Challenges XXVI

• Challenges are designed to encourage you to try your hand at something new, to stretch yourself, to enjoy, and celebrate the creative spirit.

• Challenges are not competitions - everyone who takes part can consider themselves a winner.
  Challenges are also not contests - You win by entering and striving to do & give your own personal best!

• Read the guidelines for the challenges carefully.  They are sometimes sneakily designed to help one develop specific areas.  Try to follow them as closely as you can, but stretching into unexpected directions is good too.

• Your response to the various challenges may be in many different forms. Song and story are often presented; however poetry, prose, script, and options from any/all of the performing and movement arts can also express an idea or tell a tale.  Any can be used to answer a given challenge (though perhaps not all at the same time ;).)

• As you finish performing, check in with the patron of the challenge, and audience, for tokens being distributed along with applause and other compliments.

• Individuals are welcome and encouraged to give recognition to those performers whom they especially enjoy with applause, and small tokens of appreciation as inclined.  And to be a Patron for challenge(s) that appeal to you.

• In order to allow the largest number of people to participate, each person may enter a maximum of one piece in each challenge and a maximum of three challenges, including the concert.  (**At the end of a challenge, sometimes time is available and extra performers are called; this does not count towards the three.)

• Use your best courtesy to keep your challenge entries limited to 3-5 minutes or less for Poems and Songs;  5-7 minutes or less for stories.  =Including= any introduction and/or set up & clearing of performance area.

• Credit where credit is due- please announce the title and author/composer(s) of the work being performed. And the works something has been derived from/filked/parodied, etc.

• Duets/Trios/Ensembles of 2, 3, or more performing together can appear together in up to 3 challenges, including the concert.

• Individuals who participate in both group and solo performances are asked to use your best courtesy selecting other challenges. Group sign-ups do not count as individual sign-ups and vice-versa.

• Please Keep Content 'Family Friendly'.  **Think closer to "Apples to Apples" not "Cards Against Humanity".**
  We expect to have minors (and John Inchingham) present, or watching the YouTube playlist in the future & Inchingham is much too young for that sort of thing.
  Performances that push too far on this may be stopped live and/or not included in the YouTube playlists.
  If you are wondering if a particular performance work falls outside this, please contact Hilla Stormbringer before the event or before the fyt where the challenge entry happens.  Current Rule of thumb, if it is more blatant compared to the song, "Donald Where's Your Trousers?" - It is Entirely Right Out.  (Period.)

• • Sign-up for all challenges happens on the day of Bardic Madness.

  • Sign-up sheets for the 1st and 2nd fyt, and descriptions for 3rd & 4th fyts, will be spread out on a table between 9(ish)-10am. 
    We will open sign up for the 3rd and 4th fyts during the lunch period.

  • Please start with selecting up to 3 challenges from all the fyts, including the concert if there is one).

  • Individuals who participate in both group and solo performances are asked to use your best courtesy selecting other challenges. Group sign-ups do not count as individual sign-ups and vice-versa.

  • For each challenge there will be 8 open slots on the sign-up sheet and two "spillover" spots for challenges. The "spillover" spots will be included during the challenge if time allows. If you have signed up for a "spillover" slot and there was not time for you during that challenge, we will try to fit you in later in the day if and as time allows.)

  • Please remember that these are guidelines. If you forget, it's okay.

Dahrien Cordell, beloved late[1] husband of Margaret Malise de Kyrkyntolaghe (nicknamed "Mysie"), lived with her in the Barony of Caer Anterth Mawr in the Kingdom of Northshield, at their home, known affectionately far and wide as "The Bardic Barracks" because of their generous hospitality with the tendency to pack bards in like cordwood (or soldiers in close quarters) for event crash space.  They have always hosted The Singin'est Post-Revel In Town™️ after events, as well!

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[1] In fact, Dahrien is well-famed for his inventive, entertaining, and sometimes believable excuses!

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Dahrien began life in the Barony of Three Rivers, Calontir, and remained in the SCA there from 1987 to 1997, when Mysie finally caught him at the Lilies War and stole him away from "the other woman" (a.k.a. the Kingdom of Calontir)!  He earned the Calontir AoA fighting recognition for fighting [sic, and 2]; AoA awards for service and A&S from Calontir, the Midrealm, and Northshield; and GoA awards for both as well as a Court Barony and Pelican from Northshield.  

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[2]  the Order of the Iren Fyrd (a.k.a. Fyrdmen), from which he took inspiration for his personalized license plates, FYRDVAN

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Mostly, honestly, his persona is "SCA, Calontir and Northshield".  Once upon a time, very long ago (to some, but not to others -- AD  1987), he began life as a Saxon from "Saxon England in the 11- or 12-hundreds".  When he started out, a friend had made him clothing that she said would fit there (his first "garb"!), and that was fine by him, so that was his (ostensible) persona.  Since then, his wardrobe's variety increased, and his interests focused more on the Society and the crafts and activities he could learn about and enjoy here, than on in-depth study or recreation of a single culture.

