A bottle of Mead
This story is about a Mead and, some friends I have in the SCA, one being the head of my house hold. We were sitting around one night I think it was New years eve about two years ago if memory serves me right. We were discussing Events we had been to and people we had met. Most of our stories begin with "no shit there I was....". Anyway we had been talking about people we knew and a name came up of a lord I had met one night at an event called GulfWars.
Now at bigger event there are groups of people that wander from site to site looking for the best party. This lord came in with such a group but stayed behind when they had left. Him and a few brewing members of our house were talking shop. I wasn't to interested at the time but I was half listening half watching the stars. I'm a city boy so the stars at night out in the woods seem so bright to me.
This lord tapped me on my shoulder and handed me a bottle of Mead. It was in a recycled 'BlueNun' bottle so I couldn't tell the color of what he gave me. Filling my mug part way I took a sip of what was like liquid heaven. The flavors filled the mouth, the sent overwhelmed the nose and it was a very strong mead so there was a warm burn, not harsh but there. There were just hints of different flavors like cinnamon,nutmeg, vanilla and strawberries and maybe other berries as well. I praised it and he smiled and said he had better at home this was what he brought to give away at events.
Anyway we sat and talked this little group by the fire till that bottle was gone and a few of it's friends as well. Then he got up and bid us good night. That was the last time I would ever see that gentle man but I thought nothing of it. I've had a dozen such encounters. In fact I didn't even learn his name.
As I said his name came up at a New years eve party though I didn't recognise it of course. The head of my house was talking about his one and only trip he had made to Pensics and the man he had met there. He described the fellow a stocky man with a beard and slightly thinning hair. Well that description matches hundreds of people in the SCA including myself. He told us about the second week at Pensics when he had helped this lord unload and set up and how he had partied with them all that week. Sharing his food supplies for large communal dinners each night, helping keep up the camp site, going for ice and never forgetting to bring them back one.
In a week the head of my house and this lord became good friends and after the event they kept in touch by phone and Internet. A couple of days before that New years party the head of my house called up the lord to wish him a Merry Christmas. The man's daughter answered the phone. Her father had passed away two weeks before from a heart attack.
The head of my house was near to tears as he told us this and he went into his house to collect himself.
When he came back out he was carrying a bottle and ask us if we would mind joining him in a toast to his friend as the hour neared midnight.
As he pulled the cork I saw the 'BlueNun' bottle. When I raised my glass and took a sip it was the same taste of liquid heaven I remembered from those years ago down in Mississippi.
What you craft with honey and yeast may well out live even yourself. What you craft with friendship and love.. well that will be remembered even when all your Mead is gone.
to memories
Tarot.
This story is about a Mead and, some friends I have in the SCA, one being the head of my house hold. We were sitting around one night I think it was New years eve about two years ago if memory serves me right. We were discussing Events we had been to and people we had met. Most of our stories begin with "no shit there I was....". Anyway we had been talking about people we knew and a name came up of a lord I had met one night at an event called GulfWars.
Now at bigger event there are groups of people that wander from site to site looking for the best party. This lord came in with such a group but stayed behind when they had left. Him and a few brewing members of our house were talking shop. I wasn't to interested at the time but I was half listening half watching the stars. I'm a city boy so the stars at night out in the woods seem so bright to me.
This lord tapped me on my shoulder and handed me a bottle of Mead. It was in a recycled 'BlueNun' bottle so I couldn't tell the color of what he gave me. Filling my mug part way I took a sip of what was like liquid heaven. The flavors filled the mouth, the sent overwhelmed the nose and it was a very strong mead so there was a warm burn, not harsh but there. There were just hints of different flavors like cinnamon,nutmeg, vanilla and strawberries and maybe other berries as well. I praised it and he smiled and said he had better at home this was what he brought to give away at events.
Anyway we sat and talked this little group by the fire till that bottle was gone and a few of it's friends as well. Then he got up and bid us good night. That was the last time I would ever see that gentle man but I thought nothing of it. I've had a dozen such encounters. In fact I didn't even learn his name.
As I said his name came up at a New years eve party though I didn't recognise it of course. The head of my house was talking about his one and only trip he had made to Pensics and the man he had met there. He described the fellow a stocky man with a beard and slightly thinning hair. Well that description matches hundreds of people in the SCA including myself. He told us about the second week at Pensics when he had helped this lord unload and set up and how he had partied with them all that week. Sharing his food supplies for large communal dinners each night, helping keep up the camp site, going for ice and never forgetting to bring them back one.
In a week the head of my house and this lord became good friends and after the event they kept in touch by phone and Internet. A couple of days before that New years party the head of my house called up the lord to wish him a Merry Christmas. The man's daughter answered the phone. Her father had passed away two weeks before from a heart attack.
The head of my house was near to tears as he told us this and he went into his house to collect himself.
When he came back out he was carrying a bottle and ask us if we would mind joining him in a toast to his friend as the hour neared midnight.
As he pulled the cork I saw the 'BlueNun' bottle. When I raised my glass and took a sip it was the same taste of liquid heaven I remembered from those years ago down in Mississippi.
What you craft with honey and yeast may well out live even yourself. What you craft with friendship and love.. well that will be remembered even when all your Mead is gone.
to memories
Tarot.
