The Barony of Montengarde invites you to Spicy Samhain 2025!
Event Website Link Here
This is our Bardic Champion Event, but of course, there’s more:
When: Nov 1-2 2025
Where: Abbeydale Community Hall 821 Abbeydale Dr NE, Calgary, AB T2A 6N7, Canada
Cost:
Adult Event Registration – $35
Adult Member Discount Event Registration – $25
Youth Registration (0-17) – $0
Feast Cost: Adult/Youth (12 and up) $15
Event Stewards: Lucrenzia Iseppa Constantina di Arborea & Freydis Birthesdottir
Feast Steward: Sigfuss Thorwulfsson
Dessert Steward: Njall Vader
events@montengarde.org
Feast Details:
Prepare your taste buds for HL Sigfuss’ Fantabulous Chili, it will served with white tray buns, and cheese & sour cream in the side!
Dessert will be delicious cherry tarts
(Please note that because we are in the city limits, and our feast budget is limited, dietary requests will NOT be accommodated. )
Mistress Ellisif and Sir Kate are preparing a lunch by donation…. They even have Black Forest Cake Cupcakes for dessert.
A&S Display:
Have you made something worn (or used) “from the neck up”?
Please consider bringing it to Samhain for our A&S showcase!
These will be anonymous entries, with voting by guest appreciation. There are four categories, with prizes for the most popular item in each category.
Can’t make it to Samhain? If you can get your project to the event (and home safe again) remote entries are welcome!
Pre-registration is encouraged but not required. I’d like to encourage all entrants to “”stage”” their entries (hats on head forms, necklaces on stands, pipes in ashtrays, veil pins in a piece of linen, etc)
Categories include:
- All things shiny – metal projects like wire, pewter, bronze, iron, etc.
- Felted and formed – projects largely made of or supported by felt, sinamay, wet-felted, straw, buckram, etc
- Sewn projects – any projects that you’ve sewn, hemmed, etc
- Additional arts – carved, grown, mixed, research, or any other projects that don’t fit in the categories above
Drífa at lækjamoti
champion-as@montengarde.org
Bardic Championship “Field and Summit”:
The Montengarde Bardic Championship tournament is going to be held at Samhain on Nov 1, 2025. This is a call to the populace of Montengarde and the allied shires to come and test your bardic might! The competition will follow the philosophy of “Field and Summits” – the field is open to all but the summits are there to challenge and make us strive for greatness! To take the field one need only come with two family friendly, SCA appropriate performances of any variety: song, dance, poetry, spoken word, magic, puppetry, juggling, or any other style. All are welcome and encouraged to the stage! For those who are keen to challenge for the summit there are additional elements that you are encouraged to bring to the field:
- Two SCA appropriate pieces of any style
- 1 piece period documented,
- 1 piece can be either period or SCA-appropriate
- Go “Off Book” and memorize your piece
- If reading, please disguise any modern devices.
- Emphasize the entertainment qualities of your pieces.
- Are they not entertained!?
- Showcase your persona.
- Add production value: props, audience interaction, emotional connection
- Polished, well rehearsed performance
- Most importantly: Have fun!
- If you enjoy performing it, your audience will enjoy watching it!
We will use the Kingdom Championship rubric for scoring the performances and you can see them here:
But wait – you are new to this and are very nervous – don’t despair! Or – you have done this many times but could use a critical friend – worry not! I will happily work with anyone who is vying to help you develop, practice, or polish your performance. Whether it’s brainstorming ideas, battling stage fright, bettering your performance, or bringing the joy we can work together to help you reach the summit! I can be reached at champion-bard@montengarde.org and will be hosting a Bardic-Championship roundtable at the Montengarde taverns in August, September, and October to answer questions and/or work with anyone wishing to vie.
To vie, please send a letter of intent to their excellencies at excellencies@montengarde.org and cc me at champion-bard@montengarde.org no later than Friday, Oct 17 (yes, you have time. 🙂
So come! Take the field and seek the summits and strive to stand as Montengarde’s next Champion of Bardic Arts!
YIS
Alexander Blackadder
Montengarde Champion of Bardic
Archery and Missle Activities:
On Friday evening , that is the 31st, 6:30 PM at Archery World (3420 12st NE) Duke Sir Ellias…that’s me, will be teaching an Archery Master Class. I will be going over form and focus as well as instruction on how to improve your aim and grouping at long ranges. There is no cost for the class but Archery World lane fees apply ($15.00) So come out and kick your archery game up and notch!
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE
On Saturday at the hall our very own Dragonblinder, Sigfus Thorwulson, will be hosting a Tabletop Siege Engine Competition.