A little known fact is that Dahrien's given name came not from the congregational rolls of a medieval parish, nor from a primary school's primer of medieval history, but from a 20-sided die.  When he was young and truly knew no better -- and was left unattended with a Dungeons & Dragons adventure which he had written in the sixth grade -- he rolled that pink die several times, consulting a table alongside the map to find a letter for each role of the fateful d20.  He -- and perhaps moreso each of us -- was extremely lucky that his efforts resulted in something pronounceable[3].  Sadly, no authority better than Kolatch The Questionable was ever found to support any variation of "Dahrien", even without the silent *h*, to the satisfaction of the College of Heralds.  As a result, *they* think he is named "Darius", after a Persian emperor that his Saxon mother must have admired.  (Nobody living can recall how or why he chose the surname "Cordell", but that was documentable, and also preceded the choice of charges on his coat of arms.)

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[3] Please be kind enough to note that Dahrien has *never* held himself up as a worthy model to follow, in this one respect.  

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His contributions to bardic content and community in each kingdom in which he has lived and visited have been extensive and impressive -- in multiple senses of that word.  While he is extremely well-known for his filks, parodies, and humorous work -- even being designated as the Iron Bard Of Comedy at the Pennsic War's one and only Iron Bard Competition -- it is actually worth noting that he has written and performed quite a number of serious, dramatic, and even romantic pieces as well.  And he authored "Dahrien's Little Primer", comprised of "Dahrien's Little History Song", "Dahrien's Little Counting Song", "Dahrien's Little Color Song", and "Dahrien's Little Latin Song".  He served as Bardic Champion at the Principality and Baronial levels, and once saved an impending marriage[4] with his bardic talent.  It has been noted by illustrious members of the Order of the Laurel that Dahrien's choices of filk source material have been an excellent indicator of likelihood for induction of their authors into that august Order.

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[4] (not his own).  While this is factually true, the details were never divulged, lest that marriage fall apart at the revelation.  Don't worry, it wasn't yours.

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In addition to his super love of the bardic arts (especially with song & story), Dahrien enjoyed carving molds and casting pewter to make items both practical & decorative (mostly decorative, including his authorized "Savage Daughter" line of jewelry).  He has taught others in both fields, both in organized class settings, and in casual discussion and instruction, online and in person.  He also always loved learning various new crafting skills and producing items to enjoy[5].  Of course, Commedia Del Arte was yet another of his enthusiasms, combining his love of comedy, story, and the crowds' adulation.  The troupe i Verdi Confusi were good friends to Dahrien and provided many of his opportunities to participate on the stage, although he never got to portray his beloved Arlecchino with their company.

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[5]  He always maintained that it was the *tent* that was cursed, and not the new bed he had made.  (cf. "Measure At All, Cut Once" by Lorelei Skye, erroneously mis-titled "Dahrien vs. The Bed" by John Inchingham, O.L., O.P., Oh Poo.)

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Alas, dear friends, Dahrien Cordell has enjoyed his last time as Bardic Madness emcee and Loud Mouthpiece.  And so we close this writing with appropriate quotes from a few friends.  Thank you for your time and reading.

~ D ~ E ~ C ~ O ~ R ~ A ~ T ~ I ~ V ~ E  ~  ~ B ~ O ~ R ~ D ~ E ~ R ~ 

We are here today to mourn our good friend Dahrien.  He had innumerable qualities that defied description, but of those that the rest of us were able to comprehend, let it be said before one and all, this about our friend:  He was very well heard.

-- Andreas Blackwode

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He passed on as he lived... making Efanwalt Whistle say both, "You're weeeeird.  I knew I liked you," and later, "I don't like you anymore."

-- Aífe ingen Chonchobhair in Derthaige

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He was a man of industry, never meeting a scheme for fun that he did not attempt, often with... interesting results.  Lawsuits are still pending...

-- Gwendolyn the Graceful

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Has *nobody* mentioned Pop-Tarts™️ yet?!?

-- Aibhilin inghean Daibhidh

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He *insisted* on being my squire… even though I am not, and have never been, a Knight or Master At Arms.

-- also Gwendolyn the Graceful (same one)

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A good filk is something that you really, really wish you didn't like.  Dahrien was a bard that wrote filks with a reckless abandon, without regard for whether people liked them or wished they didn't.  If a filk could walk the earth and smile at people as it snuck up on them -- it might look like Dahrien.

-- Owen Alun

~~~

... And finally ...

"You are my Antichrist!"

-- Mateo de Madrid, in an autograph on one of his CDs for Dahrien

[It was later clarified, however, that Mateo had meant "antithesis".]