Hever-by the sword...

 Greetings

I have recently been at Hever castle for a three day re-enactment. I will blog about the event in general later.

Now, however, I am now going to give an account of the Monday battle.

This is partially for myself and partially to warn any other medieval re-enactment fighters who might read this. This is what can happen on the field- and , whilst I am carefully not mentioning any names, it might lead to someone being able to avoid the instigator.

I had decided that I would not wear my brigandine, as it was very hot and this meant I could fight easier with hand and a half sword. I left off my surcoat and made it very clear at the muster that I was lightly armoured in the body.

The battle started well and I had two good scraps. One was against a young lad with hand and a half, who I easily bested. His reaction was everything one could wish for. He praised my sword work and wanted to know how I did it. I think he was with the Medieval Combat Society. I told him I would be happy to show him some moves- but not that day , as I had to pack up my tent.

The second fight was against an older man with a polaxe.  Apart from him not feeling one of my hit to his helm ( that was ok -I just gave him another one, slightly harder) this fight also went well- included a controlled thrust  that caused no injury, mark or bruising, despite being against opposed only by an arming jack. I think this chap was with 1415.

The trouble came when I found myself fighting -let's call him K- from another group of Fifteenth Century Knights

It soon became clear he was not coping well against the hand and a half- but was not acknowledging any hits.

The situation was a s follows. We were both stationary and I was putting in a blow to his helm( right down the middle, as is right and proper).

Without warning, or moving his feet, he suddenly ( using his right hand) raised his sword between us and the tip hit me at the corner of my left eye.

I shouted "You nearly hit me in the eye!" and his response was " I was just doing a block."

Not , you will note, " Are you alright?" or " Sorry." or " Oh, Shit!" or anything similar

The marshal arrived promptly and I told him what had happened. I was helped back to my side of the field and I learned later that K had been sent to sit down on his side- but I saw him take part on the final fight.

When we were forming at the end to take bows etc, the head of his group , let's call him J ( who used to fight as a Scots Lord and I had though was a reasonable chap) came to find me and tried to promote the "it was just a block" story.

I took this on board-I was still a bit in shock- but did point out that, if it was a block , why wasn't K stepping back to make it?  That action would not have been able to block my sword from where he was standing- at all.

Dave ( playing K's commander- De Spencer) and Gary ( playing my commander- Lord Neville) met with K and - think the phrase is "Tore him a new one". Dave had been nearby and witnessed the blow. He as also able to dismiss the claims of  another member of  K's group, who said he's seen the incident and hadn't been anywhere near it.

K did not accept he had done anything wrong. Nor did he make any attempt to apologise, or find out if I was alright.

(This is also not the fist time he has caused injuries on the field and he is notorious for failing to accept the he had been hit. He has previously deliberately smashed the edge of his buckler down on my sword hand during a fight. On another occasion, he complained that he was wearing no body armour when I put in a good (pulled) hit with a polearm. I responded that I also was not wearing body armour and asked if it had been too hard. He replied "No." and still did not accept the hit.)

In discussions after the event at Hever, J claimed to have come over when the marshal did- but, of course he hadn't. He also claimed that it must have been my mail avental that hit by my eye and not a sword at all.

Now, I've worn a bassinet with an avental for years and , somehow, I've never had an eye injury from it before.

Also, whilst the mail may have made a slight scrape next to my eye, it had to be pushed there by the blow and it didn't cause the injury at the corner of my eyelid which was still swollen and tender two days after the incident and is still visible and slightly tender three days after. 

There is also a small dent in the orbit ( bone).

Here's a selfie ( my first selfie ever) that  I j took three days after the incident.

Here's a close-up. This is just how close he came to hitting my eye.

K is  now saying it was all my fault and I walked onto his sword. That would be interesting to arrange ,as we were both stationary at that moment.

So, it is clear that the C15 group are not going to take any action against their member , despite him causing an injury on the field.  Indeed they all seem to be spreading all sorts of fictions in K's defence.

I , however, am no longer prepared to fight K and will walk away from him on the field. Dave has also said he will no longer fight him.

I have also re-assessed my opinion of J, who seems to think he can play fast and loose with the truth, regardless of evidence and witnesses.

As the group do not seem to understand the meaning of the word "Honour" , I shall , henceforth, replace it for them with the French word "Honi".

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 15

 Greetings

Here is more of Judge Declan...

Until next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 2

 Greetings

Here is another page I have recently added to the Breviary I use whilst re-enacting as a medieval bishop.

The page is only 13.5 cm by 8cm.

This page translates as  "Only God my truly judge me as only He knows my soul".

