oloriel | The Hitchhiker's Guide to Middle-earth, 2007

Saturday, July 7th - Fëanorian Day!

After breakfast we take part in the Tolkien quiz and fail dismally because of the evil system of the quiz: After having a minute for answering random questions (which can be really easy or really difficult, with more of the latter in our stack) there's another minute of answering questions from different stacks where you have to work your way upwards: you get one point for LotR questions, two for Hobbit questions, three for 1st and 2nd age questions, four for language and biography questions, five for "smaller works", and you only get to answer questions of a higher category after answering one from a lower category. As it's been a while since either of us last read the Hobbit, shame on us, those questions always throw us back and we can't even get to the Silm questions. Alas! We end up third.

We manage to get into the leather stamping workshop because two participants haven't turned up and make Fëanorian stars, mwahahah. We take longest - after all, we have to design a template first and get to start later than the others - and I hope we didn't annoy the poor craftsman that had to teach us too much, but all in all it's fun and simple; I may want to get some tools for doing that at home.

Originally we meant to take part in the Rohirric (that is, Anglo-saxon) workshop as well, but we loose track of time chatting with Idril, a lovely teacher-turned-hobbit whom I already knew well from sight, and we still need new batteries for our bloody energy-sucking cameras (tell me again why I forgot to bring my battery recharger?), and when we've bought them, the workshop's half over and we don't want to disturb them. So we just walk across the market again. I stop and stare for a long time at the potter's stall - they have beautiful bowls that look as though made of lava on the outside and are glazed on the inside, I'm especially fond of those with black glazing - when Elleth decides to give me one of those lovely black bowls as a belated birthday gift! ^____^

We also end up watching at the fireman's stall for a while because he just explains our leather stamping teacher from earlier today just how you manage to make fire using a wooden drill and bow. It works impressively fast! When we walk down to our room, I notice two burnt holes on my dress and remember what the fireman said about linen being used for tinder... QED, that.

Back up in the village it's time to find a table for the feast, but we have to stop briefly at the sculptor to leave another star in the sandstone where all visitors can try their hand at scultping. He asks whether I've sculpted before - I wonder whether it looked as though I had - and I say no, only some soapstone carving. Before he can offer me a fulfilling and well-paid career in stone-sculpting (which doubtlessly would have been the next step ;)) we have to get going.

Idril and Silvie - whose group won the quiz - have kept seats for us, and they're good seats, too: Close to the courtyard gate and to the space where the dinner-table entertainments are held. Scooped-out rolls are waiting to be used as bowls. They stuff us with potato soup, dried sausages, chicken, different cooked roots (carrots, kohlrabi, that kind of thing), baked potatoes with sour cream, fried apple rings and the huge, sweet Valais apricots. Between courses, there are performances by the falconers of Saillon (with a very ill-behaved falcon, a majestic "Igel"* and a horse whose hooves strike sparks on the cobblestones), Forzarello, the Greifenpack and Freywild.

This time we don't get up for the concert but watch from our places. Perhaps it's the food and general laziness, but the music doesn't seem to be as partyable as it was the last two days, and at any rate the lead singer talks way too much between songs. We don't bother with dancing but have fun talking about theatre and history projects until it's time for the fireworks.

Now the fireworks have been eagerly expected, and they are - brilliant. Undescribable really if you weren't there. It's not just that they're timed precisely to explode in tune to the LotR soundtrack, they're fired from below in the valley, too, so it looks as if the explode right overhead. A Gandalf-worthy spectacle that leaves all of us enlightened children of postmodernism breathless with excitement.
In this atmosphere Varuna and Rhavin do the closing speeches. Rhavin's is modelled on Bilbo's farewell speech, and halfway through we realise that if we follow the analogy it means that the MEF will disappear and not come back ~~except once, briefly, on its way to the Grey Havens~~.
And that is indeed what they mean by it. ;_;

The mood sinks a bit while everybody tries to stomach the sad news, but at some point most people decide that if this is indeed the last MEF night ever, it better be celebrated properly. The last fire performances are brilliant again, although the poor Fireproject has to manage with the music stopping somewhere in the middle of their performance. After a moment of strange silence, Duivelspack take up their instruments to accompany their show until the electronics come back online. Forzarello show that they're not just clowns but damn good jugglers (and drummers!) too.

We would have loved to stay awake until the sun rises, but we're both tired and Elleth is suffering from a slight sunstroke, so instead of artificially prolonging the evening we go to bed. The lights of the castles and the party tree are glittering warmly in the night, and the mere thought of leaving in a few ours is unbearable.

*All right, I have to explain about the Igel. Igel is a German word that is pronounced pretty much exactly like the English "eagle" ~~except for the dark l~~, but unfortunately it doesn't mean "eagle" but "hedgehog". Now the falconers of Saillon are Francophone, and though they spoke some German, they translated "aigle" as "Igel" rather than "Adler". So the falconer talked about the majestic hedgehog circling through the air, which was, of course, quite amusing.

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oh, like you're not having mischievous thoughts now.

The Farewell Speech ;_;

Another phoenix! ^__^

I will miss this.

And have some crappy videos, too!
Fireworks. Really fuzzy and out of focus. Woe.
Phoenix Fireproject
Forzarello, I
Forzarello, II

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