Ælnean Feasts

The geborscipe and symbel

Communal eating is a frequently observed aspect of Ælnean culture. While most laymen take dinner and other meals of the day with their family at home or with coworkers at their place of employment, of particular note is the Ælnean practice of communal feasting on certain occasions. These feasts are held by the local lord in a settlement's mead-hall, and come in one of two forms: the geborscipe and the symbel, an informal and formal feast respectively.

Geborscipe

The geborscipe, or drinking party, is an informal feast where the lord, their friends, and guests sit together to eat and drink, typically with musical accompaniment. These drinking parties are held almost every evening. Unlike with the symbel, no gifts are given nor are vows and oaths made during the geborscipe.

Symbel

The symbel is what most think of when they hear that a feast is taking place. Symbels have rituals that are to be upheld by all who are in attendance and is treated as a serious event. It is held when a lord receives an important guest, such as a renowned hero or title nobleman, or in the occasion of a recently won victory or receipt of some good fortune, or perhaps to give gifts to the lord's loyal retainers, or mostly gravely when a serious matter is to be discussed by all invited to the symbel. An event such as this may last all day, but the feast proper is held in the evening's drinking and eating.

A horn is sounded to mark the occasion of a symbel and the guests make their way to the mead-hall. When the guests enter, they hand in their weapons and proceed to wash their hands with water and a towel that the lord's servants carry at the entrance to the hall. The guests then stand in the hall until the lord enters the banquet hall and assigns each guest a seat, with those most favored by the lord sitting in the upper hall. After this, all of the guests are allowed to take a seat, leaving only the cup-bearers and guards standing.

Once everyone is seated, the hall-mistress enters carrying a drinking horn. She greets everyone gathered in the hall, praising their honor, and then pours the first drink from her cup to her lord, pronouncing blessings upon it. The lord drinks and wishes his guests and followers the best of health. The hall-mistress then greets the guests of honor, praising their deeds.

The guests are then expected to answer this praise with an oath to do something noble on behalf of the lord. The vow must be to do something that brings honor to both the one who swears the oath as well as to the lord. In the case of the guests of honor being a group of people, the group as a whole is expected to perform the deed sworn to be completed in the oath.

Following the guests' vow, the lord's thyle, a trusted retainer, will test the resolve of the guests. The thyle will be informed about the guests' past deeds ahead of time, and so will seek to prove the trustworthiness of the guests' spoken vow by contesting the guest. The retainer does this, often, by bringing up past failures of the guest, typically in a rude of mocking tone. This test is failed if the guest responds with anger as they will be judged as too hot-blooded and undisciplined to be expected to fulfill the oath. If instead the guest responds calmly and gives reasonable explanations for the failures brought up by the thyle and proves that their words are not empty, they succeed the thyle's test. Regardless of whether the guest fails or succeeds the thyle's test, they are still expected to fulfill their vow to the lord within a reasonable amount of time. As the oaths are sworn in the name of Æcepan, failure to act on the vow will be punished as oathbreaking often is.

Once the oaths are completed, the hall-mistress takes the drinking horn from guest to guest in the upper hall, moving in a clockwise direction. When the cup empties, a cup-bearer will refill the horn and the hall-mistress will continue making rounds until the feast ends. There is no shame is declining the drink.

Throughout the rest of the feast, the lord calls guests to him in order to give them a gift, whether this gift be a weapon, jewelry, or pounds. These gifts are given to those followers who have accomplished good deeds for the lord,