The Mews

The History of the Mews

Brock Hanke (Master Juan)

• It is true that Countess Arwyn and I started the Regional newsletter that is now The Mews, way back in the early Region. I had the idea and talked to Arwyn, and she had the same one. I had access to very cheap photocopying, so I became publisher, while Arwyn became Art Director (I can't do art at all). One of the very first things I did was to apply to the Middle Kingdom Chronicler for official status. I was very thoroughly denied. I figured as much, but that was all part of my plan. Once the Middle had officially refused to legalize our newsletter, I, being the editor/publisher, could do things like write 6-page editorials about why we should become a Principality. Oh, yes, I did. And nobody in the Middle could stop me, because, officially, I was self-publishing a personal, private newsletter, unconnected, officially, to anything in the Middle Kingdom, operating financially out of my back pocket. Of course, I always sent a copy to the Crown, Coronet, and all members of the Curia Regis (their name for the Witan), so I got lots of attention, and, I am informed, a truly horrifying reputation in some parts of the Middle, to this day.

Andrixos

• Brock Hanke do you remember who came up with the name The Mews? In my opinion, it is one of the truly under appreciated puns in Calontir, if not the SCA as a whole. Because what is a mews? A Falcon’s pen.

Brock Hanke

• Andrixos, Mistress Kyrieth finally came up with The Mews. She took the thing over from me, and the first thing she did was to give it a name that had something to do with falcons. One of the things we ran into when trying to figure out a name for it was that there was a tradition of kingdoms having newsletters that started with the letter "P." Kyrieth said that something that had to do with falcons should be the name, regardless of which letter it started with.

Andrixos

• I had never noticed the P thing, but off the top of my head came up with Page, Pikestaff, Pale, Popular Chivalry, Crown Prints. We were not the first to break pattern, but still...

Brock Hanke

• Pikestaff is Atenveldt, IIRC. Pale is Middle Kingdom. Page is, I THINK, the West. Remember the time frame. When I started the Mews, there just were not a lot of kingdoms created yet. When I said we were dealing with a tradition of kingdoms, I did not mean to imply that this was right before we became one. I was looking forward to becoming a Kingdom from the first day I understood what a Kingdom was. So was Geoffri, as he reveals in his interview with Master Crag, which is linked to earlier in this thread. Never count Calontir out when it comes to ambition.

Andrixos

• Brock Hanke Pikestaff is East. Pale Mid, POP Chivalry Meridies, Crown Prints Caid, Aten Southwind, Atlantia Acorn, Ansteorra Blackstar. An Tir was also a Kingdom before us, but not before we had named the Mews.

Susan Carna Mattingly

• There was also the suggestion that our newsletter be the Palantir, because rhyming, but that got squashed tout Suite-- taking on the Tolkien estate was way out of our game. The Cross of Calatrava was troublesome enough.