[Ansteorra] the old days

[Elisabeth B. Zakes]

On the other hand, there were plenty of people wearing metal chain and plate
armour on the field (Sir Simonn and Master Godfrey being the two I remember
best), the famous Eisenfaust helms, proper cotehardies, Norman-style tunics,
and handmade leather shoes. Elizabethan doublets and thigh-high riding
boots.

Not nearly as much linen as we see now, as we were just getting a feel for
non-polyester fabrics, but I saw quite a bit of cotton and cotton velvet. My
first tunic was brushed cotton, hand sewn. I still have it. My second was a
blue and white satin gown, mid-1300s in style, and I added a sideless
surcoat shortly after that.

Most of the fairies and chainmail bikinis that I saw were at RenFair, not at
the events I attended. Maybe Pandora and I went to different events. :)

Ciard d'Algeneaux introduced me to "speaking forsoothly" -- he used "thee"
and "thou" liberally. One lord could kiss a hand like he was making love to
it. (I won't mention his name or all the ladies would be beating a path to
his door. He's still around. *grin*)

Smells? There were more cloved lemons around than there are now. Robbie and
Dupre were running the Blue Bottle Tavern, and the smells from that were
heavenly!

Sounds -- Iolo singing in the park. Seanna telling stories or holding
"Courtly Graces" discussions. Gwendolyn Dirk Sterne cheerfully tackling any
newcomer she saw and shoving them (nicely!) into proper clothing from the
well-stuffed Hospitaller's chest. Goshen setting up Jacob's Ladder and then
proving that it was not impossible to climb.

Aethelyan, semi-fossil

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 05:05, Leslie Snipes <lesdsnipes at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Oh, I so wish I had my photo albums here!
> You would have seen everything from bedsheet togas to princess dresses to
> faux chainmail bikinis to barbarians draped in oh so obviously faux fur, the
> kind we used to make big pillows from (and you'd have seen lots of those
> pillows) and not necessarily in animal colors.  Oh, and fairies and pixies
> and all sorts of mythical beasts!
> Lots of drums, lots and lots of drums. We turned everything into drums.  Of
> course, it wasn't unusual for us to have commercial drumsticks on hand to
> beat them with either :)
> After darkness set in, you'd not have seen much.  We didn't have the candle
> thing down very well at all and rarely anything beyond candles at all.  Lots
> of stumbling around in the dark but that wasn't all from the darkness.
> Oh, my the smells.  Rarely, rarely had running water on sites so by the
> second night and fighters having fought for 2 days... And the smell of
> poorly brewed beer would have knocked you over but for the fact the smell of
> wafting pot that already had.
>
> Girls stumbling around campsites in the morning sun in sheer gauze
> dresses.  Hm, maybe it's a good thing those photo albums are tucked away.
> Perhaps, since the SCA has taken on a more serious perspective of history
> since then, it's good that so much of the early days seems to have
> disappeared into thin air (with Merlin).
>
> It was the late 1970's and the last gasps of the hippies and most of us
> were young and broke!
>
> Pandora
>
> --- On Tue, 9/15/09, Coblaith Muimnech <Coblaith at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> From: Coblaith Muimnech <Coblaith at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [Ansteorra] the old days
> To: "Inc. Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA" <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 3:50 AM
>
> Bryn Gwlad's forthcoming fall event is themed around the Society as it was
> when the barony was founded <http://sca1979.swordworks.org/>.   You'd
> think it'd be easier to find information on the clothes, goods, and customs
> of that period than those I usually study, but that has thus far not proved
> to be the case.  So I turn to you, my compatriots.  Had I wandered into an
> S.C.A. event thirty years ago, what would I have seen, heard, and smelled?
> And do you have photos?
>
>
> Coblaith Muimnech
> <mailto:Coblaith at sbcglobal.net>
> <http://coblaith.net>
>
>
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