Back from Pennsic

We are back from our two weeks at Pennsic. Went for land grab, stayed till Friday. Came home a day early... more about that later. Expect some new blog posts about Pennsic in the coming weeks. For now... real life sucks.
I miss the sound of the wind in the trees over our camp, the drumming, the voices from neighboring camps. I miss looking out and seeing my family here, ready to face the day together. Eating breakfast just Dalla and I... it seems so weird. It's amazing how quickly we get used to that way of life. The camaraderie, the closeness... makes me really appreciate what life on a steading would actually be like. You grow to rely on those people, not just for shared labor, but support... emotional, mental... knowing that they are right there.

The view from our sitting spot...

I miss getting up to muster for battle. Putting on the gear, putting on the game face, that feeling in your stomach before the cannon goes off. I always have the words from the beginning of "Starship Troopers" going through my mind... I always get the shakes before a drop.
The pure joy of the fray... working the axe, the press of bodies, the adrenaline. those moments when Olaf is actually as big as he is in my head... it is amazing. A much more simple, purpose driven portion of my life. Clear objectives, clear purpose. To paraphrase Jethro Tull... give me my Dane axe and clear understanding....

I miss it. I love all my mundane family. I love my job, I love my life. But I wanna go back.

On Single Combat

Let me preface this by saying that, as always, the opinions expressed here are my own, and reflect how I play the game.
On Single Combat.

It is a tradition amongst a large part of the SCA that during a melee combat, when one side has only one person left alive, they can ask, or may BE asked, for the honor of single combat. The contest then generally proceeds with them fighting individual challengers from the other side until they are slain, or until they work their way through the entirety of the opposing fighters, killing them all.

I… don’t play this game. Last time I was asked for single combat was at Pennsic a couple years ago. During the rapier plateau battle (I think) we swept across the field, just absolutely dominating. One lone guy was left, and he called “SINGLE COMBAT!”
I looked at him and said “Milord, I will grant you the honor… of the four of us killing you.” (four on one being the maximum allowed, technically)
He grinned a grin I cold see through his fencing mask, and attacked. We killed him.
The King of the Midrealm awarded him a Dragon’s Tooth for his heroic stand.
I did him an honor. I acknowledged that he was a threat, and responded accordingly.
If you offer me single combat… I will tell you to pick three friends. I will not be offended… I get that you are playing the game your way, and that’s OK. But going out in a blaze of glory buried in enemy dead is a much more attractive option to me than eventually getting killed, exhausted after fighting a bunch of singles fights. If I wanted singles combat, I would go to the pickup field. I will usually not let it come to that… I will attack first, to keep the question from being asked.

My attack will probably go something like this...

This weekend at Panteria, our side got rolled up. Sir Rhys was the last of our side left alive, on his knees. The other side gave him single combat…. And he proceeded to kill all of them (seven, I think).
After it was over, I gave one of them Uncle Olaf’s words of wisdom…
Next time, you grab three of your buddies and you skull f^ck him to death… J

Daily Life in the Dark Ages

This weekend we had an event here in Northern Outpost called Daily Life in the Dark Ages. It was a schola event... all classes, no fighting. We have not had an event like this here in Outpost in about a decade, and were not sure how it would go. Ended up with almost forty people in attendance... not a bad turnout, and hopefully a good start for similar events in the future. Ariana and Dalla ran the event, and had a good lineup of dark ages classes. Erland did an amazing job with dark ages food, doing dried meets, soup, cheeses, and flatbread that was just great. Christophe, as ever, put out the signs to guide people in, though nature seemed intent on knocking them back down.
I found myself in the odd position of having no responsibility for anything at the event. I was not marshaling, not event steward, not doing dayboard... it was weird. Generally even in out of Shire events, I am promised for some duty, even if it's just marshaling for inspections or doing authorization fights. This was a big switch for me.
I had a lot of fun. Having no responsibilities, I set up my trunk in a corner, and laid out some things to work on throughout the day. I had a wood carving project to putter at, and some maille that needed mending. People came by and sat, talked about what I was working on. Kadlin and I had a great time talking about wood carving... she is an excellent chip carver, and we discussed tools, and the sharpening of said tools.
I attended a class taught by Asgar, and had a good time role playing Anglo-Saxon law scenarios.

