The season started in January with the winter training weekend at Islip in Oxfordshire. Old friends met up after the close season, new members took their weapons tests and we all had a happy time shaking off the cobwebs and hitting each other with spears, swords and axes in preparation for York and the battles to come! Islip is always a good social weekend but not having been able to train much over winter I was horrendously out of practice on the field and needed to get much more training in before York!
York
Jorvik Viking Festival in February is traditionally the first major event of the season and always the best attended. 2009 was no exception as in excess of three hundred members turned up in one capacity or another. For the fighters the show started at 10AM with the usual combat training session in the Museum Gardens. Al and Charlie had also come over from Cestrescire, and we had some very good, hard fighting until one when we took a break to grab some food and prepare for the main battle. At two we mustered for the scrap. Set in the Northern rebellion of 1070, the battle would see Saxon and Anglo-Danish rebels face William’s Normans.
It was one of the best battles I’ve ever done at York, very hard fought and the result in doubt almost to the end. The clincher was Cestrefeld standing firm on our left flank while a surge of armoured warriors broke through the Norman centre to win the battle for the rebels - setting what turned out to be the pattern for the season! After the battle two of our best and most respected warriors (Jane and Little Pete) were raised to the rank of Warlord. Richly deserved it was too!
After the competitive battle came a short break before the parade through York for an evening performance at the Eye of York. I call it a performance as being scripted, it’s not really what we’d usually call a battle. We had a short break in the museum and caught up with what had happened on the LHE from Helen and Julie before fighting out the evening bash under floodlights. As I say it was a scripted fight so the Normans had to win, but good fun and very atmospheric all the same.
Next up was the spring training weekend, this year at the new venue of Willesley Scouting Centre, Leicestershire. A superb venue with first class facilities and all the space you could want for re-enactment combat. The fighting was excellent - hard, fast and intense without losing anything in terms of safety. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and while I was sorry to see the end of Pim Hill as the venue, the new site is a more than adequate replacement. Away from the battlefield it was a great social event as we chatted the night away, setting the world to rights and exchanging battlefield whoppers well into the wee small hours.
Aelfric and the Saxon army at York
We were back in York at Easter for another event for Jorvik Viking Centre in connection with its silver jubilee. A smaller event than in February, it was nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. We set up camp in the Museum Gardens and got to put on the full range of our activities in the centre of the most famous Viking city in Britain for a whole weekend, rather than the more combat orientated February show. The LHE for this show was excellent with a number of groups, together with the waifs and strays collective, making valuable contributions. This time the dateline and setting were more typical of York shows, with the year 850 being the date and a pack of raiding Vikings the scenario. That suited me down to the ground as it was a chance to strut about in my early period finery! On both days, the Saxons won the battle and on the Saturday I realised a long held ambition of commanding an army at York! Again the battles were very good (if not quite as outstanding as in February) and just confirm my own belief that the standard of combat in Regia is continuing to rise with every year that goes by. A very promising season was up and running!
Three weeks, three major shows
The end of May found us at the village of Sutton Courtenay in Berkshire for the first of three major shows on consecutive weekends. I couldn’t make the last of these at Arbeia on Hadrian’s Wall so was determined to enjoy the two that I could get to! The Sutton Courtenay show was very different to anything I’ve done before. The village was a picturesque English idyll and the locals very friendly, but I have never, ever before been part of a major show in someones garden! While it must be said that the garden in question did cover several acres it was still a somewhat strange feeling! The event was fun with our show being on the Sunday only so on Saturday some of the boys took one of Regia’s longship replicas for a row up the Thames while the rest of us did a bit of combat practice and relaxed with our friends. Sunday's show was very enjoyable with the ship moored nearby and a good mix of activities in the camp. Training was excellent in the morning with a good many experienced warriors to play with, and despite a bit of a rain shower mid afternoon, by muster the skies were clear.
For a one day show the turn out was pretty good, with about fifty warriors and slightly fewer LHE participants. With a lot of experience on the field, the battle promised to be a good one. A Saxon raid into the Danelaw was the scenario for the scrap and the Saxon army took the field in confident mood, having been on a real roll over the last year or so. Our optimism lasted until we saw the Vikings deploy – Oskorei on the right flank, a strong contingent of the Welsh and some very experienced De Beccies in the centre and Cestrefeld on the left. For anyone not in Regia, this is not a force you want to see advancing on you! The Vikings won by rolling up our left flank, but we at least made them work for their victory. It was a real fun fight that will last in the memory and I was reasonably happy with my contribution in holding Oskerei off for a fair while. We also did an impromptu ‘weapontake’ in the morning which went down well and got a few laughs from the audience. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.
