Lords and Ladies, Good Gentles All,
As announced before, over the next tournament season, House Toad Hall is sponsoring a series of Arts and Sciences competitions. The purpose of these competitions is an attempt to encourage participation in the Arts and Sciences among the young, the new and any who may have been a bit intimidated or felt they were unworthy to enter the official Kingdom and Principality competitions.
At March Crown, the natural dying competition was won with a piece of fabric dies a beautiful, deep and rich gold using onion skins with alum and cream of tarter as the mordant. Huzzah and well done.
The Toad Hall competition for Beltane will be Kites. Build and fly a kite. No documentation required. |
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For this competition, make a kite of any style, just so long as no blatantly out of period materials are used. You must also fly the kite. Let’s hope for a bit of a breeze, but of course not enough to make putting up our pavilions a problem.
There are stories of Marco Polo bring kites back from his explorations in the 13th century, however he is said to have introduced many things to Europe that may or may not be valid so ... who knows for sure.
There are also stories of sailors bringing kites back from Japan in the late 16th century and there is one late woodcut of an European man flying a kite. There is also mention of kits in ancient Rome, however, these were more of “wind sock,” than an actual kite. One would have thought that Da Vinci would have come up with this. His diagram for a flying machine can’t truly be said to be a kite.
There is no doubt that kits were being used during our period in the orient.
 
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