Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

I spent a lot of time creating content, articles, videos and all kinds of interesting stuff. i often don’t schedule myself time to take care of the products on my websites. Although this can be rather fun because it allows me to check on what new stuff that is out. Anyway, I have spent the last couple of days updating a lot of the products on my various medieval sites.  Here is a look at some of the things I have found.

Medieval Swords

My medieval swords website has been updated with a lot of new stuff. This is a quite popular little site that gets good ranking in the search engines and gets a good amount of traffic. You can see some of the swords that I own and read about them. You can also see some of the interesting sword topics like swords that are in video games (Which you can actually buy replicas of) and swords from the movies. One nice discovery I made is that the Assassin’s Creed Sword is available as a replica. Assassin’s creed is a terrific game that stays very true to the Italian Renaissance and this includes the reproduction of weapons.  I have a very interesting review of the architecture and design of this game here: About Assassin’s Creed

Medieval Toys and Games

I have also updated the section on Medieval Toys and games. These are the types of modern games that are available, not actually the games they played in the middle ages. The theme is on medieval and the section includes board games like Carcassonne.  I am currently working on a section of one of my websites that is all about the types of games they played in the Middle Ages. I will update you when it is complete. That will be an interesting thing to take a look at.

And Chess Sets of Course

When it comes to medieval toys and games Chess is a bit of a timeless anachronism. It is something they played in the Middle Ages and it is still very popular today. There is a tremedous variety of beautiful chess sets themed as medieval, king arthur, and Renaissance. You can see a selection of them here: Medieval Chess sets

Christmas, and the end of the year are just around the corner and it has me looking for gifts, stocking stuffers and some things for myself. I have been going through the fantasy calendars on Amazon.com trying to find one for myself and I thought I would put up a bunch of them for you to look at.  There are lots of great ones including of course a new Boris & Julie, Tolkien, Luis Royo, Medieval castles, Dragons and more. 

The selections I have made include a first ever calendar from the George R.R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire Series and other calendars based on fantasy books such as The Wheel of Time.

Here is the link to the page I created on my site of 2009 Fantasy and Medieval Calendars

Over the past few days I have noticed a big bump in sales of Medieval and Renaissance clothing and costumes. People are starting to make plans for halloween.  Thing about costumes for halloween is that if you are ordering online you really do have to get an early start. They sell out fast and you have to factor in time for shipping. Anyhoo, I have spent some time upgrading some of the costume sections on my websites. There are lots of nice outfits and accessories and everything is available through amazon.com. Here is the main page:

Medieval and Knight Costumes and Clothing

I had a big weekend this past few days - not just watching patriots football but also working on my mead. I had a goal to get a nice batch completed by christmas so I could give them away as presents and they are done!

So what I have is a very nice batch of a dry mead that I made myself, labeled and even waxed. These are going to make a great present to my friends and family. It just goes beyond the buying of gifts because I spent a lot of time and brewed up this mead myself. It gives me a real sense of accomplishment and it is really something quite unique. Going to be a real conversation piece at some christmas parties.

Because it is for christmas I am adding mulling spice packages to the gifts so we can heat up the mead and mull it in some delicious holiday spices.

Anyhoo, it is way too late to make yourself some mead for this christmas but if you are interested in making mead which is a delicious wine made from honey rather than grapes you can check out my website on how to do it. Making Mead the easy and delicious way

As a side note: This has turned into so much fun for me that I am developing it into a small business. I have formed a legal partnership, gotten my tax id number and am moving forward with producing mead as a legitimate consumer project. Going to be a lot of fun and the name of the company is “Round Table Mead”.

It never cease to be amazed by how much of our modern culture is directly inherited from the interesting medieval culture of the middle ages and one of the places this can most strongly be seen is in our christmas and holiday traditions. Hundreds of years after the middle ages many of the traditions are still with us today.

Christmas and the holidays in modern times are an interesting amalgam from many different periods of time, religions and cultures as they met, clashed, intertwined and influenced each other. Among these cultures are the pagans, druids, christians, and romans.

Many of our holiday traditions are of course tied into christianity and christian beliefs but many of the traditions are also tied into the conditions of life in the middle ages and in particular the difficulties of life in winter and from this we get the christmas tree.

The Christmas Tree - Pagans, Druids and christians all held evergreen trees in very high esteem as something almost magical. This is probably due to the fact that during the deepest and coldest parts of winter it still held its green. It was a true display of life even in the difficult winter season. It was a strong symbol of life and a reminder that spring would come again.

Gift Giving - The actual roots of this tradition may be lost to history but it is widely believed that gift giving started out on the 12th night (Jan6) as a reminder and homage of the gifts that the Magi brought to the christ child.

Holiday Banquets and parties - It is natural to assume that big religious holidays were celebrated by meals and feasts and every year this probably grew. The earliest known big banquet was that of William the Conquerer in 1066. He threw an enormous celebration bash on christmas day, which was his coronation day.

 The Christmas season holidays have been around for a very long time and they are an amalgam of different cultures and very significant in that they were an way for people, families, and cultures to celebrate life and pick their spirits up during the difficult winter months.