Whence the Silver Doodad?

Here I though nobody read this blog since nobody has ever left a comment YET (you know who you are), but I was proved wrong today when Gordon received a nice email from the artist who cast the cool silver ornament pictured below. Diane Merrill has fessed up to being the genius behind the "Viking harness mount". She says it's her first hand-carved soapstone mold project. It being so fine, I think this bodes well for her future projects!

West Kingdom, SCA short class, Oct 2

Yesterday, Saturday Oct. 2, we did a nice little class for the SCA's Kingdom of the West equestrian group, in Livermore. We had over a dozen mounted participants, which was very nice, and somewhat more folks for the lecture part of the class.

Lecture was pretty basic, just going over the different types of Cavalry in use in the Renaissance, and it's change over into the later styles of Cavalry as seen in the 17th Century. One of the points I really wanted to get across though was the EXPENSE of Cavalry. It has always been, and shall always be, an expensive proposition for either the professional or the amateur horseman, and in fact it is this expense that is the very reason for the existence of Feudalism itself. It took the labour of the 95% of the population just to support a single, armoured man on horseback (and his family, of course). Thus it is thus expensive and therefore, in a manner of speaking, elitist by its very nature. And this is why in almost all languages (exept English and Japanese, for some reason) the word for a Knight means "Horseman".

We had fun doing our Cavalry Drill, which of course is still in it's slightly modified 19th Century format... still working on the 16th Century commands! We had a good leavening of folks who had attended our May class, so there were experienced riders and horses in every "Set of Fours". Everyone learned quickly (as did all the horses, but then we knew they would), and by the end of our short session (about an hour or so) we were ready for our "Lance Charge". We didn't charge the arena fence, jump it and then make a dash at the soccer players near by, but we did manage to get a good look at ourselves in the "en haye" formation, with lances couched, ready to take on the poor peasant levies!

I believe that a good time was had by all, and I want to thank Rachael Keish and Toni Whyte for inviting me to join them in their equestrian games, and giving me an opportunity to "spread the word" about the joys of Renaissance Cavalry! (the image at the top of this entry is of the cool Medieval-looking token they gave me after the class!) And thanks to "Bob", my "Squire" (AKA Neb, my wife) for helping out, and riding with the group to add some more steady hands to the mix!

Rittmaster Frye

Rittmaster Frye gives the "lecture" portion of the class.