Mending maille with Gwendolyn.
Photo by Dalla

Later on, as I was sitting with Gwendolyn mending maille, and teaching her to do so, I had a thought that I would teach an impromptu class on how I wrap my winingas... the woolen leg wraps I wear with my viking gear. I know many people have problems getting them wrapped so that they stay up, so I took mine off and did a brief tutorial between other classes. It seemed to be well received, and one person suggested I do a blog post detailing my process, which I will do in the near future. Maybe a video blog...
All in all, it was a great weekend. Got to hang out in a relaxed medieval atmosphere with friends. Got to hang with my granddaughter Haley and son Snorri. It was a refreshing weekend, and I needed it.
Hoping to be at Balfar's Challenge in a couple weeks... THAT will be a completely different kind of event. :)

Don't Stop to Kick the Bear

Years ago, a bunch of us locally played a tabletop miniature game called Mordheim. It was a game set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, but was based on small units. We like the game for several reasons... you could play cheaply, as there were not as many miniatures required, there was the option to keep your warband and have them gain experience, and it was a fun excercise in small unit tactics.
All of the scenarios had goals... it wasn't just fight to the last man (necessarily) and you could, in fact, win the fight but lose the scenario.
One game in particular that demonstrated this was between my Pelican Master Harald and my protege brother Gabe. The scenario called for him to get across the board with a treasure, if I remember correctly. Gabe was winning handily... his warband was faster than Harald's dwarf warband, and he was almost at the edge of the board. The last thing in his way was one of Harald's war bears, but it was no threat... it had been knocked down by another character. All Gabe's guy had to do was waltz on by, game over. Gabe stopped to kill the bear. Should have been simple... all he had to do was roll to hit it, then next turn, skip off. No problem.
He failed his roll.
Next turn, the bear got up. It delayed him long enough for Harald's dwarves to get in range. Gabe lost.
We used this scenario for years to demonstrate the concept of not losing sight of your objective. There are many times in melee situations when it can be tempting to step out and play the hero, but in doing so you may risk losing the tactical advantage in the battle.
So remember kids... don't stop to kick the bear.

Uncle Olaf on a plateau

Like the title says... Uncle Olaf feels like he's on a plateau. I have hit a point where I feel like my forward progress has stopped, and I may have even backslid slightly.
Part of it comes from mundane life... I have had a fairly stressful patch in my job, and that bleeds over into everyday life and hobbies. Dalla and I are both feeling it... we've let our diet and exercise slip, and feel it physically, which effects us emotionally... it's a vicious cycle.
This happens... I have hit the wall before... but I need to figure out what to do to break the cycle.
Starting this week, I will be travelling to Coldwood practice on Sunday. This is not a weekly thing ( I couldn't afford to do it every week anyway) but it will give me a change... more variety in who I fight will help, and add new challenges and ideas. Stagnation kills, and fighting the same people every week can get you in bad habits.
I need to start working out more... not weights and gym, but agility/footwork drills and pell. The agility drills help my footwork, but they are also what keeps my knees from sucking, and I am starting to feel that. I will have to figure out how and where to do them inside, as winter is pretty much here, and see what i can do about a pell in the basement.
Getting to events has been challenging. I was hoping to do Hundred Minutes, but I'm not sure if that will happen. It's 7 hours one way and $150 in gas, and I am not sure I can pull that off. Still contemplating, so we will see. I am going to ponder the events map on East Kingdom Gazette and see what I can pull together over the coming months.

I'm not going to make any grand promises about the things I am going to do to get off this plateau... I recognize that first I need to get out of the funk I am in. I will take steps to do that, and move forward. But I will, rest assured, be doing SOMETHING.

Why Uncle Olaf doesn't fight at the last practice before Pennsic.

A number of years ago... Pennsic 35… I got hurt in the last fight practice before War. Practice was on Tuesday, and we left on Saturday.  I caught a shot right on the inside of my elbow, at just the right angle that there was no armour there. It hurt like Hel, and swelled and bruised pretty spectacularly. By the time we got to Pennsic… it had not improved.
I decided to fight Monday when the war points started anyway… I had OK range of motion and could work a spear pretty well, and I had not driven there to sit on the sidelines. The Monday battle was the town battle. I’m not sure if folks remember this one, but it was the one where we built a HUGE town out of hay bales. I mean HUGE… it took up the entire battlefield, and was a rabbit warren of streets and alleys and buildings. Our plan was to hit in three teams, penetration, assault, and security. Penetration team punched in fast, advanced to contact, and made the enemy stop and engage. Assault team followed that up and knocked them back, and the security team… the slower moving but generally heaver fighters… held the ground. Rinse and repeat.