The Regia Anglorum riding team at Waltham Abbey
A week later Helen M and I set off with my little boy Jack for Waltham Abbey near London and a three day show. Waltham Abbey is always a good show and I was looking forward to the battles, while Helen was involved in the horse display with the rapidly expanding riding team. It was a baking hot weekend, and I managed to have far too much sun while drinking far too little water. Thus we had to leave on Monday morning and miss the last day of the show! In between, though, were two very different battles and some first class displays from the horse team. They performed a civilian riding display, a skill at arms tournament and provided a small unit of Norman knights for the battles. The fights were interesting, with a Normans and Saxons setting. The Saxons snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on the Saturday. Sunday brought another Saxon victory, but this time the kind of one sided triumph that while satisfying at the time is not one you remember with much pleasure. Unlike in real warfare we prefer our victories to be pyrrhic bloodbaths!
After Saturday's battle Gav was made up to Warlord - completely merited and, as is now traditional for recipients of this honour it took him completely by surprise! A final shine was added by a text off Mike just after I got in saying that the Saxons had won the final battle of the weekend to complete the first three day whitewash in nearly a decade!
Regia were at Arbeia in South Shields the following week and though I missed it because I was on holiday I gather it was another good gig including the biggest ship burning we’ve ever done! After that a few of us took part in smaller local events around the North West. These events are usually just one or two local groups and are obviously nowhere near as big as the National shows. All the same, they are a lot of fun and allow us to give a much more local flavour to what we do as well as give new members a chance to see what they think without being potentially overwhelmed at a major.
World's largest village show
Sarah on the LHE at Heckington
At Heckington in Lincolnshire is apparently the world's largest village show, and having seen it I can quite believe it. This was the setting for the next national we attended. It was small for a major show as there were a lot of smaller shows on that weekend (six I believe), as well as the big Festival of History event at Kelmarsh that drew members away. Still, about thirty on the field with a good few others on the LHE was a decent turnout in the circumstances. It was also Sarah’s first event of the season. Unfortunately our youngest behaved dreadfully, which rather put a downer on this event for both of us. The show itself was pretty good, though I always find it hard to get into the atmosphere at events like this, which can have American Indians on one side and a bouncy castle on the other!
Our show was set during Hereward the Wake’s rebellions against the Normans. For a bit of originality we turned him into an utter psycho who cut down three Norman women and child hostages, and it was an amusing first to have an English crowd rooting for the Norman invaders! I played Hereward on Saturday, Mike played him on Sunday and much fun it was too! Though small, the field was dripping with quality and experience. The fighting was certainly the hardest of the season and arguably of my whole Regia career. Truly top notch.
Castleton
End of the battle, end of the season at Castleton
Last bash of the year was at Castleton, just down the road for us. Datelined to 1109, it was later than we usually do but well within what we’re capable of. Sarah was running the cooking on the waifs and strays wic, Helen N was there in spite of a badly broken ankle (and it was great to see her in such good spirits), Helen M was again involved with the horse display and James, Charlie, Adam (at his first show) and I were there for the fighting! As usual, the LHE ran very well and was one of the best turnouts of the year in terms of structures and bodies. Combat-wise we had around eighty warriors which was also very satisfactory. Again, the horse displays were excellent with the hunting skills tournament where riders attempted to spear pig size and shape targets from horseback (in which Helen did very well and finished runner up) particularly impressing.
A new departure on Sunday was to have the ‘arming of the knight’ display include the horse and end in a mounted combat with another knight. It looked and sounded absolutely magnificent and Kim truly excelled even himself with the commentary to produce a superb spectacle. The battles were also excellent, both won by Richard de Bramale’s rebels (AKA the Saxon army in late period guise). Saturday's was a well fought slogging match with James and I holding the far left of our line, while on Sunday a breakthrough by the Welsh on our flank was seen off by our reserve (the Mercian boys again distinguishing themselves) in a cracking broken field fight before we broke their centre a fraction before they could do the same to us. All in all a great end to a great season!
