Pennsic, 1999

Hi all,

Here's a few pics I took at Pennsic one year, using a little Kodak disposable. I had the photos put on a photo-CD when I had the film developed, and here's what I got that I thought worth sharing, cropped for content and for size to try and speed up the downloads a little. Okay, I promised to pretty it up, so I've switched to thumbnails. It was taking *way* too long to load...

First a little background for those friends and relatives who may not be aware of the SCA and the annual two week camping event refered to as the Pennsic War.

The Society for Creative Anachronism is a non-profit educational group dedicated to the recreation of the spirit of the middle ages. I say spirit, because there are some parts of the middle ages that we have no interest in accurately recreating, like plagues, poverty, and real bloodshed. As some say, we just try to recreate the fun parts.

Being a world-wide organization, it is by far too large for any one volunteer group to manage, so over the years the SCA has split into smaller operating groups we call Kingdoms. Now two of the older groups are the East Kingdom (from about NJ up North and East) and the Middle Kingdom (from Ohio West, but I'm a little fuzzy on their other borders). Suffice it to say that they are of about the same size, and each have a number of allies among the other kingdoms, many of whom were split off from one or the other when they became too large.

Now at one time almost 30 years ago, these two Kingdoms, in the name of fun and a deliberate misunderstanding (perpetrated by the same man from both sides!) decided to have a little war on what was then their border, the Pennsylvania-Ohio line. The loser would get Pittsburg. And they had so much fun, that they've been doing it ever since. Annual attendance at this point is just under 10,000 people a year. Any more than that and the state of Pennsylvania requires us to declare ourselves a town, hold elections, and file a federal emergency evacuation plan. Honest. As it is we already have out own bank and U.S. Post Office...

Some of people I play this game with are very good at it (much better than I). The combat is sort of like a high speed, high power game of tag, using rattan sticks (yes, like the stuff they use to make rattan furniture). The King is changed every six months by holding a tournament, and the winner gets to be Prince for 6 months (to learn the ropes) and then King for six. As it happens, the then current Prince of the East (Lucan) was the leader of the household I camp with, and the King (Hans) was another member of the house, one of his former students. So I got to camp in the Royal encampment this year. Of course, those who do also get asked to guard gates and run errands and such--a fair trade.

Here's where Terri and I camped for the week...

Here's the royals getting ready to hold court...

Lucan (in purple) goes over a few last details...

Here's one of the many aisles of merchants...

And another...

Some of the many food vendors, for those who prefer not to cook their own, or are in the mood for a treat. The campground store also does very well selling that paragon of medieval foodstuffs, chocolate milk...

Many camps like to have the pomp and prestige of elaborate front gates. These two groups are the kingdoms of Drachenwald (Europe) and Aethelmark (The western part of upstate NY, western PA, and WV).

These people use their gates to stage elaborate comedy skits with a piratical theme. Their biggest complaint is waiting for high tide...

The front gates to the Eastern Royal encampment, where we were staying. Despite showing their age, these gates are still impressive, and good for a bit of shtick over the battlements now and then.

What you see here probably makes up less than a quarter of all the tents!

And this may be about the same fraction of the cars. They keep going up another hill *behind* the back one you see here!

Many camps set up ther own solar showers to avoid the lines at the main bathhouses and at the solar showers used by the campground. Picture a shallow swimming pool the size of a football field, covered in plastic with a pump at one end, and two dozen shower stalls (in his and hers matching shower huts) at the other...you have to time your visits just right in the day or it gets a little "brisk", even with that big of a solar collector...but then you have to get up before dawn to get a hot shower at one of the regular bathhouses!

Every year the two kingdoms (and their allies) send out their best fighters for a couple of contests. The "Belted" fighters are those that have received the top level fighting award, making them either Knights (who wear a white belt) or Masters (who wear a white sash called a baldric). The "Unbelted" fighters are those that the Knights and Masters feel may soon be good enough to be promoted and are given a chance to demonstrate their prowess. The Knights in White and Red are of the Middle Kingdom, those in Yellow and Blue are of the East Kingdom.

At the start. Notice the blurred weapons. These guys hit hard!

Less than a minute later, and there's a lot more yellow than white left standing. Towards the end, the outnumbered survivors are often given a chance to fight one-on-one as a point of honor.

Here we are before the Bridge Battle, getting ready to march up to the battlefield.

On our way. I'm the faceless grey tunic with the red showing inside my shield. Lucan is the one in front with the black and gold armor.

The masses gathered before the bridge battle.

There are three bridges in this battle, lined out with hay bales. Whoever holds two or more at the end wins.

One of our combattants observed that there was nothing in the rules that forbade constructing another brige, and he presented this concept to the referees (whom we call Marshals) and they, laughing, agreed. So our side set about building another bridge.

The plan wasn't really so much to get a tactical advantage, as we were outnumbered for this fight anyway. It was mostly done for a way to throw some humor into the event. As it turned out, it wasn't one of our better strategies--we lost four out of the three bridges!

At this point I ran out of film. I only brought one camera, to kind of show a taste of what this event is like and why I try to go every year...