As some of you know, I've been involved in medieval re-creation for a long time, primarily through the SCA, one of the largest and oldest such groups. In recent years, when I've been less active and living in a rural/small city environment, I've heard friends complain about the SCA (which has become a rather expensive and elaborate hobby) losing potential recruits to analogous activities like WoW and boffer groups. But I really haven't seen any of the latter.
This weekend I stumbled across this video at the newssite Pantagraph.com and it was a revelation. I had no idea there were so many people involved in stripped-down, easy-participation, cheap, low-impact "medieval combat." Or that had it had been going on in an organized fashion for so long. (Here's the same yearly event for 2007 and 2008 videoed by the sponsoring group.)
Also, it was a bit like a trip back in time to my early days in the SCA, when our gear and level of "re-creation" was not much better than what you see in the video (though most of us moved beyond this level pretty darned fast, and we always had more than fighting in our activities). And what the Warlord of Belegarth said in the news video sounded awfully familiar in places. It was a bit spooky.
This is where the young and broke go for their fun now!
I hope that some of the people who love to sneer at SCA eclecticism and uneven quality have a look at this!
1 comment:
Fighting without a helm sounds like a delight. A good opportunity to practice MS 133.
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