We will have scale models of various siege engines for you to fire off and see who can cause the most mayham. Come try out the traditional a Trebuchet, rolling siege towers, the Da Vinci Catapult and an exact scale model of the “Stirling Warwolf” the largest siege engine ever built.
I will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about siege warfare as well as how you can participate in SCA Siege in war!!
The competition starts at 9:00 AM and runs for 1 hour. It is open to all ages and skills. Marshals will be on hand to assist you with your devastation. Maniacal laughing is not required but is encouraged.
Hope to see you all there.
Yours in Service
Duke Sir Ellias
Rapier:
Good day good gentles!!!
This is your announcement that the rumours are true! There will indeed be a rapier tournament at Samhain!
This tournament will be one of skill but with a touch of silliness, of creativity, of jest – it is a tournament of strange and quirky off-hands. Referred to as an “ice cream social” to our neighbours in An Tir, the only difference between a standard fighting tournament and this one is that your offhand will be a defensive… weapon? Object? Item of peculiarity. I will be bringing some off hands with me, but feel free to bring your own to add to the pile. Have a rubber chicken that needs butchering? Perhaps a bad copy of that book that made you wish you couldn’t read? An old piece of garb that is no good for anything but defending you on the field? As long as it passes the rules of inspection, it can be entered.
The off-hands will be collected and competitors will be choosing (or assigned) an offhand from the collection. Details to be sorted out – but you will not be stuck with the same offhand for all of your fights.
There will be a prize for overall winner, as well as for best/most entertaining/most creative use of the off-hands available.
Entrants to the tournament may still use a two handed weapon. This is all in good fun and if it would be no fun, then don’t even worry about it. Consider adorning you or your weapon with a pair of googly eyes or a fun little hat if you want to take part in the nature of whacky.
YIS,
Armiger Geneviève Cadieux
Classes:
There will be classes on November 2, expanding the event from a one-day event to a two-day event, with a number of TUA classes offered by and for Samhain guests.
Location: Morpheus Production Center, Bay E, 1155 44th Avenue SE, Calgary, AB
Time: Nov 2 11:30 am – 2:30 pm
There is a parking lot outside the venue.
The Center is about 2-3 blocks from bus routes 30 and 147.
Feel free to bring your own beverage or snacks as needed; there are no convenience stores (etc) nearby.
We have the space from 11:30-2:30pm
Supervised Youth welcome!
There is a suggested donation to pay for the space of $5/person.
ContactL
HL Drífa at lækjamoti
champion-as@montengarde.org
Introduction to Drop Spindle with Mistress Morgan – 12 noon – 1:25 pm
Come learn how to spin wool fleece into yarn using a drop spindle!
90 minutes
Class maximum: 5 (6 if you bring your own spindle)
Cost: 2$ suggested donation
Cloth Napkin Embroidery with HL HL Custance Frideswide Featherstonehaugh – 12 noon – 1:25 pm
Come and create a personalized addition to your feast kit! With coloured thread, a needle and some cloth we will create a one of a kind embroidered napkin to add some flare to your feast table!
All skill levels welcome (from novice to advanced)
All supplies are included in the class fee (embroidery hoop is included)
Class maximum: 8
Cost: $5
Potatoes in Europe in Period with Master Thorvald – 1:30-2:25pm
Learn more about the history of Potatoes!
60 minutes
Class maximum: no maximum
Cost: $2 for the 6-sheet printed class notes (Contact Thorvald in advance to reserve your copy) OR $0 for class notes sent as a PDF after the class.
How to tame your fear of public speaking with Alexander Blackadder – 1:30-2:25pm
Get more comfortable speaking in front of a crowd!
60 minutes
Class maximum: no maximum
Cost: $0
Armoured Tournament:
Welcome to the Ferdinand’s Monster Samhein Tournament!
This is a modified Bertie-Beetle tournament with a shark pit in the arena.
You will be competing to build your very own Frankenstein’s Ferdinand’s monster and the first to complete theirs is the winner!
There are prizes to be won
Here is how it will work:
- You must collect one of each limb throughout your fights. This includes a Head, Body, Left arm, Right arm, left leg, and right leg.
- You may only claim ONE limb per fight. Excess limbs do not count towards your total so if you want that arm, take it and then end the fight with honour either by slaying your opponent or being slain in glorious combat (but be careful not to give your opponent their own “leg” up)
- Injuries are kept between fights
- The shark pit is a reverse bear pit. Loser stays in for three losses then gets to leave. Losses reset limb loss but wins do not. Be careful not to get harvested for those monster parts!
- Tournament ends when we have enough full monsters to slay a dragon (3 or more should probably do it)
Yours in Service,
~ Lord Melchor De Bazán