A comrade carer came by for a coffee today and showed me his massive chopper. Then he showed me his sword. He told me he had just been on a wonderful weekend away, taking part in a massive fantasy battle. Yes, my eyebrow raised also. I thought maybe it'd be the historical recreation they do sometimes where they let off cannons and roundheads pretend to stab cavaliers while they come round rattling the bucket, but no, this he'd been on was different. No spectators at all. Everyone there was in the battle! He said there were around 700 (seven hundred) on each side! Elves, wizards, pixies, monsters - the lot. He showed me photos (he was dressed up like a sort of Braveheart sporran swinger). He said he didn't get killed, but he killed LOADS of fackin' Ewocks and such. He went to the car and got out this big life-size rubber battle axe and a sword. Said he'd got all sorts of weapons at home. He's been doing this for ages. I had absolutely NO idea this existed! Had anyone heard of it before? I was amazed. They pay about £200 each for it apparently and they have these battles about 4 times a year. He explained the very (too) complicated rules and tried to say that he would take me to the next one. I pretended not to understand and said if it was fantasy, I wanted to be Alien or Predator and have a machine gun as a weapon. Not allowed under some technicality in the rules apparently. I will NOT be dressing up as a goblin and swinging a rubber sword anytime soon. Was anyone else aware such weirdness went on in the woods?
I have seen this on a number of murder mystery dramas. It seems it's a perfect scenario to commit and disguise a genuine murder. Given your scrapes with authority and the hundreds of toffs with motive for your murder, I would steer well clear.
For a similar reason Clive should avoid entering any place in which large wheels of cheese are stored.
Dear diary woke up at 5am. Put on Pixie outfit and make-up. Drove two hours to a damp field in Gloucestershire. Took part in fantasy battle re-enactment, was "killed" within first 5 minutes by a large man in a sporran. Had to lay down in the mud and pretend to be dead for 7 hours. Drove home.
It can be weird. At the start of the lockdown last year I was out on my bike riding down a country lane (doing my regulation one exercise of the day) to find a load of guys in black military gear, full face helmets carrying oversize futuristic assault rifles were milling around at the end of the lane. I wondered momentarily what fresh apocalyptic nightmare Covid was unleashing, but it turned out to be a load of mega-nerds off to pretend to be Imperial Stormtroopers or something similar. Actually, weird doesn’t cover it.
I may be telling a fib and it was just before lockdown, that weekend, when you couldn’t buy bog roll or soap.
I had a neighbour who was a member of the 'Sealed Knot'. He and his family joined SK and were put in touch with the local Parliamentarian/Royalist unit (ISTR him saying he joined a Cavalier regiment as they were always 'light' on numbers). And then it started: gear (do you know how much a pastiche of 17th spectacles cost?), uniforms, equipment (he was a medic* so he amassed a collection of period 'tools'). It was pretty much (in the summer) a full-time job doing events every weekend (with the wife and two kids - they loved it). For a charity it was run like a very successful franchise business and became quite lucrative with all the exes a member could claim. *17th century medicine displayed in the 'open' tent - 21st century in the 'closed' tent next door - burns were the most common injury.
I used to live in the same block of flats as a lass at uni who liked to dress up in medieval garb and go to the woods once or twice a month. The olde name she went by was Bronwynn I think. She owned it to be fair, quite open about how they’d do dancing and play lutes and roast a pig over a fire and all that. Fair ****s to her, sounds like more fun than going to a Lewis Capaldi gig or taking MDMA in a nightclub full of ****heads. Bet they got up to some right freaky pagan shaggin’ in the woods too. Phwoar, nasty.
Watch the Paul Rudd film Role Models. I reckon it sums up the mysterious cult of the battlefield perfectly. I remember an article years ago in total film about it. Some people get into character by sleeping for days in the forests before the battles
