Notes From Lilies

Lilies was so much fun! I learned a lot about many different subjects, including how to do a handful of crafts, and met a bunch of fun and nice people in the process. I weaved a seamless bag which I need to felt now. My husband made a leather jack and did really well with the tooling. He is much better at basket-weaving than I. I also learned that Yoda speaks Latin in English. My husband (now going by the name he'll be submitting, Gamble) and I are going to buy a couple rapiers to practice Calontir Steel cut and thrust on our own. I really, really need to find a place where I can practice thrown weapons 'cause it is tons of fun. Especially spears. We also saw Their Royal Majesties and Highnesses from five kingdoms do the wave in court.
I drew two device submissions for heraldic consultants. One of the pre-prints I had painted previously was given to a new Boga-Fyrd. I was the only entrant in the borders competition, but was assured I didn't win by default. I drew up another zoomorphic border. I'm kicking myself for forgetting to take a picture before handing it off... I did two deer with their hind limbs flipped above their backs and long antlers filling up the extra space- one on the top left corner, the other on the bottom right with antlers extending vertically up/down the sides of the sheet (scroll is in landscape format), and horizontally to the center of the page. At the center, they turn vertically toward the center of the sheet for just an inch or so to hold onto a blank circle for an order badge at top and a blank escutcheon for personal arms at the bottom. Their Majesties' scribe suggested painting around the colors instead of over them since she's seen paint not stick to gold gesso before. I picked up an illumination how-to book which described a masking method that might make that easier to do. I'm excited to try it out next time.

I finished skimming through the giant French tamga book in time for my class at Lilies. I had one student who's currently exploring Mongol stuff and we had a lot of fun talking shop. It would probably be a copyright violation to post translations of the book online, but I will e-mail relevant passages to anyone who asks as well as discussing each chapter on here once I'm finished translating each one.

Ashina Turk on the left, modern Mongol on the right

On a related note, to the reader who asked for a raven tamga- There actually was a tamga in the book which means "crow/raven" (the French word used, corbeau, does not differentiate between the two). It seems that tamgas didn't have specific names or meanings (other than identifying the one who uses it) in the beginning, but later on some were given names. Modern tamgas in Mongolia are still used this way, including the raven tamga. This tamga first showed up in a source cited as "The Book of Tang". It was compiled from earlier sources in the tenth century and in it are illustrated the tamgas representing various nomadic tribes within the then-borders of China. A Turkic clan called the Ashina used a tamga basically identical to the modern Mongol raven tamga.


The dumpling class was an even bigger success. I had seven people show up and they all seemed to really enjoy themselves. I ended up giving out a couple copies of the recipe beyond the class as well. I almost entered them in the "Cooked On Site" competition, but given that I forgot to re-look up and write down the scant documentation I'd found beforehand, I decided to wait until next year.
If you have the opportunity to go next year, I highly recommend it. So much fun!