Shona of Red Wolf

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Information
Registered Name: Shona of Red Wolf Resides: Kingdom of Northshield Status: Inactive Joined SCA: Summer 1978
Order of Precedence
Shona of Red Wolf
Heraldry
Per pale embattled sable and argent, in fess a wolf's head erased Or langed and orbed gules and another reversed gules, langed and orbed Or. Device Graphic by Zubeydah and Art by Jessimond of Emerickeskepe

Lady Shona of Red Wolf

Previously Known As:
Nickname(s): "Chickenslayer" - There's a story there!
Pronouns: She/her

Offices:

• Local Offices Held
  • Seneschal of the Shire of Raven's Fort
  • Pursuivant Extraordinaire / Herald of the Shire of Raven's Fort
  • Herald of the Barony of Raven's Fort

• Regional Offices Held

• Kingdom Offices Held

Persona History:

LaTiene period Celt, in the area of Gaul.

Interests:

• Voice and book heraldry: Working in the college of arms of Ansteorra back in the early days, there wasn't anything electronic. We all carried around these enormous notebooks. The first printout was just reams and reams of paper.
• Knight Marshal
• Recruitment
• I made a lot of my own garb! I still have one piece, and a pair of shoes I made back in the early 1980s!

Timeline of Activity:

1970s

• In the summer of 1978, I was in Minnesota at the time, and I went to the science museum. There was a fellow named Albert Cofield. He was in the children's science section. At the time I was 17 years old. We got to talking about medieval and renaissance things, and he told me about the SCA. He gave me a little pamphlet on mimeograph about the SCA. We came back from vacation, to Texas, and at the time I was living in Bryant College Station, now know as the Shire of the Shadowlands. That's where I became a member. I found them by accident; we were driving past a park, and they were out there beating on each other with swords and plywood shields! I wondered if that was Albert was talking about. I had my mom pull over, and I ran into the park to meet everyone. They had a sponsor there on campus, and so that's where I started playing. The first event I attended was a little shire event. My first costume was a loaner polyester caftan. I had a rectangular gauze fabric that I had hand-stitched into a sash, and my mom took this as proof I really was interested.

• I was in Shadowlands for a couple years, until I graduated in 1979. My parents bought me a sewing machine as a graduation present, and I used it to stitch some fringe onto that first sash I ever made.

• 1979-ish: We had an event at a Quonset hut, hosted by the Shire of Shadowlands, where Ansteorra got our 500th member. I was there, then. Sir Simonn of Amber Isle and Tessa of the Gardens, his consort - a very lovely couple! - were there. Lord Starhelm and his consort, Lady Neerak, were there, having traveled from Meridies, I think. There was a fellow there named John the Plain of Shearn. Don David Gallowglass was there, too. I was still in high school at the time.

• That fall, I was going to go to Sam Houston State University, and someone said they thought there was some SCA there. I had a t-shirt made up, a black tee with white, with “SCA” printed across the top, and a big golden astrolabe across the belly. I was actively looking - advertising! - promoting and looking for the SCA.

• Every weekend, we would go out to the Texas Renaissance Festival in garb with the rest of the shire and recruit. We were allowed to have a tiny little hut to store armor in. Later, they were allowed to build a larger building. There was kind of a symbiotic relationship between the Texas RenFaire. There was a liaison between the SCA and the faire - Telburne and Janet of House Morningstar - that we worked with. There was another lady who was very nice - Lady Melusine WhiteCroft the Petite. Because we had such a close relationship, pretty much everyone who was anyone in Ansteorra was there. I'd say we had between 50 - 200 people at the RenFaire each weekend. We operated sort of like on-site security, and were good at helping out if some of the patrons got intoxicated. This went on through the eighties. (The SCA was permitted to run three events at the RenFaire site. We had a little village there. We did King of the Log, Fight The Knight, and Skittles - it became a form of fundraiser. In the compound, we would do arts and sciences demos and rapier combat. In one of the buildings that we built, there was crash space for folks to rest and also guard the items we had stashed there.)

• Back in those days, we were trying, well, anything. Building an experience out of whole cloth. Back then, you couldn't buy armor. Guys would go out and find carpet remnants, and cut holes out of it, and duct tape it around their bodies. Another fellow came up with basket armor, and used the metal bands to weave together to build armor. There were chrome hubcaps from European cars, turned into bucklers. People were so creative and brilliant, engineering things. There were Frisbee bucklers for fencing. I witnessed them making the first boffer dagger, and weapons that were for tavern fights, such as the turkey leg boffer, and the boffer tankard!

1980s

• Towards the first part of 1980-ish, there was a fellow named Hans Durrmast Von der Wanderlust, who was a student of Don Tivar Moondragon (1). I found him accidentally; his room mate was in my English class, and mentioned that his roommate had a sword... He had a swashbuckling persona. At the time, we needed three people to make a shire. I thought I'd go ahead and do the seneschal, and he could be Knight's Marshal. He had just acquired a girlfriend, and there was the room mate, too... Within about 6 months, I found a fellow and his girlfriend - Zorkon and Gwyn. Gwyn was originally from France, and had this wonderful culinary background. We decided to put a feast together! My studies were getting pretty heavy at the time, so I asked Dormouse to take Seneschal, and said I could take the job of Herald. He said he would do so. His roommate stepped up to Knight Marshal, and Zorkon helped. We got a huge trash can, filled it with wine and spices, and tossed several chickens in there. We marinated them for three days. We were going to cook them on a grill, with other items for feast. It started raining! So we hung a tarp over where the grill was, and where we were preparing things. I was quartering chickens there, in the rain, with a double sided Gerber knife. I think there was something like 50 to 75 people at that event, so we went through lots and lots of chicken. That's how I got the nickname of Chickenslayer! (1) Tivar, at that time, was in the process of developing the first handout for rapier combat in Ansteorra. Everything was pretty loose at that time - there wasn't a lot of tight rules, let me put it that way. Not a lot of Peerages. Everyone kind of mingled nicely. There was no wall between the peerages and the populace, just a tight camaraderie)

• In the early 1980s, there were so many wonderful songs being written and performed. There was so much cross pollination with the SciFi/Fantasy cons, so those songs were coming out of the filking communities. Performing during different courses at feast - the whole crowd would get involved. The after-hours parties were spectacular, too!

