However you feel about the award system in the SCA, there is one facet that I find incredibly special: the scrolls. The amount of thought, artistry, and scholarship that goes into the production of SCA scrolls is incredible. It’s even more incredible when the scribal team takes the time to make something truly personal for the recipient. And one such case happend with Hakon.

When Hrefna reached out to tell me that Their Majesties wanted to give Hakon his Kraken (for non-Atlantians, this is the Grant of Arms award for martial activities) at Holiday Fair 2023, we knew exactly who we wanted to reach out to regarding the scroll. Hakon has long been an admirer of Kolfinna’s scrolls (he’s got several and they even have their own wall in their home) and between her and Ishmael, who composed the words, they blew it out of the park with his actual scroll. The scroll is done on a large sheet of metal, modeled after Hakon’s fighting helmet that he made with Chevalier Beauchamp Paul based on the Gjermundbu helm. Hakon’s got a great write up of the helm process here.

One aspect of Hakon’s scroll is the poem is in runes. I won’t pretend to know what kinds of runes or any of the translation process but I do know that we wanted Hakon to be able to know what was said. Ishmael did a phenomenal job on the poem, in “alliterative verse in the style and content of the Húsdrápa by skald Ulfr Uggason. Learn more here and here.”

The poem itself reads:

This Gift-of-Grimnir now gives earned praise

To a fierce fighter, feeder-of-ravens

Hakon here known, for whom it’s said

The battle-barks fold and break, shivered

By burly blows, bite of blood-worm. 

Like the Serpent-Striker in sea-cart caught

The girdle of green earth, Jormungandr,

Who bait-gallows bit, was brought above

And eye-to-eye met iron-breasted Thor,

Just so, Shield-Breaker, Hakon Seal-named

Hooked and hauled up test-of-heroes,

The many-armed, mighty sea-born monster

Called here Kraken, Carrack’s-bane,

And with it wrestled, never withered

Nor severed sea-rope to spare his prey. 

Rightly We Ring-Givers, in first rule of Abran,

Beam of the bench-road of broad Atlantia,

And dear Anya, Destroyer of Deceit,

Subduer of strife, sat side-by-side

Do make thee Kraken. Come! Grant we Arms:

“On cloth-of-gold, a cobalt pall encased by raven pair”

At Yule-tide ewe-trade and Yearling Faire 

Of Cattle-carers, kinsmen of Jarls.

From nineteenth of ninth month, (by Rome’s number), 

Three small of sixty-year, (as Society counts),

Until Ragnarok razes the realms of men.

In order to share the work around, I volunteered to write out the English for him. Hakon was a fan of the work I did on Esa’s apprenticeship contract a little while back, and I was relatively confident that I could do something similar here. It’s not at all fancy, but it lets the words speak for themselves and that’s good enough for me. It is written in the style of the Book of Kells, which while not from the same geographical region as Hakon’s persona, is contemporaneous.

I have never tried anything like this before and to say it was a learning experience is an understatement. I knew I wanted to use the fude nib pen that I used for that project as well- it has a comfortable line weight and will hold up to being read across a room better than my fine tip pen. It took several hours of lettering practice and three tries at the document itself before I was truly happy with it. The biggest challenge I encountered was spacing, both of the lines and of the letters. First they were too close, then they were too far and finding that middle ground took me some finagling and not a small amount of diatribe against the imperial system. Kolfinna was a life saver and provided some much needed resources on achieving that spacing. And then, just when I was happy with the spacing, I stuck my elbow in wet ink and ruined it.

On Attempt #3, I realized two things that helped immensely. First, that instead of working down each column, I could work from the top of the page down to the bottom, thereby preventing any future elbow incidents. Second, that I could rest my hand on a spare piece of paper instead of on my work, preventing too much smudging. These seem really obvious now that the work is done, but man, do I feel better for having considered both of these ideas.