Torgul Steingrimsson

Duke Torgul Steingrimsson, KSCA, OL, Lion also known as Torgul Bahadur.

He reigned twice as King of An Tir, with Angharad, and with Erin. He was also Champion of An Tir three times.

King Torgul hears the Oath of Knighthood by Bolverk of Momchilovich, first female knight in An Tir, in September XVII (1982), before she receives the white belt and other tokens of knighthood. Photo by Rowenna de Manning

Duke Torgul is a master metalworker and jeweler. During his first reign, he knighted the first female knight of An Tir, Sir Bolverk of Momchilovich.

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At Egil Skallagrimsson Memorial Tournament on May 28, AS 57 (2022), Duke Torgul was requested to enter the court of King Sven and Queen Raoukinn and kneel. These words were spoken by King Sven of An Tir:

When Queen Hlutwige created the the Lion of An Tir, she made it to recognize people who “embody the spirit of the kingdom.”

For people like me, who came of age in the early years of the Kingdom of An Tir, there is nobody who fits that description better than Duke Torgul.

For those of you who weren’t around for those years, I’ll explain by telling you the story of six crowns.

The first two were crowns that he wore.

Duke Torgul was the second king of An Tir, with Angharad Many-Crowns, and its seventh king with Erin of Staghaven.

In his first reign, he decreed that all of the awnings around the Eric had be canvas, instead of the blue plastic that was common at the time. This was one of the many ways he helped An Tir become a more beautiful, more historically accurate place. In the same reign, he called Gerhardt von Nordflammen the “pope of the Guccis,” which led to Gerhardt showing up in court in a pope’s mitre made of a Budweiser box, claiming to represent the “Church of An Tir.” I think this paradox describes Torgul’s reigns well. He ruled with an equal eye to the historical betterment of the kingdom and to utter chaos. In both roles, he ruled with the kind of swagger that An Tir has come to be known for.

The next two crowns are the ones he lost.

Torgul won the fourth Crown tournament of An Tir, but he wasn’t its fourth king. The Board of Directors stripped him of his crown over a technicality in his consort’s membership. This had never happened before, and the event caused a storm of controversy. In the end, An Tir had another crown tournament at Egils that year. When Master Manfred won that tourney, he became the first Duke in An Tir, rather than Torgul. This is a blip in An Tir’s history, but again, it’s Torgul at the centre of a whirl of activity, looming large in the kingdom’s culture.

The second crown he lost was the Crown of the West.

In those days, the Crown tournaments of the Kingdom of the West were open to all comers; the West was confident that its fighters were the best, and could beat any foreign upstarts.

So Torgul went down to the West, and he won every fight to make it to the finals. There are various stories of why he didn’t win – you can ask him for his favorite – but whatever the reason, this was one of the times that Torgul showed that in those days he was unstoppable on the field, and he showed the world that An Tir was a force to be reckoned with in tournament combat.

He demonstrated this again at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the SCA in AS 20 (1986), a ten-day event with courts, arts displays, contests, and tournaments held in the Kingdom of Ansteorra. Duke Torgul was Champion of An Tir. He fought the best fighters in the world, and won every single tournament.

Torgul isn’t the only An Tirian to go abroad and dominate tournament fighting, but at his prime he was the very pinnacle of tournament combat in the SCA. He was the first person to use a sword-forward technique, the first to have any real tournament success with a centre-grip round shield, and the first to fight with his sword-foot forward. Three of his squires went on to become Dukes, and every fighter in An Tir is, in some ways, his student. He isn’t the only person to influence An Tirian fighting, but An Tirian fighting would not be the same without him.

The final two crowns, he built.

Photo by Duchess Lao

In the early days of our society, the crowns worn by kings or queens were simple affairs. Usually a circlet with simple points – occasionally the odd rivet – and often the property of the king or queen wearing them. But in the reign of Dak and Lao, Torgul built the crowns of An Tir. These Crowns, these works of art, made An Tir the envy of the world. Some kingdoms have gone some way to catch up with the beauty of our crowns, but An Tir was the leader, and Torgul’s work was responsible.

But these were not his only works. He raised the bar for how beautiful a combat helmet could be – using gems, etching, roping, and a host of other tools to transform helmets from the utilitarian objects they had been into the works of art that so many fighters wear today. He built swords and buckles and horns that many An Tirians wear proudly, and his student, Sir Torfin Torgulson, continues his work even now. So from the first days when he called for only canvas to be visible from the field to the second set of new crowns made by his student, Torgul has been making An Tir more beautiful and more historical for forty years.

So this is Duke Torgul. Wise ruler. Indomitable fighter. Agent of chaos. Great artist. Inspiration to an entire generation. And now, Lion of An Tir.

(These words were wordsmithed for King Sven by Sir Antonio Cavaliere Sangomano)