curiouswombat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
curiouswombat) wrote2012-08-26 08:20 pm
curiouswombat) wrote2012-08-26 08:20 pm
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What I Did On My Holidays... Day 4
So - a week ago today Gill and I were up bright and early - well, early anyway... you can tell how dedicated we were by the fact that we were eating our breakfast well before 8a.m. on a Sunday!
Gill went to an early morning talk on 'Tolkien's Women of Arda' followed by 'Tolkien and the Feminine'. I thought I might get rather aerated (my uncle's use of the word!) by contemplations of 'the female archetypes of the Madonna, the Lover, the Remarkable Woman and the Mother.' I was probably right - Gill was ready to poke the person who gave that first talk with a very sharp stick...
Instead, I went to a 9.00a.m. talk in which Nils Ivar Agoy spoke on 'Vague or Vivid? Descriptions in The Lord of the Rings' - including quoting some idiot academic who declared LotR could not be 'literature' because JRRT gave more description of how places 'felt' than photographic details of how they looked. Nils Ivar did not agree, thank goodness, or I might have needed that sharp stick!
He had to keep chopping bits out of his talk to fit into the time, and allow the next speaker to start on time. This was a lady who read out her paper on 'Frodo and Faramir: Mirrors of Chivalry'. It was interesting but I would have preferred her to talk about her paper rather than read it, to be honest. And she read it so quickly that she had finished with 20 minutes to spare - so poor Nils Ivar could have told us more quite easily!
I spent quite a bit of time watching demonstrations of combat by la Compagnie du Dragon Vert - The Company of the Green Dragon. If you have time do follow this link to their website - and then look at their photo galleries. They camped on a small patch of grass on campus, and lived the life of, largely, the Rohirrim for four whole days. And yes - they cooked all their food, and slept in their tents.
I loved this slight anachronism...
And this is one of my very favourite pictures I took all conference;
Note the Gondorian shield in the background - more of it, and the person who wields it, in a minute!
So - earlier in the weekend one the women of the Rohirrim had shown me her tapestry work, but I didn't take a picture, I'm afraid. But I did get the camera out to see the display of fighting.
Those who know my stories set in Middle Earth will understand why I was so amused to see a young Rohir with a ribbon worked into his braid...
At one stage he threw his sword up into the air, let it turn, and caught it again by the handle - a trick I have read of Éomer doing, more than once. But here he is just twirling it as he passes a couple of Riders in chain mail.
Before wielding it in a practice bout.
The round shield in the background, more of a buckler, was 'of the style of the Dunlendings', we were told.
Watching the action were these guys -
Who are Gondorian Spearmen - and they showed us their style of fighting, too. Both in defence (the smallest shield-wall ever, our young Rohir said - he spoke excellent English)...
And then spear to spear -
On Sunday I attended the Arda Slam with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
altariel and edge_of_ruin. Six different people had 10 minutes to put forward their own personal theory about something found in the works of Tolkien, and then the audience, in small groups, gave them scores out of 10. Our small group of three gave one poor man 1 (or was it 2?) for poor background research because he mixed up Babylon 5 with Deep Space 9 - an unforgivable sin in altariel's eyes!
The winner was Anna Thayer who divided the audience into three groups, plus Bilbo; we were 'dwarves, men and elves', or 'goblins and wargs', or eagles - all had our part to play as she illustrated the concept of eucatastrophe - just great fun!
The final talk on Sunday was a keynote one from Brian Sibley - we learnt about his production of LotR for BBC radio in the 1970s (I have just bookmarked the CDs - it is a long time since I heard it, and even then it was in bits here and there, I fear!) - to his role as the official biographer of Peter Jackson. We learnt about why he has a copy of Tom Bombadil signed by the author rather than one of the Hobbit or LotR (weight/postage/poor student!) which includes a 'minor correction by hand' from JRRT; the shock Sir Michael Horden got when recording the Bridge of Khazad-dûm - and Sir Michael's opinion of CS Lewis. We also found out what caused Brian Sibley to become a paparazzi target - and so much more.
There was a banquet planned for Sunday evening - when we were planning our weekend, Gill and I thought it looked very expensive and decided against it. We discovered that Altariel and Edge of Ruin had made the same decision - so we all four retired to Burleigh Court for dinner. This was a Very Good Move - the food was excellent, and the company & conversation even better!
Tomorrow the last few pictures, and a few last conference thoughts!
ETA - for some reason S2C is only seeing the photos in his journal as if they are all portrait - he is missing the side of the landscape ones and insists it must be something I have done - can other people tell that about half of them are landscape, or do you keep wondering what I can be talking about as much of what I mention is missing?
