This story comes imperfectly from my memory as told to me by one of
the original 9, Mistress Shanahan the Fey.
Stargate formed because a man named Jim Langley met a woman named Diana Thedford
at a science fiction convention in Houston. She had been wanting to form a medieval reanactment group and was delighted to
be told that Jim had heard of one in California which they could join. They made arrangments to meet at Jim's home with others
of a like mind on Oct. 31, 1971.
At this meeting were 9 persons of which only 2 still even occasionally participate
in the Society or with the Barony. Those two are the ones mentioned in the paragraph above. Jim Langley first chose the name
Antelais Anrelte
but later changed this to Bran de Tintreak. Diana Thedford chose the name Shanahan the Fey.
Despite
the fact that 7 of the 9 founders would either rapidly or slowly move away from participating in the Barony, that meeting
laid the foundations of who we were. The name "The Stargate" was selected because of the proximity of NASA. Plus at this early
time, word play was a large part of the game and the fact that there was a book out at the time by that name was not lost
on the founders. Paperwork was typed out announcing to the SCA in California the intention of the 9 to form a group in Houston.
Myddyn Ap Rhys became our first seneschal.
I'm
not sure when the barony's device was submitted but about a year later on Oct. 1, 1972, Stargate officially became a
barony. However, no baron was put in place until Oct. 17, 1973 when Myddyn Ap Rhys became the first baron. He recieved
a letter from the Crown of Atenveldt naming him as baron.
To
those of us who are used to an orderly progression of steps in forming a group, the above paragraph seems very strange. Be
a barony without a baron? No investiture ceremony but instead, elevation by letter? How very strange to us but that was the
order of business then. ANY forming group that was the first in a state was named a barony and since there were only 4
kingdoms at the time (West, East, Middle & Atenveldt), the visit from a sitting crown was an almost unheard of event.
The coronet was held by the Crown (none of this incipient stuff). Subsequent groups were termed as Marches. Bran was unsure
when this practice ceased, but may account for a vague memory of my own of an early name for Steppes being "The March of the
Steppes". I could be wrong on that.
