ARCH - Ideas for an Archery Tournament

[Debbie Dewart]

So what time is the tourney to be?

How are you going to deteremine the order in which the archers are to enter the field?  Who signs up first, or precedence or what?

If I'd known starting this list was as easy as it was, I'd have done it long ago.

Gilli

-----Original Message-----
    From: Filemaker <paul_mitchell at filemaker.com>
    To: ansteorra-archery at ansteorra.org <ansteorra-archery at ansteorra.org>
    Cc: lordfearghus at home.com <lordfearghus at home.com>; Karie Mitchell <allessandre at hotmail.com>
    Date: Tuesday, April 04, 2000 11:57 AM
    Subject: ARCH - Ideas for an Archery Tournament
    
    
    Galen of Bristol here!
    
    (Hey!  Is this the first post to the Ansteorra-Archery list?)
    
    One of the things I'm going to really like about being Baron of Elfsea
    is that I'll be able to do -- on a regular basis -- something I've only 
    gotten to do once:  host a formal archery tourney.
    
    I think back to the Robin Hood stories, and the tournament held
    by the Sheriff of Nottingham as a ruse to lure Robin Hood right
    into his castle, and how Robin came in disguise and won the
    prize.  No film version of Robin Hood is complete without the 
    Archery Tourney sequence.  Even Disney's appalling animated
    version of Robin does a pretty good job on this part.
    
    Once, long ago, back in Bryn Gwlad, my household held a
    weekend-long archery competition.  The archers were presented
    in a march of precedence.  We held a royal round, a novice
    shoot, and a combat archery team competition with live armored
    targets.  The audience was fully as big for this event as it would
    have been for a similar sized chivalric tourney, the event itself
    drew more participants than the previous Baronial Champion
    Tourney.
    
    I had gotten the idea to do this when I noticed, at that prior
    Bryn Gwlad baronial championship tourney, the number of
    archers who were out shooting in a light rain was greater than
    the number of chivalric and duello combatants combined.  I
    thought, "these people deserve their own event".  So we held
    one.  Eventually, I hope Elfsea will hold a primarily archery
    event.  In the meantime, on a smaller scale, I'm looking forward
    to doing what I posted to the Ansteorra list:
    
    "The tournament to choose the next Archery Defender of Elfsea (in 
    September) will be as high-persona, with as much pageantry, as I 
    can arrange.  Never mind getting a noble to sponsor you, archers 
    will need to hire heralds.  There'll be prizes for style as well as the 
    title that goes to the victor, be sure to look good, and consider how 
    your persona would conduct himself in such a tourney.  There'll be 
    a prize for the best herald.  The Baron & Baroness (and hopefully
    the King & Queen) will be sitting in their thrones behind the shooting 
    line watching, cheering and wagering.  Hopefully, many more spectators 
    will join us.  This will be the first thing Saturday morning at the event,
    _right_ after morning court, while the fighters are just getting started 
    with armor inspection.  If the archers come out and make this a 
    success, it'll be a new tradition in Elfsea."
    
    Now, I'm thinking of doing this as a simple Royal Round, due to time
    constraints.  I still have to preside over rapier and chivalric lists
    that day, plus all the other things that will be get inserted into the
    schedule, some of which will surely demand my attention.  But I'm
    counting on this to start off the event with a bang, as it were, and I'm
    hoping to come up with attractive enough prizes that all the best
    archers in Ansteorra will want to come and compete, which will in
    turn make the Archery Defender of Elfsea the title in the kingdom which
    is most prized among the archers, simply because of who you'll have
    had to beat to get there.
    
    I plan to include having my herald announce the scores of
    each round, so that the spectators can have a better idea
    of what's happening.  Perhaps some version of a scoreboard
    could provide a visual display of the progress of the competition.
     
    Some things I hope to avoid:
    - Inadequate pavillion space by the archery field, making it a trial
    for spectators to stay and watch.
    - Hiding the archery field someplace that's hard to find.
    
    OK, guys, what am I leaving out?  
     
    Do crossbows have an unfair advantage?  I don't think they do if
    I throw in a timed round.
    
    Will enough archers come to participate?  Is this attractive to
    archers?  Or am I just imposing my tournament-mindset into
    an activity that doesn't accodate it well?
    
    What do you think?
    
    - Galen of Bristol
    
    
    
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