• For the summer of 1984, I lived in Bryn Gwlad, and played with them for a bit. I attended Barbarian, which is held in a giant pasture with an ancient, old swimming pool in it. It was held in the heat of the summer, and because it was summer, most of us didn't wear much in the line of clothing. It was a camping event, and Vlad Ravena, called Starkraven, hosted a LARP game where one would go to different stations and ferret out clues, or fight. Vlad had figured out some of the clues, and was going to leap over some shrubs, and didn't realize there was a ravine behind the shrubs. He was only wearing a long, light tunic, and nothing else. He was caught up in a dewberry bush, with long sticker thorns, and got pretty scraped up.

• In Late 1984, there was a fellow named Shamino. He had been out to CAID, and he'd been working for one of the early video game companies. He was well to do, and decided to cater the whole feast. He rented a beautiful hall down near Houston, and had it catered! He was such a magnificent, stupendous fellow. I remember one time, he gave me this wonderful hug, and it felt like his whole heart had given me that hug.

• Where we were situated in Huntsville, in Raven's Fort, we were sort of at a crossroads for several of the baronies in the area. Because we were all operating in kind of a communal style, while I was helping, we didn't generally point to one person being in charge of the event.

• One of the folks I would hang out with was Adelbrecht of Stonekeep, who later moved to Australia. I also knew Arendel, who later became a lady in waiting to Inman's Queen. She helped me get my Award of Arms - she was the first person who bothered to ask if I had one. I had been involved for about six years at that point, and it was hard to see so many others being recognized for the same things I was doing, and being forgotten. I have wondered, some times, if it was because I was out as a lesbian, at a time when that was not very acceptable.

• 1983 - 1985 : There was an event held every year at Arenvald Kief av Kiersted's property, called Quest of the Clover. We got these huge woks, and did a massive stir fry for everyone. We laid out a large game area, and through the course of the weekend, you could go on quests. By the end of the weekend, you'd try to figure out where the clover was. Sometimes it was an object, such as a pot of shamrocks, or it might be a person. You had to figure it out. I would help out each year at one of the stations. One year, I was at a station in this tent, in a fairly deep part of the property. I peeped out of the tent, and there were hundreds of these little bluebirds, which only occur if you have an undisturbed natural environment. It was a magical moment to witness.

• I got to attend and witness many Coronations during the 80s, and remember those of the Once and Every Other King, Inman MacMoore.

• I sat down with a tape recorder and recorded the early history of Raven's Fort. I told the story of our heraldry and our group. I was partly disabled, so I could not type it, but I made a tape. I don't know what ever happened to it. I heard that later my work was claimed by another, and that hurt.

• 1985-ish, we became a Barony in Raven's Fort. I wasn't able to attend the first Investiture. They apparently opened a number of orders, gave a number of awards, then closed the orders, so no one who wasn't there, ever got them. This was really hurtful, as I had helped and contributed for years at this point.

• Spring of 1985: I graduated from college, and went back to the Shadowlands. I became less active for a time, but would check in each year with the Renaissance Festival.

• I remember the wonderful feasts that we had, and the dancing. I remember dancing the Bryn Gwylad Brawl, Hole in the Wall, and Kidnapping. The feasts we attended were just magnificent. Everyone would decorate their particular table or place setting, and we would dine by candle-light.

• 1989: Rejoined, returning to Raven's Fort, to work on my Master's degree. I was there until 1991.

1991

• Summer of 1991, I moved to Milwaukee (despite the very fresh horror of what Jeffery Dahlmer had just done, there.) I largely became inactive at that point; I attended a few events, but work was very busy and I had to hang up my garb.
  

Prior Groups:

• Shire of the Shadowlands
• Shire of Raven's Fort
• Barony of Raven's Fort

Notable Contributions or Accomplishments:

• Founding member, Shire of Raven's Fort
• I was heavily involved in recruiting, and personally got two dozen people to join the SCA, including the first Baron of Raven's Fort, Arenvald Kief av Kiersted.
• As group herald, helped design arms for most of the Shire of Shadowlands
• Recorded the first history of Raven's Fort on audio cassette. I don't know if it still exists anywhere.
• I came up with the name and the arms for the Barony of Raven's Fort: The Walls Unit sort of looked like a fort. Sam Houston was known by the native people in the area as The Raven. The arms of the Barony are white and red embattled - that would be the Walls Unit - and there's the raven above. Below, there's a roundel, with a wreath. That white roundel is a hole - there was a StarTrek reference of the The Hole in the Deck Gang - so that was the inside joke. (Our Raven had flown the coop.)

Non-Armigerous Awards and Recognitions:

• 1991 - Named as the Ambassador from the Barony of Raven's Fort to the SCA in Milwaukee. (Sadly, I didn't get to spend much time there.)

Affiliations:

• Matron of House Red Wolf
• Loosely affiliated with House Morningstar, but not a full member.

Mundane Information:

I have a BA in Art with a minor in Broadcasting from Sam Houston State University, and am working towards a degree in Art Therapy and Education. I received a certification Cosmetology in 1987. I'm presently retired. Member of P.E.O., and Eastern Star.