Heading into the town.Photo by Ursus of Anglesey

We took over half the town at the opening cannon, and never gave it back. It was a gloriously brutal battle.
Maybe halfway through, I came to the sudden and frightening realization that I could no longer feel the hand on my injured arm. I took this as a Bad Sign. I came off the field right in front of the Tuchux pavilion, and started to drop my gear. A couple of their dogs started ripping into me to GTFO of their space, but Animal saw I was hurt, and smacked them down. I explained what was wrong, and he asked me to take my arm harness off and he would try some acupressure. I had no idea what that was, but at that point, I was willing to try anything.  He worked on the arm for a few minutes, and feeling returned. Pretty much as soon as it did, I wished it hadn’t… because that hurt like a mother. After he finished, Animal told me I probably shouldn’t fight.  I intended to follow the advice, but a quick glance at my exhausted compatriots fighting the good fight, and I decided to go back in. My intent was to carry water up to those people guarding banner points, and I didn’t carry a spear. I had my seax on my belt, so I was armed, and I figured I would count as a combatant if they needed bodies for a count around a banner. This not fighting thing lasted a VERY short time… there was a push on the line where I was, we were about to be overrun, and almost without thought, I flipped a spear that was lying on the ground up into my hand, and started killing folk. The spear broke in my hands (I lost three spears that day, though this was the only one broken) and I ended the battle batting cleanup with the seax as the enemy tried penetrating our line.
I staggered off the field, and had to be helped back to camp. I was hurting. Bad.
That night, there was much prayer in camp. Master Harald blessed his own Thor’s hammer and had me wear it. A massage therapist worked on the arm a while, I took it easy, I ate motrin like candy.
I woke up the next morning, and the arm was still f^cked. The swelling had worsened. The bruising had spread… it was now bruised from mid forearm to my shoulder, ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE ARM!
Harald looked at it, and told me if I went out and fought the woods, it was very likely that I would not be fighting the rest of War. I sat in my tent and watched my friends head off to the woods battle.
I sat there staring at my helmet and thinking. I popped back out of the tent, looked at Harald and said “Boss… I would rather miss the rest of Pennsic than not fight the woods.” I was going. There wasn’t a question.
He looked at me, understanding. Nodding, he said “So suit up.”
I did. Threw my armour on as fast as possible and left the camp just as the cannon went off to start the battle. We were on the far side of the woods that year… about a mile walk from where I was. In under fifteen minutes, I had reached our res point, grabbed a spear from the spare gear ( I had not gotten my spear back from the battlefield the day before) and was in the woods.
I proceeded to have one of the best battles of my life. Seriously… occasionally you have one of those days where damn near everything goes right. This was one of those days. I felt unstoppable, and many a fun story came out of that woods battle.
At the end of the battle, we piled in the vehicles and got a ride back to camp. I got back, armoured down, and took a look at my arm. The swelling was gone. The bruising was almost gone… the arm barely tinged with yellow. I fought the rest of War, no pain or discomfort.
I don't fight the last practice before Pennsic now though. J

Dreams of a modern viking...

One of my Facebook friends made a post the other day asking people about their dreams. Not “hey, do you have that dream where you’re in front of the class in your underwear”, rather if money or real life allowed, what would you do?
A particular dream of mine came a number of years ago when I made a flip offhand comment to some of our close friends “Man, what we really need to do is start up our own commune!”
I was surprised when they looked at me and nodded, wide eyed at the idea.
The incident got me thinking, and we talked about it some with my Household. I would love to take a plot of land… decently sized, with a combination of woods and field… and turn it into an actual Wolfhaven steading. I don’t want to do a fully Viking era thing… the intent is for it to be livable and modern. But I would want to run it as a steading, with houses for each family and a great hall or common building for all to use. Farming could be done cooperatively, with all providing labor and sharing in the produce. It wouldn't be fully self-sufficient, I am sure that most would still have an everyday job (I know I wouldn't leave MY job). Bills would have to be paid, and running a truly self-sustaining farm is very difficult. It would really be co-housing or an intentional community. Some folks I know in the SCA have done something similar with Camelot CoHousing in Massachussetts. What they have done isn't exactly what I intend (in my fantasy world), but it is still awesome, and an inspiration.

We already live in a somewhat communal fashion in our Pennsic encampment. Personal space is allotted for each person, but there is also a large common area where meals can be shared, people can hang out, and projects can be worked on. I picture this as a larger extension of that model (but obviously with larger personal space, private kitchens, etc.). I like the community feel we have at Pennsic... when things need to be done, we all pitch in. Our House is a fairly closely knit bunch, and I trust everyone in it... I would not want to do this with folks who were not truly invested in it. This would not be a true commune anyway... resources (personal monies) would not be pooled, though labor would be. The idea is closer to cohousing, a grouping together to create something closer to a closely bonded neighborhood with common values and goals.

Problems with the idea are plentiful… startup capital would be difficult to come up with, the House is already scattered about due to real world jobs, and there is not the job base to draw them back to the area. Once the land was acquired, there would be common area and homes to build, land to clear and cultivate. How the group would be organized and run would be a question, and how people would “buy in” and what happens if they leave…

Were I to come up with a large chunk of money, I would do it. No question… I would simply buy the land and charge in blindly. Allow House members to build on the land, carve out their own space in return for working the common crop land and building projects. The common hall would double as a feast hall for events, and we would be able to host some pretty excellent SCA events.
As it stands though… it is just a pipe dream.