The Blog Devoted to All Things Medieval; Weapons, Armor, Knights, Castles, Books and More ———–Never Give a Sword to a Man who can’t Dance - Old Celtic Saying
This past weekend I took a trip to King Richards Faire. It is a renaissance style faire that has been around for almost thirty years now. I haven’t been there in a while and it was pretty much the same as I remember it. I drank a little mead, held a few swords and watched a great joust in the arena. They put on a good show and it made for a nice Sunday. I got back in time to watch the Patriots steamroll the Cowboys. Anyhoo, I have put together a photo gallery on the stormthecastle.net website if you want to take a look. You also can sign up and post any of your own pictures to the gallery.
Here is a video of a massive battle of Armored Soldiers at the Yearly Pennslyvania meeting of the Society of Creative Anachronism.
Last night I attended my first meeting of the local chapter of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and it was a real blast.
If you aren’t familiar with the SCA they are an organization that studies all aspects of medieval life during the middle ages. At the top of this post is a video of a two groups of knights engaging in battle and it’s pretty cool but you have to understand that fighting in armor is just one small aspect of what the SCA is about. They are all about everything in the middle ages and they have a very active schedule in a lot of things including Study and Reproduction of Sieges, warfare, Fencing, Brewing, Fiber Arts, Blacksmithing, Tailoring and well everything.
So if there is a particular aspect of Medieval Life that you are interested in the SCA will have something for you.
About the Appeal of experiencing Medieval Life
I have given some serious thought to why I like Medieval things and at the meeting last night I asked other people the same question and I think it comes down to two very simple things.
Simplicity and Richness
We live in very complex times. Everything is piped into us at the speed of light and there isn’t a person in this world that doesn’t want things to slow down a bit. This is where the allure of the middle ages comes in. I think it was a simpler time but simpler isn’t a negative. It is a big positive because it came with a richness. The Middle ages weren’t a time where people spend all their time lounging around underneath trees and hanging out in pubs. There was a richness to life in those times and this richness came from the variety of things they did from arts, crafts, tailoring, blacksmithing, combat, architecture, food and so much more.
It was simple and rich. For me there is a deep enrichment in taking my time and brewing some mead, building some armor, telling stories around a campfire, and many other simple but rich things.
I really think that the experiences within the SCA bring people closer to what we all as human beings are supposed to experience in life. Seriously! Is it better as a human being to play a pixellated knight in a video game or to actually pick up a wooden sword and actually face off against somebody?
If you want to learn more about the SCA or find a chapter local to you check out their website: http://www.sca.org
I have owned and worked on my first domain for many years now (Stormthecastle.com) and a couple of years ago I really wanted to branch it out into something very renaissance and use stormthecastle.net as the domain name. I envisioned it being a community or network of people who enjoy medieval and renaissance things. thus the dot net of it.
The problem was that stormthecastle.net was already taken by somebody else. Anyway the project kind of got sidelined for a while until the .net domain expired and I managed to snag it! So now I own stormthecastle.net and am beginning the work of building a renaissance/medieval community.
If you like medieval and renaissance things or larping or castles or any of that other great stuff from the middle ages buzz on over to the new forum and register! It is just starting out but it is going to be a really vibrant community. Drop a post and introduce yourself then start a message about your favorite things from movies to faires.
I have already loaded a nice gallery of avatars for you to choose from so you can express your unique personality and they range from wizards to knights to lord of the rings stuff.
I am going to be looking for moderators that are passionate about their particular area of the board so if you are really passionate about some aspect of the whole genre let me know! I look forward to hearing from you.
Oh and I am running a poll to try to find the tagline for the board. My favorite right now is: Stormthecastle.net - Camelot Reborn
This past weekend I took a trip to King Richards Faire. It is a renaissance style faire that has been around for almost thirty years now. I haven’t been there in a while and it was pretty much the same as I remember it. I drank a little mead, held a few swords and watched a great joust in the arena. They put on a good show and it made for a nice Sunday. I got back in time to watch the Patriots steamroll the Cowboys. Anyhoo, I have put together a photo gallery on the stormthecastle.net website if you want to take a look. You also can sign up and post any of your own pictures to the gallery.
I have already loaded a nice gallery of avatars for you to choose from so you can express your unique personality and they range from wizards to knights to lord of the rings stuff.
