Since I have been made a Laurel I have been looking for a period Indian depiction of a laurel wreath. Almost everything depicted in SCA regalia looks more Greek or Roman to my eyes. I didn’t know if there was a depiction of anything more Mughal I could find. Spoiler: I did not find such an image. The Persian and Mughal artists were very enchanted with flora of their regions, depicting them on the borders of miniatures and in their garden scenes. But their images were naturalistic, and I could not find a depiction of either bay leaves, laurel leaves, or any leaves twisted into the shape of a chaplet. I was getting ready to chuck the idea out the window when I stumbled upon an interesting note while I was doing research for another project. The Purananuru, an anthology of 400 poems written between the 1st and 3rd century CE, describes the wars, cattle raids, Kings, bards and battles of the Tamil people during the Sangam era . (1) Rather like the Victorian language of flowers(2), the
For the TLDR focused among you: I was elevated to the Order of the Laurel on Saturday at Rapier Champs. Thank you to the people who worked behind the scenes to schedule, organize, plot against me, and provide some truly beautiful regalia. During Royal court on Saturday after the Rapier Champs tournament had ended, I was startled to hear my Mughal persona name called back into court. The Order of the Rose had given courtesy tokens at the start of court, so I had already been up once, and I had settled in to wait until the end of court when I was supposed to speak at both of the Pelican elevations. I was so startled that I said "Oh shit" out loud. So I scurried up to the dais, totally forgetting to let my husband Robert Earlson escort me, as is right and proper. I bowed to the crowns, full kneeling obeisance, cause I'm Mughal and that's what you do before your emperor. The King spoke about the wonderful fights he'd had with me at Birka, and that they were the