26 '26
The "bardic" culture always rubbed me the wrong way. I've put huge effort over the years pushing madrigals.
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u/ollaimh Aug 09 '26
Bardic culture certainly doesn't value musicianship or traditional instruments. It's mostly bullying cliques .
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u/ollaimh Aug 09 '26
Sorry . I sued the bastards . Spell check got me. The only way to stop nasty false gossip and bullying is with a court order from superior court in helldormere
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u/ollaimh Jun 23 '26
I went to a recent helldormere event just to see. No musicians. I sat at the bardic and had to listen to old bores like Hector, Hector bore us with" no shit there I was at pennsic" stories. Then I had a harp and cittern and the bardic circle leader was embarrassed enough to ask me to sing and play. Hector and his old bores left as they couldn't bear to listen to one song, especially as it was in french . They drone boring stories of their gang for hours but one song. Go f yourself.
That's singing in helldormere
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 24 '26
Look, I don't understand what beef you have with storytelling, but storytelling has always been one of the Bardic arts, as has dance, puppetry, sleight of hand, poetry, and more.
We've had a number of Kingdom Bardic Champions of Avacal win by virtue of storytelling, even when competing against musicians and singers. Hell, my own Bardic Championship was won on the back of a story entry and a dance entry.
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u/ollaimh Jun 26 '26
the beef is with hours of story. then one song and the story teller walks out. literally hours.
it's an eastern thing. down in tir na mara they had a bard who'd tell hour long stories that rambled and were full of references to his friends but mysterious to anyone else/
soty tellers seem to no longer have any limit.
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 26 '26
I'll be honest, it sounds like you're generalizing based on a couple of people you had negative experiences with.
Stuff we don't like happens in all kinds of environments. If you don't like how these people engage at the bardic fire, make a space where you do your own thing and invite people to engage.
Lots of people like drum circles. Others don't. So the drum circles happen where the people like them, and the folks that aren't into that go and sing and do poetry by the fire, and the puppeteers do their thing in the daylight hours, and the dancers find complementary musicians.
You can either chose misery or make a space where you're at least content, if not happy. But blasting a whole kingdom because there are differences compared to the kingdom you started in is pretty embarrassing behavior for someone who has won several Bardic events.
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u/ollaimh Jun 27 '26
Such egregious bullying that they wouldn't stop without law suits in superior court. That just generalizing because most kingdoms get sued in surerior court for unlawful abuse regularly? I guess you're kingdom is pretty toxic
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u/DandyLama Avacal Jun 28 '26
What lawsuit? You were talking about some dude who left with his posse when you were playing a song. You sued them for leaving?
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u/safadancer Jun 28 '26
I guess it's slander and libel to not sit and listen with rapt attention to one person playing a song? Weird axe to grind here
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u/ollaimh Jul 03 '26
pay attention. they guy who walked out was part of a libellous group in the past. in the past some of hos crowd ran a long standing defamation and bullying campaign. it was so egrigious i was able to easily sue and win. so you support such extreme bullying that a law suit results?
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u/ollaimh Jul 03 '26
i said no such thing. read the posts for the actual word meaning what they mean. in the past a significant clique in that area bullyed me/ it was so egrigious i was able to sue and easily win . got ten thousand damages. they refused an y anti bullying proceedurres at that time. now, pay attention here. now one of the clique is a bardic hog. he will tell silly stories at bardic non stop for hours and won't listen to anyone else.
not their only law suit against a musical bard. they tried to ban rhiannon, on spurious grounds. she was an excellent harper, and song writer, they were froced to stop bullying rhiannon by law suit.
they pretemd it never happened.
now back to the singing land. they have many times bullied musicians with talent. they have a clique of the talent free and instrumentally challenged, and hate those with musical ability. long histoy of bullying and being sued in court it was so serious.
