Jousting

Various

Saturday was a pleasant Summer day and I ran my usual errands to the library and the market. The "Society for Creative Anachronism" was doing demonstrations on James Street and I took the opportunity to do some sketches.

According to their promotional material the SCA is an "international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe". The chap in the funny hat here was a kind of master of ceremonies and spent a lot of time explaining what the "knights" were doing. There were ladies in period costumes demonstrating mediaeval crafts and even a few who were dressed up as knights and taking part in the duels, I guess they thought that was more fun.

The watching children were enjoying it. I am sure that my boys would have had fun if they had been about ten years younger. They once had the opportunity to watch a stage fighting workshop and I am convinced that all small boys should have that opportunity. Yes I am being sexist here, I expect that there are some girls that would benefit too.

Womankind might well have been responsible for the invention of weaving, pottery, agriculture and a whole bunch of other things, but it was a small boy-child who invented the weapon (imho). One day homo-not-quite-erectus crawled out of his cave, found a rock or a stick and thought "Wow, I can hit someone with this!"