ETA2 - No - it was his fault... they seem to be posted fine.
Gill went to an early morning talk on 'Tolkien's Women of Arda' followed by 'Tolkien and the Feminine'. I thought I might get rather aerated (my uncle's use of the word!) by contemplations of 'the female archetypes of the Madonna, the Lover, the Remarkable Woman and the Mother.' I was probably right - Gill was ready to poke the person who gave that first talk with a very sharp stick...
Instead, I went to a 9.00a.m. talk in which Nils Ivar Agoy spoke on 'Vague or Vivid? Descriptions in The Lord of the Rings' - including quoting some idiot academic who declared LotR could not be 'literature' because JRRT gave more description of how places 'felt' than photographic details of how they looked. Nils Ivar did not agree, thank goodness, or I might have needed that sharp stick!
He had to keep chopping bits out of his talk to fit into the time, and allow the next speaker to start on time. This was a lady who read out her paper on 'Frodo and Faramir: Mirrors of Chivalry'. It was interesting but I would have preferred her to talk about her paper rather than read it, to be honest. And she read it so quickly that she had finished with 20 minutes to spare - so poor Nils Ivar could have told us more quite easily!
I spent quite a bit of time watching demonstrations of combat by la Compagnie du Dragon Vert - The Company of the Green Dragon. If you have time do follow this link to their website - and then look at their photo galleries. They camped on a small patch of grass on campus, and lived the life of, largely, the Rohirrim for four whole days. And yes - they cooked all their food, and slept in their tents.
I loved this slight anachronism...
And this is one of my very favourite pictures I took all conference;
Note the Gondorian shield in the background - more of it, and the person who wields it, in a minute!
So - earlier in the weekend one the women of the Rohirrim had shown me her tapestry work, but I didn't take a picture, I'm afraid. But I did get the camera out to see the display of fighting.
Those who know my stories set in Middle Earth will understand why I was so amused to see a young Rohir with a ribbon worked into his braid...
At one stage he threw his sword up into the air, let it turn, and caught it again by the handle - a trick I have read of Éomer doing, more than once. But here he is just twirling it as he passes a couple of Riders in chain mail.
Before wielding it in a practice bout.
The round shield in the background, more of a buckler, was 'of the style of the Dunlendings', we were told.
Watching the action were these guys -
Who are Gondorian Spearmen - and they showed us their style of fighting, too. Both in defence (the smallest shield-wall ever, our young Rohir said - he spoke excellent English)...
And then spear to spear -
On Sunday I attended the Arda Slam with
altariel and edge_of_ruin. Six different people had 10 minutes to put forward their own personal theory about something found in the works of Tolkien, and then the audience, in small groups, gave them scores out of 10. Our small group of three gave one poor man 1 (or was it 2?) for poor background research because he mixed up Babylon 5 with Deep Space 9 - an unforgivable sin in altariel's eyes!The winner was Anna Thayer who divided the audience into three groups, plus Bilbo; we were 'dwarves, men and elves', or 'goblins and wargs', or eagles - all had our part to play as she illustrated the concept of eucatastrophe - just great fun!
The final talk on Sunday was a keynote one from Brian Sibley - we learnt about his production of LotR for BBC radio in the 1970s (I have just bookmarked the CDs - it is a long time since I heard it, and even then it was in bits here and there, I fear!) - to his role as the official biographer of Peter Jackson. We learnt about why he has a copy of Tom Bombadil signed by the author rather than one of the Hobbit or LotR (weight/postage/poor student!) which includes a 'minor correction by hand' from JRRT; the shock Sir Michael Horden got when recording the Bridge of Khazad-dûm - and Sir Michael's opinion of CS Lewis. We also found out what caused Brian Sibley to become a paparazzi target - and so much more.
There was a banquet planned for Sunday evening - when we were planning our weekend, Gill and I thought it looked very expensive and decided against it. We discovered that Altariel and Edge of Ruin had made the same decision - so we all four retired to Burleigh Court for dinner. This was a Very Good Move - the food was excellent, and the company & conversation even better!
Tomorrow the last few pictures, and a few last conference thoughts!
ETA - for some reason S2C is only seeing the photos in his journal as if they are all portrait - he is missing the side of the landscape ones and insists it must be something I have done - can other people tell that about half of them are landscape, or do you keep wondering what I can be talking about as much of what I mention is missing?
ETA2 - No - it was his fault... they seem to be posted fine.
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