No body loues mee.

No body loues mee.

Nobody loves mee. 

To the tune of Philliday.
Translated into modern spelling by myself.

Now all my money is gone, how should I swagger?
Now may I sit alone with wooden Dagger
Robert and honest John with my host Kester,
Could drink a dozen cups out of a tester [1]
     If now I wash my throat
     Needs must I pawn my coat.
     Nobody loves me.

I florish with my friends while my coin lasted,
Now that my sudd[? ends ?]eir love's blasted, [2]
He and he with his pot [don't treat me kindly], [2]
While I could pay my shot ... loving me blindly: [2]
     Now that I have no Chink, [3]
     With the Ducks [4] may I drink,
     All my friends from me shrink,
     Nobody loves me.
   
My Hosts with a smile would entertain me,
Now like a varlet vile [5] does she disdain me
I had the Parlor before at my command,
Now in the kitchen I take up my standing: [6]
     Now all my revell ruff,
     Is turned to kitchen stuff,
     And I sing, Marry muff, [7]
     Nobody loves me.

When as I had no want, each one would lend me,
Now that my money is scant, they say, God send ye:
They leave Pearce-penniles, [8] with high disdaining,
And all are pitiless, to my complaining:
     Their words are guilded fair,
     Their deeds base copper ware,
     Now I am waxen bare,
     Nobody loves me.

Fair Maids would follow me fast for a Fayring, [9]
I was good company, Purse was not sparing:
The finest froe [10] in this town, I might have kissed her,
And perhaps laid her down, now I must miss her.
     Now that my money is lost,
     They bid me kiss the post,
     Was ever man thus crost, [11]
     Nobody loves me.

Top of my kin I thought, would not deny me,
When I do ask them ought, strait they pass by me
Nought but old proverbs on me they venter, [12]
Save nought in summer and starve in winter.
     Old Proverbs fly about,
     No money pull they out,
     Their hands have got the gout, [13]
     Nobody loves me.

Faith I'll go dig for more and if I find it,
Like rich Cobs [14] hand and foot, fast will I bind it.
And hide it in the hay untill it canker, [15]
Then farewell thriftlessness play, and good Ale Tanker:
     I'll drink plain whig [16] and whey, [17]
     Untill my dying day,
     Black pots brings all away,
     Nobody loves me.

I'll save my money I, to make a purchase
Or else before I die, for to build Churches:
Like worldlings every hower [18] will I be scraping,
Or like hell still for more will I be gaping:
     Ere I do spend my coin,
     I'll let my Carcas pine,
     And eat beans from the swine.
     Nobody loves me.

If I be once rich again, I wil be wiser,
And learne of money-men to be a Miser:
Rather then lend a groat [19] to one or other,
I'll help to cut his throat, were he my brother.
     I will shut up my door,
     Always against the poor,
     So Karls do get their store. [20]
     Nobody loves me.
   
[1] Large drinking vessel, like a fowler.
[2] Line is corrupted on the broadsheet.
[3] Coins; enough money to clink together.
[4] Literally ducks, as in drink water from a pond.
[5] Evil villain.
[6] Perhaps an allusion to being sent to the kitchen to work off an unpaid bill.
[7] Slang for nonsence
[8] Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Divell, (1592), a story about a man who has not met with good fortune.
[9] A gift, usally given or purchased at a fair.
[10] A cutting tool with handle and blade at right angles, possiblly being used here as a sexual innuendo.
[11] Crossed.
[12] A protuberant and often hollow anatomical structure; used here as "hollow words".
[13] A disease long atributed to rich people, or to people who eat a rich diet.
[14] A small Spanish coin, maybe? It's the most likely definition of 'cob' that fits the context. Definitely not the cob from an ear of corn (maze) and a small, docile mare doesn't make sense. Nor does a male swan, or the clay and straw used to make wattle and daub walls.
[15] Either rusts and becomes unidentifable, or grows like a canker sore.
[16] Water, an illusion to Scottish Presbyterians who were nicknamed whiggamores.
[17] Whey, the liquid seperated from curds during cheese making. Very drinkable, but not alcoholic.
[18] Hole.
[19] A silver coin worth 4 pennies.
[20] No clue. Karl can be short for Charles, which doesn't make sense in context. It also means "freeman" in Swedish. I don't know.

How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain

How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain

Giving the finger:

"Firstly, we must bid adieu to the two fingers formed into a V and used in an upward jerk. It just didn't exist as a recognized gesture this early. There is a popular myth that it developed around the time of the Battle of Agincourt when Welsh and English archers defiantly displayed their bow-pulling fingers to the French. But, sadly, it's only a myth. Evidence of the gesture before 1900 is severely lacking, and after that, it seems to have been confined to the working class in northern England until around 1930 and does not become an everyday expression in the rest of the Isles until the 1970s ... But do not despair: there were plenty of other rude gestures of equal potency, both homegrown and foreign."

