Suth Moot Four

[catsidhe]

A question: what the hell should I teach?

I'm down to do Heraldic Consultation, and I've suggested that I could do an Introduction to the Irish and Old English Annals (ie., what they are, when they're from, what sources were used, when our existing transcriptions are from, what we can learn from them, difficulties in extracting useful data from them, ...), and Write your own name in an appropriate hand, ie., beginner's calligraphy to bring people up to the level of literacy most of them could have expected in period.

Mim suggests Beginners Knotwork again... but I don't know how much interest there is, and most of what I would be doing is pointing to Aidan Meehan's books, and saying "do what he says."

I could teach Latin, or Old English, or Middle English, or Irish, or an overview of European linguistics, but ... how many people would show, and what would I need to assume of existing knowledge, and how far could I meaningfully get in even a two hour session anyway?


Gah. Suggestions?

Comments

[actreal]

What I've learnt to date is that classes where the attendees get to *do* something and/or take something away are the most popular. So I'm betting the "Write your name" class will have the biggest attendance. My lingustic classes tend to be hit and miss - depends on if people have linguistic problems to solve in their own projects.

Given I end up doing more heraldic consultation at events between classes or at meals, I'm not sure how useful a set time is. I'm on the fence there as there are some advantages to a set time and place where people can find you.

A session entitled "Latin: Machine translators don't work so come talk to a human" might get some interest given some discussions on Facebook recently. Perhaps with a subtitle "(and Old English/Irish too)".

Good luck! I won't be at Suth Moot as our second daughter is due that weekend.

[ursula]

I've taught classes on Latin mottoes before. Those went over fairly well, and the grammar involved tends to be quite simple.