After the Bardic's Over

[hrj]

There are several SCA events that I regularly proclaim "my favorite event". (Sometimes I'll be more precise and say "one of my favorite events", but usually I don't bother.) Most commonly this label gets applied to A&S Tourney and to Mists Bardic. Yesterday's Bardic was a perfect example of why this event always makes the cut: lots of excellent song, poetry and dance, a sufficiency of good food, and an entire event full of people whose primary purpose is to enjoy the aforesaid. (For those readers not familiar with it, the primary purpose of the event is to choose the next official bard of the principality of the Mists, which is done via a "job interview" consisting of 5 categories: a period work, an original work in a period style, an original work composed on a pre-announced theme, a piece that the entrant considers their best presentation, and a piece composed in 15 minutes on the spot incorporating three words drawn from a hat.) But in addition to the competition performances, there's always a lot of spontaneous performing -- both old favorites and pieces composed on the spot. And there's always dancing -- not in the "and now it's time to dance" style but more like "hey, we're in a break in the activity, let's dance". There's always an excellent feast, improved by being stretched out through most of the day with courses alternating with performances and breaks (which makes things easier both on the cooks and on the diners' stomachs). With it being the 25th competition, there was a drive to get as many former Mists' Bards to show up as possible, and I believe we had 16 out of 24 (23 living). It made for an impressive line-up when we arranged ourselves in order to pass down a token of the office to the new bard (klwilliams as our first repeat in the office). The only regular flaw for me is that, since the former bards present do the judging, I always end up missing a bunch of the "for fun" performances after the competition when we go off and sequester ourselves. I also got a bunch of sewing done on the hem trim to be added to the dress for her highness -- and finished it up completely today. So now I just need to get my hands on the dress again and it looks like I can have it finished in time for the "Viking decoration" competition at coronet tourney in two weeks.