'Tis fifty fathoms deep;
and there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet!
Daddy being away in Norway, we went to Aberdour for a weekend trip. They were having some very neat historical reenactments, done by the Historic Saltire Society. We arrived very early, so we had plenty of time for a leisurely tea (snack. I'm getting fancy), and some wandering about the castle grounds.
About noon, they had a little introduction to the day's events. It was terribly wordy, involving lots of dialogue between the two main reenactors. (I hesitate to say 'actors'. The reenactments were very cool, and very accurate, but the actual acting part clearly wasn't their specialty.)
There was some more time to wander around before the first real event, so we checked out some of the exhibits. There seemed to be several family units, each with their own tent. The kids ran around in tunics and bare feet while the parents demonstrated medieval crafts. The weaving tent was distributing little mini-braiders, and Maeve had lots of fun making friendship bracelets.
The first event was at the "food tent", with a demonstration of the types of food a serf and a lord would have had in the fourteenth century. (Actually, the serf's food looked a lot like what we had just eaten: bread, cheese, fruit.) Brigid got bored halfway through, so we went for a walk through the castle gardens to the doocot (dove cote).
Next on the agenda was a demonstration of what a medieval lady would have worn. The others headed over, but I stopped at the forge and watched them mold pewter belt buckles with period methods. It was extremely cool, and very amusing; it was the 'apprentice' doing it and he was incapable of getting the molds level.
The last exhibition was over at the armory. The lady who ran the armory had been very friendly earlier, had let Maeve and me handle all the equipment (Maeve got her braids tangled in the helmets), and sought us out afterwards to give us Robert the Bruce pins. The exhibition was so-so, mostly involving a lot of physical humor with an incompetent squire.
The jackpot of the day was the final battle. First they invited all the children to come 'enlist' in the Scottish army. They handed them foam swords and marched them around the field once, which I believe is a fairly accurate representation of the quality of both the weaponry and the training of the day. Then they brought out the actors--big, burly men with real swords and armor. Those were supposed to be the English army. They gave the kids the signal to charge, and of course they were all over the soldiers! Maeve had a great time whacking her prone enemies with the foam sword. After they sent the kids back, they had the real mock combat, but that wasn't nearly as fun.
It was deeply amusing to listen to them complaining about the heat on the beautiful 70-degree day. (We still get to shock people by saying "You know, it's getting near to 40 degrees [Celsius] back home.") We're enjoying this cool damp weather. Can't wait to get back in August...
--Sophia
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