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so this weekend, I attended my first medieval fair. It was quite an experience.
Here are the highlights (and lowlights) of the weekend.
Highlights:
-the group I'm with is predominantly Viking, with one Saxon, one Frank and one Byzantine. Whenever the Byzantine was at the camp, he took great enjoyment in telling the public that he was hanging out with a bunch of "uncivilised" folk. Quite a few of us took great pleasure in then stating that our Byzantine was surrounded by Vikings-he was the uncivilised one.
-The kids LOVED seeing the swords and shields from some of our members, but they also loved seeing the kit. I became a model of sorts, showing off the 'freeman's' period clothing, while also demonstrating knives and some of the crafts to the public. (just showing the finished result and the ones in progress, not actually demonstrating how they were done.)
-Everyone seemed to enjoy me explaining about the meals that we were cooking. Most of our dishes were meat-based in some description with vegies, and everyone seemed to love the smell of the eucalyptus we were burning on the fire. (dried leaves)
-I managed to enjoy seeing medieval jousts through another group (a few of our members also had family members in that group and spent another night in there) and also we had a "peasant in the stocks." That's as it sounds folks. There were people who actually volunteered to be stuck in the stocks for 30 minutes, while fair-goers paid a gold coin to throw tomatoes at their heads. my boyfriend found it hilarious since one of them was an ex-NVG member (NVG-New varangian guard, the re-enactment group).
-I finally bought myself a pouch to carry money in, as well as my mobile. I also bought a needle to use for nalebinding and I'm in the process of learning how to make a bone needle case (does anyone know if using a cooked lamb shank bone is OK?)
-Combat was rather interesting to watch. at one point, the group divided themselves into south aussies and victorians and played off against each other. The South Aussies won.
(like I mentioned above, some of our members had other members from the jousting group-those members were from interstate)
-Oh, and I also discovered that Nyoibo does live up to his persona on the battlefield and put on quite an impressive display.
Lowlights:
-Someone did something to one of our crew members, we're not 100% sure what happened, all that we did know was that we wound up three short for the morning and MOST of the afternoon due to the fact that two of those members had to go home and someone drove them home. This was at 1 in the morning and the poor guy who drove them home, only had about 30 minutes sleep.
-another member's tent collapsed-this was their group tent that people had been sleeping in. Needless to say, said member had gone for the day and eventually did return, but only to pack up his tent. After that, his name was treated like something out of Harry Potter.
-knives, bowls and drinking horns wound up being mixed up together. This created some confusion once we were packing up. Thankfully we worked out whose horn was whose by the patterns inscribed on the top. The seaxes were a bit harder (viking utility knives) due to two reasons: 1) various seaxes had various sheathes and holders depending on the person. 2) several of those seaxes were used for cooking. we eventually worked out which seax belonged with which person-partially due to the handles being easy to tell apart (the one I borrowed was made from bone)
-Two crew members wound up with splitting headaches-one had a massive migraine, the other just had a pounding one. We suspect that the Middle Eastern group may have been the cause of that, due to their location being near our tent. They had several belly dancing performances on during the day. In addition,t he Morris dancers MAY have added to that, due to the clashing sticks.
I'll add more as I go along.
-
Here are the highlights (and lowlights) of the weekend.
Highlights:
-the group I'm with is predominantly Viking, with one Saxon, one Frank and one Byzantine. Whenever the Byzantine was at the camp, he took great enjoyment in telling the public that he was hanging out with a bunch of "uncivilised" folk. Quite a few of us took great pleasure in then stating that our Byzantine was surrounded by Vikings-he was the uncivilised one.
-The kids LOVED seeing the swords and shields from some of our members, but they also loved seeing the kit. I became a model of sorts, showing off the 'freeman's' period clothing, while also demonstrating knives and some of the crafts to the public. (just showing the finished result and the ones in progress, not actually demonstrating how they were done.)
-Everyone seemed to enjoy me explaining about the meals that we were cooking. Most of our dishes were meat-based in some description with vegies, and everyone seemed to love the smell of the eucalyptus we were burning on the fire. (dried leaves)
-I managed to enjoy seeing medieval jousts through another group (a few of our members also had family members in that group and spent another night in there) and also we had a "peasant in the stocks." That's as it sounds folks. There were people who actually volunteered to be stuck in the stocks for 30 minutes, while fair-goers paid a gold coin to throw tomatoes at their heads. my boyfriend found it hilarious since one of them was an ex-NVG member (NVG-New varangian guard, the re-enactment group).
-I finally bought myself a pouch to carry money in, as well as my mobile. I also bought a needle to use for nalebinding and I'm in the process of learning how to make a bone needle case (does anyone know if using a cooked lamb shank bone is OK?)
-Combat was rather interesting to watch. at one point, the group divided themselves into south aussies and victorians and played off against each other. The South Aussies won.
(like I mentioned above, some of our members had other members from the jousting group-those members were from interstate)-Oh, and I also discovered that Nyoibo does live up to his persona on the battlefield and put on quite an impressive display.
Lowlights:
-Someone did something to one of our crew members, we're not 100% sure what happened, all that we did know was that we wound up three short for the morning and MOST of the afternoon due to the fact that two of those members had to go home and someone drove them home. This was at 1 in the morning and the poor guy who drove them home, only had about 30 minutes sleep.
-another member's tent collapsed-this was their group tent that people had been sleeping in. Needless to say, said member had gone for the day and eventually did return, but only to pack up his tent. After that, his name was treated like something out of Harry Potter.
-knives, bowls and drinking horns wound up being mixed up together. This created some confusion once we were packing up. Thankfully we worked out whose horn was whose by the patterns inscribed on the top. The seaxes were a bit harder (viking utility knives) due to two reasons: 1) various seaxes had various sheathes and holders depending on the person. 2) several of those seaxes were used for cooking. we eventually worked out which seax belonged with which person-partially due to the handles being easy to tell apart (the one I borrowed was made from bone)
-Two crew members wound up with splitting headaches-one had a massive migraine, the other just had a pounding one. We suspect that the Middle Eastern group may have been the cause of that, due to their location being near our tent. They had several belly dancing performances on during the day. In addition,t he Morris dancers MAY have added to that, due to the clashing sticks.
I'll add more as I go along.
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