My day in the park...

This is what I did today, or should I say what I watched today:



Not this particular fight. This is from another SCA event. But the same sort of thing; armored men beating each other with rattan swords. Because today was Pirate Tourney in the local Barony. And this is also why my post today is so late.

If you don't know what the SCA is, it is the Society for Creative Anachronism, which was founded in the 1960s in Berkeley, California. The SCA promotes medieval reenactments, education in all sorts of medieval arts and sciences, and related activities. We sometimes say that we re-create the Middle Ages as they should have been, and to an extent that is true. On the other hand, many in the SCA are very serious about doing things and making things and learning about life as it actually was from around 500 CE to about 1500 CE. What we do has even been called experimental archaeology. Anthropology geek that I am, I like this characterization a lot.

What we are not are the same as Renaissance faires. Those are much more in the way of performances. If you see combat as in the clip above at a Ren Faire, it is probably choreographed. What our fighters do is not choreographed. They are real fights. The bruises they get are real, too. And isn't just the men who participated in the fighting. There are women fighters, too, who get into their armor and battle right along with the men. It's one of the things I like most about the SCA; there is no discrimination in who fights with whom.

It isn't all about fighting, though. Not even for the fighters. For a recent Festival of the Rose in our kingdom, the Horsemen from the neighboring Shire of Wintermist, put together the following performance:



And that might be the best thing of all about the SCA...many of our participants are talented in more than just one art or science. And most of them are readily willing to share what they've learned with others.

Sharing...now there's a good thing.