Until next time

Adieu

Discworld, Worldcon- and Chaos 1

 Greetings

We have recently come back from a couple of weeks away.

For about twenty years Teddy, Barbara, John and me have been running an item at Eastercons, Discworld  cons and ( when they have been on mainland UK) worldcons.

This was a sort of workshop-y thing called Chaos Costume.

People donated fabrics, trim and accessories from their stashes and we brought it to the con and invited folk to make costume from scratch. Folk also donated old sewing machines and we  lightly invested in glue guns, safety pins and fixings.

This was generally great fun at the con. Teddy, Barbara and I gave advice and help and , in the old days, a couple of extra entries were in the Eastercon Masquerade.

When we started going to Discworld cons, there were sometime several new entries...

..But, unfortunatley, over time, the percentage of chaos entries at Eastercons began to outnumber what I would consider the 'True ' entries and , also, commitees started to take it for granted that chaos would be there to 'take up the slack'

Also there was a lot of work involved in storing the crates of fabric, servicing the machines, lugging them up and down stairs, into and out of cars- not to mention hours of folding lengths of cloth to fit them into the crates.

The principal operatives, Teddy and Barbera, therefore decide to retire this year and ( giving people LOTS of notice-in case anyone was willing to take the lot off our hands and keep it for the future) announced that Chaos would go to the Discworld Con this year and then to Worldcon in Glasgow- but that was it .

There would be no more Chaos and- if necessary- any surplus cloth etc would go into a skip after Glasgow. I also made it very clear that I would not drive any of it hither and yon after Glasgow.

I should mention here that there were only a few days between the end of the Discworld can and the beginning of Worldcon and that Discworld was at Birmingham( so well on the way to Glasgow).

Teddy does not drive, so I had to do all the driving. I therefore insisted on a night's stop between Birmingham and Glasgow, which we booked at a Travelodge near Carlisle.

Our relations with the Discworld con committee could not have been better. We were provided with memberships and given a free invite to the banquet ( normaly a pricey ticket ). We spent most of our time in Chaos, though I did manage to see the masquerade.

All in all, I enjoyed the con more that I had the previous time I attended (well before covid). I enjoyed the masquerade, but my inner costumer/ masquerade participant kept noting overlong entries.

I greatly enjoyed the pre-banquet drinks and the banquet was excellent. The food was very nice and excellently presented. They were even able to provide food in every course that Teddy would actually eat ( He is not easy to cater for).

We had little glass swans as gift and every setting had a little packet of turtle shaped gummy sweets-every setting but one- They made sure Teddy got gummy bears.

We even discovered that-in a sort of reversal of Disc-fact- four teddies can hold up a turtle...

Here are a few pictures I took at the pre-banquet drinks, include the most excellent Mr Steven Briggs and a Gonagle (out of uniform) showing off a fine set of Mousepipes.

I will post more later.

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 14

 Greetings

Now Judge Declan starts losing bits of uniform...

Until next time

Adieu

Guards Steampunk 9

 Greetings

Here is the  full gently Steampunked Irish Guards officer's uniform.

The trousers are Royal Artillery , the cap is Dress blues with field rank braid on the peak. The cap badge is Coldstream Guards (with the details of the Garter Star hand painted by me).

I am planning to take this with me to Worldcon in Glasgow and to wear as Hall costume and shall probably add some of my Steampunked medals to the ensemble .

Once again, I think this project has come out rather well.

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 13

 Greetings

Here's Judge Declan again...

Until next time

Adieu

Calligraphy 1

 Greetings

I re-enact as a  Fourteenth Century fighting bishop. 

As part of this, I re-enact a short version of the Sarum Rite Mass.

I do not have a good memory- certainly not good enough to remember fifteen-to twenty  minutes worth of Latin- so I bought a nice hand bound ( in leather) book with blank pages to write up the service in.

The pages are about 13.5 cm by 8cm.

However- me being me- once I written up the Mass in a reasonable medieval hand, I felt compelled to illuminate it.

 Then I had to write down a grace( for when the Paladins were doing a display of noble table manners)

 and then I thought I'd better do the wedding service as ( to date) I've officiated at three medieval weddings... 

You see how it goes.

By the time I got to the wedding service, I was using oak-gall ink, illuminating with gold leaf and was often writing with a quill ( I use a porcupine quill).

It recently struck me that I've never blogged about this.

So , I decided I would start. I've now written and illuminated nearly sixty pages.

Don't panic- I'm only going to post some of my favourites...

Here is a Pater Noster ( Lord's Prayer) that I have recently completed.

I opted to use a larger font and spread it over four pages

Until next time

Adieu

Judge Declan 12

 Greetings

Here is another version of this computer art

Until next time 

Adieu