Saturday Night Fever
After lunch at Magdalen College, we headed over to Oxford Castle where we knew a Medieval Fair was going on.
They had a falconry group:
This booth had a bunch of armor and weapons you could try out
It wasn't a very large fair, and I initially was pretty disappointed. But it turned out to have several very interesting people. Dave seemed to revel in going around saying his wife just joined the SCA and thus 'she' has questions for you... LOL.
Stood and talked to one of the guys from the armor tent for some time about the equestrian arts. Learned some more history behind pig-sticking / tent-pegging -- that it originated so that horsemen could thunder through an encampment, pulling up tent pegs as they go, collaping the tents. How tent-pegging got merged into pig-sticking, I'm not sure. The lance action is identical except that, obviously, the tent pegging has to be able to be done in a whole series of targets instead of a measly one.
He is the one who told us about Cosmeston, a recreated medieval village near Cardiff that we ended up stopping at on our last day in Wales. He also recommended, as far as trying to develop a personality for the SCA, to consider the 14th century as that was a period of great change in armory and dress, so you have a lot of varitey to choose from. Not having any other criteria so far, I seem to be narrowing down my focus to 14th century Wales. Fascinating, then, that a major castle on the boarder into Wales, Chepstow, had an interesting history through the 14th century. I'd gotten a book out of the library before the trip called "Life in a Medieval Castle" which was centered largely around Chepstow. Didn't know this at the time that I checked it out, but was a wonderful find and addition to our trip. But more on that later, when we get to Wales.
This lady was demonstrating a form of weaving called Card Weaving. It was fascinatingly simple - each card has 4 or more holes in it, and you thread each strand through one.
As you rotate the cards 90 degrees, some threads come up, some go down, and you weave the 'loose' strand through, then turn the cards again. Here's a different loom and view:
I'm not sure these folks had any purpose at a medieval fair, but the costume was quite impressive and they were very funny!
That night the group was back at the Mitre again. This time we had a buffet dinner provided.
Wayne plugged in his ipod to speakers and voila, instant dance club!
As it came midnight, our witching hour as far as the pub was concerned, last call was declared on the dance floor. Wayne quite appropriately queued up this song:
Really, there WAS no other choice! ;-D
They had a falconry group:
This booth had a bunch of armor and weapons you could try out
It wasn't a very large fair, and I initially was pretty disappointed. But it turned out to have several very interesting people. Dave seemed to revel in going around saying his wife just joined the SCA and thus 'she' has questions for you... LOL.
Stood and talked to one of the guys from the armor tent for some time about the equestrian arts. Learned some more history behind pig-sticking / tent-pegging -- that it originated so that horsemen could thunder through an encampment, pulling up tent pegs as they go, collaping the tents. How tent-pegging got merged into pig-sticking, I'm not sure. The lance action is identical except that, obviously, the tent pegging has to be able to be done in a whole series of targets instead of a measly one.
He is the one who told us about Cosmeston, a recreated medieval village near Cardiff that we ended up stopping at on our last day in Wales. He also recommended, as far as trying to develop a personality for the SCA, to consider the 14th century as that was a period of great change in armory and dress, so you have a lot of varitey to choose from. Not having any other criteria so far, I seem to be narrowing down my focus to 14th century Wales. Fascinating, then, that a major castle on the boarder into Wales, Chepstow, had an interesting history through the 14th century. I'd gotten a book out of the library before the trip called "Life in a Medieval Castle" which was centered largely around Chepstow. Didn't know this at the time that I checked it out, but was a wonderful find and addition to our trip. But more on that later, when we get to Wales.
This lady was demonstrating a form of weaving called Card Weaving. It was fascinatingly simple - each card has 4 or more holes in it, and you thread each strand through one.
As you rotate the cards 90 degrees, some threads come up, some go down, and you weave the 'loose' strand through, then turn the cards again. Here's a different loom and view:
I'm not sure these folks had any purpose at a medieval fair, but the costume was quite impressive and they were very funny!
That night the group was back at the Mitre again. This time we had a buffet dinner provided.
Wayne plugged in his ipod to speakers and voila, instant dance club!
As it came midnight, our witching hour as far as the pub was concerned, last call was declared on the dance floor. Wayne quite appropriately queued up this song:
Really, there WAS no other choice! ;-D
posted by Monica at Sun Pony |
11:00 AM
1 Comments:
LOL - at Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
Dave was made for that helmet!
I didn't know Connie was in Oxford! Too late to ask you to give her a hug for me ;-)
~Lydia
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