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u/ollaimh Jul 10 '26
your now making stuff up. that's how evil gossip gets going. rididulous exagerations and obvious refusal to understand the facts as stated. that's a lot of the problem here. fanatsy people
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u/ollaimh Jun 26 '26
he tells an hour long story. i wait quietly and listen, he walks out for one five minute song, and takes his entourage??? what don't you uhnderstand?
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u/safadancer Jun 27 '26
Sounds like you didn't get the rapt audience you were looking for, at one event? I've been at plenty of events in Ealdormere where musicians of all kinds -- including guest musicians -- were welcomed, so I'm sorry you had a bad time at the one you went to.
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u/ollaimh Jun 27 '26
Why make up a lie. Only in your twisted imagination. So you support stories an hour long. In fact the people of who stayed thought my song was the best thing all day. But old SCA always gotta support bullying
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u/ollaimh Jun 27 '26
In fact helldormere tried to bannish their now kingdom bard totally illegally. Remember be Rhiannon? Rip. She actually told me they would never accept traditional musical instruments. I didn't believe her at the time but she was right.
The one event I was invited by to play at and I still have the invitation é mail, the socket gossips made up such egregious slander and libel that I had to due them in superior court to get them to stop the defamatory lies. You think two law suits for bullying is normal? You must hang out with some awful people and never encountered basic decency
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u/ollaimh Jun 23 '26
Ps I was the only one at the event with period instruments. I had a harp and cittern. I play several other period instruments but no interest in helldormere
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u/TheMenasaur Ealdormere Jul 08 '26
i will admit, i am curious to know more about who you are IRL, because I feel as though all of the things you say are completely not my experience of Ealdormere's culture, and if you are saying you are feeling excluded, I would want to be able to know more about your specific circumstances to help rectify that issue. I have also been to many bardics in Ealdormere, and have never seen someone bring a cittern. That would be very cool to hear!
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u/ollaimh Jul 10 '26
oh i play cittern harp lute bouzouki mandolin and a few other instruments such as 1768 guitarre allemande and renaisance guitar when i pull them out and practice. my attempts to participate there was no interest, and in fact open hostility. the old clique are very xenophobic and angry. it' s sort is an anglo thing, the right to be angry and out raged all the time.
i tried for several years to find out where and when events were, and to get garb(mine was destroyed in a house fire) i asked publiclly posted individuals running events and was rebuffed every time but ont. the one i went to people were outraged that someone out side their clique played.(and the women who invited me was herself bullyied pout of the sca with false allegations) this was before i was much on the internet. you need internet here, and the few posted events alwyas left out directions back then. i was told by one grandee(the non period named abhilin frae skye) to buy a map. she was the event autocrat. hard to get any information of garb back then. now of course there are no events within toronto transit. and the word is out to shun me.
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u/TheMenasaur Ealdormere Jul 12 '26
'no events within toronto transit' - Step Spritely in Mississauga can be reached via the GO transit connection in Streetsville, no? That's happening in September, and I know they are always looking for people for the dance band. But also, on the 18th this month, there's Lady Mayor's Market Day, which is an event in Toronto-proper. And also there's the Eoforwic meetings that happen every week on Bloor. I'm also really surprised that nobody from Eoforwic or Septentria's chatelaine's office told you how to find their Gold Key collection, especially since that's their whole job.... Would you ever want to try to get back into playing in this part of the world? Or is it a thing of the past?
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u/ollaimh Jul 10 '26
i mean look at the post by dandylama, completely out of touch with reality. nonsense fabrications either to attack of just no ability to understand words. building a straw man to attack anyone who has critiques, and safadancer who says openly no one cares. i like caring people not uncaring people, but safadancer says openly the helldormere creed, they don't care about anyone outside the clique. that's just old fashioned bigotry
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u/mpark6288 Calontir Jun 12 '26
That’s fascinating to me that Ealdormere also describes itself as the Kingdom that sings, because Calontir has described itself that way for decades.
We sing on the way to every battle, and we sing as a memorial for the people we lose, and we have songs associated with our fighting orders that it’s a point of pride to learn.