I honestly don't know when Ruth Goodman sleeps. In addition to all of the documentaries she does, and the living history, she somehow finds time to write well written and well documented books. This book is not just a list of rude behavior, it's a history of why that behavior was rude, from contemporary sources. There is an entire chapter on how various groups of people walked and how that opened them up to ridicule on the streets and on the stage. Another chapter is on bowing and "taking the knee" and how one can be insulting while, at the same time, giving the required honorifics. How one could show contempt in the method on doffing one's hat or by using the wrong form of "you" when speaking to a superior. 

I highly recommend this book, as well as everything she has written.

400 scrolls for King and Country

And for Queen and Barony.

I completed by 400th scroll since I started actually taking it seriously, in 2011.

I think that it's fitting that this was the milestone (I didn't plan it this way) because this is an image that I did way back in the day when I didn't know what I was doing. Here and here for the complete scrolls.

This image comes from Citeaux Moralia in Job MS 173, fol 148, 

I changed the threshing flail into an axe and I was so proud, 8 or 9 years ago, that my illumination was just as good as my source. They were okay, I guess. Today, all I see are how bad they are. 

I have several posts about my method of painting that you can find on this blog (Check out here, here, here, here and here). But, I would like to reiterate one point, here. practice makes perfect. Now, I know that I am not perfect, and neither is my illumination skill, but seven years and 400 scrolls later and I can clearly see that I have improved.

Coloring is a stress reliever for myself; something I can do while relaxing on the couch watching TV. I do more scrolls than I get assignments, and I never work on one scroll at a time. So, I have plenty of practice. One cannot become a better illuminator if one does not constantly practice.

Keep records of what you do, scan your scrolls or take pictures of them, even the ones you screw up, and take notes about what kind of paint you use, or any techniques you try. Take classes whenever you can. Talk to other scribes. Ask if you can try their paint to see if you like it better. 

I am a perfect example of how anyone can do illumination. I don't think that my artistic skills are very high. I can't draw free-hand. I can't do perspective. I can't do gold leaf. I look at my scribal "peers" and see the work that they crank out and think that, by comparison, I'm barley coloring between the lines. 

I stick with early period designs because, I am told, I am kinda good at it. I haven't had any complaints from the people who have received my scrolls and my work gets their share of "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" when they are held up in court. I will most likely never stop seeing my scrolls as a pile of flaws and mistakes, but that should mean that I won't stop trying to get better, and I recommend that any reader who wishes to become a scribe take the same attitude: practice and always try to get better.  

And I was doing so well.

I must have been channeling the spirit of Charlie Brown.

Yikes.

My first scroll with my new pen and I made a blot. Right at the end of the text, no less. And I was so happy that I was unable to get the ink to fall off of the pen and then a drop of ink fell off in mid word.

Poo.

I had decided not to fix the mistake. I blotted up the excess ink with a napkin and just kept writing. I figured that anything that I would do to remove the blot would make the scroll look worse. Sometimes you just have to leave the mistake alone.

Googly eyes make everything better

Googly eyes make everything better

At the A&S Faire, today, if you wanted to fight or fence you had to make or display something A&S like. I put on the display table a cordial and a scroll, even though I wasn't planning on fencing. Ekat had put a bunch of crayons, pipe cleaners and other craft stuff. This morning, before Troll opened, I grabbed four pipe cleaners, made a little octopus, and stuck a pair of googly eyes on it (the 2nd one is on the other side of the head). At the end of the event, I went to grab my stuff and found that someone left a nice token for my A&S project.

Yeah, me!

Googly Eyes Make Everything Better

Googly Eyes Make Everything Better

A New Pen

I approve!

At War Practice, this year, I managed to make it to the scribal pavilion. A lady, who also attended, showed off her new glass dip pen. I never heard of such a thing. The lady, whose name I forgot four seconds after I was introduced (no disrespect to her, I'm just bad at names), let me try out her pen. I liked it. And I bought my own.

I found one on Amazon for about $10, and it showed up today. I was a bit worried because it is a glass pen, but it came in a really nice box.

This coffin is where my new pen is going to live. Like the lady's at War Practice, this pen was comfortable to hold. And pens are rarely comfortable for me: I've been dealing with RA for most of my life and gripping pens normally cause pain within a minute. This guy, no pain while I was farting around with it.

Now, the reason why the nice lady showed me her pen was because I had said that I do "kalligrafy" because my handwriting is so bad and that the finer the pen, the neater I can write. I had said that I would use a crow quill pen more if they could hold more ink. (I hate the fact that I have to dip the pen every 3rd or 4th letter). She then handed over her glass pen for me to try and told me that it hold a lot of ink.

So, here is the tip. The grooves spiral around the tip and holds a lot of ink and, get this, it doesn't drip and it's easy to clean.

Speaking of easy to clean, here's Deckster not helping me test my new pen.

I wasn't using all of that paper.

Currently he's chasing a twist-tie around my feet while I type this.

Here is my test of a single dip. This pen hold more ink than any of my calligraphy nibs and all of my crow quill nibs, combined. And, there was still ink left on the pen. I could get it to splatter if I whipped the pen, but normal shaking and moving did not cause any messes.

The pen also came with a glass rest to hold the pen up away from the paper. $10 well spent. I can't wait until my next assignment.