2022-08-17

On my way back home after a few days in Hudiksvall. About 8 hours on the train to get home. P, #3 and I stayed at a nice hotel with a view. Had a small 50th year celebration for me at my mother's with my bonus siblings and their kids. Also had a long lunch at the hotel restaurant with my father and his wife.

I'm going to have yet another birthday party this weekend with some friends. A small affair with some wine and snacks. Decided against having a big party with catering and stuff. I'd rather have nice conversations when celebrating turning 50 than worry about all the logistics of a big party.

SCA fighting

Visited the SCA camp on Gotland on their open camp day. They had the Nordic 1000 tournament in what SCA calls armoured or heavy combat. "Heavy" for the armor worn, I guess, rather than the weapons, which seemed to be just about anything, but all with a core of rattan often covered with duct tape.

None of the fighters seemed to have very much technique and the footwork was almost non-existant. None used any harnischfechten techniques I recognized and I later read that most of those techniques are forbidden by SCA anyway. But they didn't use any blossfechten techniques either!

Since they allow many weapons to cross I once saw someone with a huge polearm against someone with two tiny swords. The polearm guy just poked the other in the helmet and that was that. Ha!

Interestingly my guide was probably better at fencing than any of the people in the tournament since she had actually practised HEMA longsword. She didn't partake in any of the heavy combat stuff and preferred to spend her SCA time with what they call Arts & Sciences instead. I can see why.

I read that SCA has other fencing besides the heavy combat, since 2020 called "Fencing Combat". That kind of fencing seemed centered around steel rapiers although other weapons, including blunt steel longswords and/or feders, are allowed. This sounds more like it *has* to have some technique, but I didn't see any rapier fighting. Perhaps another time?

The semester of my HEMA club starts next week. New for this semester is scheduled classes on military sabre. I'm still thinking about if I'll pick up the sabre as well as the longsword or if Jogo do pau is more interesting...

Glass blower

We visited an english style pub in Visby a few times, The Black Sheep Arms. We later learned that they gave all their empty bottles to a local glass blower! We visited the glass blower a few times and saw them working and then picked a glass each to bring home. Mine is a wine glass in an 18th century style. I find it quite funny that it used to be a Coke bottle or something.

Pirates!

We met some non-medieval pirates and realized that there is a parallel Pirate week in Visby at the same time as the Medieval week! It was started by some people back in 1995 when they grew tired of the SCA people and being "historically correct". It grew to a whole movement with hundreds of participants and a whole lore! Why didn't I know about this!?

https://vitaliepedia.org/vitaliepedia/Vitaliepedia

Of course I knew about the Vitalienbrüder and Klaus Störtebeker, their use of Visby, and all that, but this was something else.

Both myself and #3 were quite inspired and #3 bought a red blouse and a black skirt with a decidedly (anarchosyndicalist!) pirate look. Looks very good on them with their long hair on one side and shaved on the other. I'll try to match their clothes next year and together we can visit the Pirate Hill and drink some rum! Well, perhaps I'll keep the rum for myself...

mc,

Prickle-Prickle, the 10 day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3188

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