Please sign up for no more than 4 challenges. On the day of the event, if there are additional slots left in your desired challenges, you may sign up for 2 more.
One performance per person per challenge (no signing up twice in the same challenge).
Challenges are competitions with yourself, not others. Please do not attempt to turn them into contests by implying a single winner of any given challenge.
You are encouraged to let someone know if their performance specifically impressed them. To get in contact with a performer, try in private chat first, then public chat, then ask staff. Take notes of the details of a particular performer/performance so others can identify the person you’re talking about if you ask.
ALL PERFORMANCES must be under 7 minutes in length. This time should include any introduction and “footnotes”. If you are not sure if your piece is under 7 minutes, please time it beforehand rather than assuming.
Your piece doesn’t have to have been created during the SCA’s historical period, but performances should be in some way related to SCA or period-appropriate topics, e.g.: a poem about traveling on a family vacation is not appropriate, while a poem about the same family traveling to Gulf Wars or on a pilgrimage to Canterbury is.
This is a family show. If you have a bawdy piece, it might be more appreciated after 10-ish at the post-revel tonight.
If you didn’t write the piece you are performing, remember to give credit. If you don’t know who wrote it, ask, someone will know!
Have fun, be creative, put your heart into it!
If We Can’t Be at Pennsic, at Least We Can Be Warm: Get up out of your chair and lead us all in some type of warm-up for the start of our Challenge Day, whether it be for the body, the voice, the sense of humor, or the mental health! Patron: HL Ishmael Stedfast Reed, Atlantia
Dude, Where’s My Arm?: During this time when we can only hold events online, let your imagination go wild, and invent a new SCA event that has never existed. Give us the name, theme, special activities, classes…all the details. It could be something you’ve dreamed of actually doing, or something ridiculous, or something you made up just for the cool name. Patron: Heer Thomas de Groet, Ansteorra
Blow Someone Else’s Horn: Perform the work of some other SCA person, either as tribute to someone who could not be with us at the event, or to show off the work of a friend who’s there. Extra applause for memorizing, and for performing something that is not well-known. Patron: Lady Kale Melachrine, Northshield
Cheerful Period Piece Challenge: Some of the most moving pieces from SCA period are mournful or regretful. This challenge is NOT the place for them! We want your cheerful, celebratory, upbeat pieces (prose/poetry/song/instrumental/etc.) that are either a) created during SCA period or b) created explicitly with the intent of exhibiting a period technical style. Patron: Lady Iselda de Narbonne, Atlantia
Oh no!: Many stories hinge on that moment when bad news is delivered, whether it’s to a protagonist, antagonist, or everyone. In any format, please relay to us a narrative that has one of those “Oh no!” moments. Extra applause if it’s an SCA-period “Oh no!” moment that actually has someone saying the equivalent of, “Oh no!”, in their own language, style, or slang. Patron: Mistress Rosalind Jehanne, Atlantia
Pondering what might be: Bring a riddle and ask it of the audience. For those who like spontaneous challenges, topics will also be available on the website on the day of the event. Patron: Master Owen Alun, Northshield
-- Send a DM to Owen Alun (if you see me in a zoom room or in discord during the event) or email owenalun (at) gmail (dot) com to receive riddle prompts for the riddle challenge --
Instrumental challenge: Bring out your fipple flutes, tabors and vielles, or whatever instrument you play! If you need a theme, try “Love the One You’re With”. No singing/reciting unless it’s accompanied by an instrument. Patron: Mistress Teleri the Well-Prepared, Atlantia
Poetry Challenge: Welsh Englyn: Welsh englynion (plural of englyn) are some of the oldest forms of poetry in the Welsh language–certainly the oldest forms using set stanzas and a form of meter using counts of syllables or stresses. Write a poem in Englyn milwr (“soldier’s englyn”), one of the two oldest forms (see below for example) Patron: Lord Dai Gerdwr, Midrealm
Each stanza is 3 lines, 7 syllables each, with a single rhyme. This type of poem was typically a praise or a satire of a person or principal, often from a soldier’s point of view.
For a greater challenge, follow the rule that each line must contain some form of cynghanedd (“harmony”), which is Welsh alliteration and/or internal rhyme. There will be a class on cynghanedd during the week before Bardic Madness, or you can refer to the short guide available at: Welsh Poetry Handout. My own feeble example:
They asks to me this question,
Why officers face razzin’
(Or maybe worse, the cursin’?)
My ’orse is more sensible
Realistic, reliable -
And ’e’s indispensable.
- Dai Gerdwr (mka Bill Sutton) 2020
Word Salad: Given a list (Click here for the list!) of words having to do with our theme of “High Emotion, High Hopes”, compose either a poem of no more than ten lines OR a song with one verse and a chorus, incorporating ten of the selected words. (Poetry or song only for this challenge, no stories please.) Extra applause if you use ALL the words! Patron: THL Fiondel Songspinner, Calontir
Bard Scribe Illuminator: Given the subject "Longing for Home", compose, calligraph, and illuminate a text (prose, poem, or song) that illustrates it. This may be done as an individual or in teams. During this challenge you should plan to show the finished (or not-quite-finished) illumination by screen-share or e-mailing a digital photo to bardicmadnessonline@gmail.com. Performance of the text is optional, but encouraged! Patron: Magistra Adelaide de Beaumont, Ansteorra
---Subject: Longing for Home ---
Ira et Patientia (Wrath and Patience): Life is full of challenges; often the way we respond to these challenges profoundly affects the outcome of the situation. Perform a piece that explores how a response of anger or exceptional patience changed the course of a story. Patron: THL Sivrid Brumbach, Midrealm
To the High Thrones: Perform a Kingdom/Principality/Baronial/Shire anthem (defined as a song in praise of a place and/or its crowned/coronetted leader(s)). This must be an anthem of somewhere you do NOT currently live (i.e., you moved away, or you just like learning anthems from other places!). Patron: THL Adalia Solario, Northshield
Email bardicmadnessonline@gmail.com with questions!