From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V5 #31 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Friday, February 23 2001 Volume 05 : Number 031 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. [scribes]: book care [scribes]: SCA rules vs medieval re-enactment in Poland Re: [scribes]: time for an intro [scribes]: trip to europe [scribes]: Old topic: glass pens [scribes]: [FWD] Auto-bounced email to scribes list ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:25:48 -0600 From: "Amy L. Hornburg Heilveil" Subject: [scribes]: book care An interesting article on how to preserve (be kind to) your books in your personal library. http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34573-2001Feb21.html Despina =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 19:38:12 +0100 From: "Brahdelt" Subject: [scribes]: SCA rules vs medieval re-enactment in Poland Dear Lady Annora and all other fellow scribes who may be interested in this topic, You asked about the people in my group - the situation is a little bit different. We do not take personas. There is no single authority that would check the names we decide upon - for example I created my name - Finnarwen - taking as a starting material the Elvish language invented by J.R.R.Tolkien in his 'Silmarillion', it more or less means 'the girl with a hair of a colour of fire' (although I'm not red-headed, I'm just a little bit red and not of a natural origin - the modern cosmetics is amazing!) The Formendor country that I am from is just an imaginary place, because when we started 'playing knights and ladies', we based our knowledge on fantasy books and films (and that's how our first costumes looked like, you can imagine those mysterious magicians, fighters and Lady Hawks!...) Then we discovered how interesting a history can be, and how fascinating the recreation is, doing the reasearch in pursue for the real costume patterns, medieval customs, arts and crafts. We started preparing historic clothes and armours, concentrating mainly on two parts of the Middle Ages: X-XII c and XV c. Groups that are united in the Treaty of the Borders are interested in different medieval periods, there is a Viking group, there is a completely XV c group, there are mixed groups, like mine. Some people decide upon the new names, taken from the historic sources, some other stay with their mundane names. It is also different with the coats of arms. In my Principality there are two knights who were dubbed 5 years ago and they got their coats of arms at that time. We do not choose the existing patterns, because it would not be right to have someone else's coat of arms, belonging to the existing family, so we invent our own combinations of colours and symbols, all according to the Heraldry Rules. The Prince can award a person with a coat of arms, and that's what happened last year, when two people were given this honour, namely me for being a Court Chronicler (you can see my coat of arms at my website), the second person was Sir Michal of Opacz. In fact, the origins of his coat of arms is very interesting: he got a brown hammer on the one-colour background, and he also got the nickname 'Hammer for the Germans', because he won in the duel with Baron Helmut zu Juelich (Helmu Riebe) at the event in Kozuchow in 1999 and also with Lord Falco von Jablonec (Alexander Berg). So, as you see, there is a wide range of freedom in our groups, there is no single board of director for all the groups, although there have been attempts in the past to create such a body. They wanted to standarise different aspects of our re-enactment, but it just did not work for a bigger group of people. Maybe it's our Polish contrary nature! The other reason may be the following: there are two kinds of medieval re-enactors in Poland - one are the people, who really want to be as acurate and historic, as possible (that's my group, for example), the other are people, who use plastic zippers in their clothes and nylons, and polypropylene mugs, and they are so-called 'weekend knights'. These kind of people wanted to establish some authority over the rest, so we split into different organisations. We visit different tournaments and play on our own. (Is anybody still reading my long letter, I wonder?...) Tha is more or less how it is. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to ask. Regards, Lady Finnarwen of Formendor Principality of Draconia (Joanna Zelazko Warsaw, Poland) =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 19:20:00 +0100 From: "Brahdelt" Subject: Re: [scribes]: time for an intro To Lady Bronwen O'Neill of Small Gray Bear Newcomer welcomes newcomer! Lady Finnarwen of Formendor Principality of Draconia (Joanna Zelazko Warsaw, Poland) =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 15:23:46 -0500 (EST) From: john j cash Subject: [scribes]: trip to europe Dear folks, I've made the plunge and have purchased my tickets. I'll be travelling to Budapest from April 22 through April 29, to attend the conference of the Societe International d'Ethnologie et Folklore. I will present a paper on reenacting the American Civil War. If anyone else will be nearby, I'd be happy to meet with you. - -- johannes v.n. "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Cathering Aird =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 20:45:06 From: "Elyse Boucher" Subject: [scribes]: Old topic: glass pens Greetings from the humble scribe Merouda Pendray. I am going through all my old email in my hotmail account, and I ran across this conversation: Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:51:28 EST From: JFazio6634@aol.com Subject: [scribes]: [scribes] Glass pens? Does anyone have any information on the history of glass pens? I have looked on the net but I can't seem to find much about their origin. Thanks for all the great info on this list! Gilia =================================================================== From: "Chiara" Subject: Re: [scribes]: [scribes] Glass pens? Well the only lead I have is that they were primarily found in Venice and scattered from there. Venice being the glass capitol of that part of the world for centuries. I own two. I will see if I can get something from the company that made them. MEROUDA ADDS: Look for a book called "Pen, Ink, and Evidence." I can't recall the author off hand, but it's recently reprinted, so looking for the title through Amazon.com will give you the name of the author. Anyway, he is primarily concerned with discussing collectable writing stuff, and so most of the real meat of the book is concerned with post-1601 information and the problems of forgeries. He does have a section devoted to glass pens, with some neat photos of some of the first ones made. Although, because I'm at work and can't look it up, I can't recall precisely if the text said "these pens appeared in the 1800's" or "these pens appeared in the 18th century," I can't say specifically when they first appeared, but they are apparently quite post period. It's worth a look, though; I enjoyed reading it to find that the late 18th-19th c. custom of "calling cards" actually has roots in the 16th c. Neato, eh? There it is, just one more thing for me to doggedly track down until I know as much as I am going to be able to find out with the resources available to me. I sure love a challenge. But now I'm digressing. As usual. have some other things I want to post, but I'll put them in seperate missives. :-) Almost time for me to get outta here and go home! Your Servant, hoping this helps, Merouda Sincerely, Franchesca Havas McKinney, Texas _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:16:40 -0800 From: Lee Damon Subject: [scribes]: [FWD] Auto-bounced email to scribes list This email bounced due to the Subject: line. Please reply to the poster, not to me. postmaster@castle.org - ------- Forwarded Message Message-ID: <003901c09dca$1fe611a0$012aa8c0@mystation.com> From: "Brahdelt" To: Subject: Help Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 19:39:43 +0100 Could somebody help me: I would like to prepare a scroll for a friend of mine, he is from Calcuta, India. I am going to do the calligraphy in English (I will choose some nice piece of poetry), but do you know any Internet site, where I could get some inspiration concerning the Hindu or Bengali illuminations? Thanks in advance, Lady Finnarwen of Formendor Principality of Draconia (Joanna Zelazko Warsaw, Poland) - ------- End of Forwarded Message =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V5 #31 ****************************