ModernChivalry.org
Miscellaneous => The Sallyport => Topic started by: Jeffrey Boyd Garrison on 2012-02-25, 01:50:05
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When I was a wee lad in the early 80's, my dad got the neighborhood kids together and helped us to create swords out of yard sticks and shields out of wall panelling. My first armory then was emblazoned from "Copper, an eagle displayed Sable." My younger sister's was "Argent, a heart Gules." We weren't too concerned about usurpation of existing arms in those days. We would organize the neighborhood kids into teams and have battles as well as mono y mono duels... amazingly no one ever got hurt. At its height, there were perhaps 8 kids swatting each other with sanded & painted rulers on our block. Later we started jousting with rolled up newspapers on bicycles (without parental observation), however that didn't work out too well and was rather short-lived.
Here then is a photo of a few of us kids.
(http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/253465_3064914540957_1206316107_101827882_84126_n.jpg)
Anyone have pictures or memories of their youthful experiences swinging mock knightly implements of war at their friends?
Have you encouraged your own kids to engage in such activity?
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Wow, that's actually pretty awesome. :)
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Well, I do have the famous "Page Nathan" picture...
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Sir Garrison, That is a awesome picture. I was in my late thirties before ever going to a faire and just started dressing for them a few years ago. We have introduced our adult kids to faires with some success. Our three year old grandchild was over and "Mike the Knight" came on. She called out Huzzah without prompt. I smiled with pride.
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Well, I do have the famous "Page Nathan" picture...
This sounds fairly epic... I can only imagine? :D
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Sir Garrison, That is a awesome picture. I was in my late thirties before ever going to a faire and just started dressing for them a few years ago. We have introduced our adult kids to faires with some success. Our three year old grandchild was over and "Mike the Knight" came on. She called out Huzzah without prompt. I smiled with pride.
There are so many things a three year old child might suprise everyone by shouting; "huzzah" must be by far the absolute best!
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Wow, that's actually pretty awesome. :)
Thankyou Sir Edward!
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Here's the Page Nathan picture...
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I don't have childhood pictures, since I didn't really do this stuff when I was that young, though the interest was starting to take root. I started playing D&D and fantasy games and the like around the age of 10, and by 13 I had my first "sword" ($20 SLO from an antique shop). It wasn't until high school that I started getting more and better swords, and by then was diving into the role-playing and table-top gaming scene a lot more.
And then Sir Wolf managed to get me hooked on buying armor back in 99. :)
I was about 15 in this picture (1988) below. I'm on the left in the black Halloween costume, with that first sword I bought. I had made a vampire costume for Halloween the previous year and wore the fabric parts to the renfaire. This was outside the front gate at MDRF.
(http://ed.toton.org/photos/me-guy-erik-1988.jpg)
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I'll have to dig around at my parents to see if I have any lingering childhood pics. Dad loves cameras, but film was expensive when I was young too. I don't remember my first foray into the medieval except from the story my dad likes to tell. He's a volunteer firefighter, and when I was 3 or 4, he was watching me and he had to respond to a call; so he called another volunteer up the street, who brought his younger brother (12? 14?) down to babysit me so they could go to the fire. Dad had an Atari. So the babysitter got wrapped up in that, while I apparently took the couch cushions to build a castle. Castles need cement, right? I somehow got my hands on baby powder, and had dumped the whole bottle on the cushions to hold my "castle" together. Then dad got back, said something (probably "colorful"), and *then* the babysitter realized what I did. :D
Myself and a friend used to do the wooden sword battles too, and got our start with "armor" out of some discarded carpet and duct tape. That, however, was short-lived. We started on "ninja missions", dressing in all black, and sneaking around our yards at night. Soon, my dad would take me to the MD Renn Fest, where I bought my first legitimate steel sword (blunted for stage combat). And so it truly began - a couple years later, I'd get my first "real" start of armor; 16 gauge mild steel. It was full arms, pauldrons, full legs, and a cuirass, by a company long since out of business. I later lost the cuirass to damage in a small flood in my parents basement (failed sump pump), but the arms and legs were saved after a decent amount of rust removal.
That's awesome that you had heraldry as a kid. I never had anything like that, but I'm the only one in my family with any medieval interests. If I'm lucky enough to have kids, they will go straight from birth to their first mail haubergeon. :D Okay, not really, but I will highly encourage them to take interest in chivalry and the medieval period.
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Dad had an Atari. So the babysitter got wrapped up in that, while I apparently took the couch cushions to build a castle. Castles need cement, right? I somehow got my hands on baby powder, and had dumped the whole bottle on the cushions to hold my "castle" together. Then dad got back, said something (probably "colorful"), and *then* the babysitter realized what I did. :D
Hah! Sounds like something I might have done at that age. I once chased the cat around the entire lower floor with scoops of powdered laundry detergent. Left trails everywhere. :)
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I watched Excalibur and Robin Hood from a young age and always desired to be a knight. Personally I used to use costume armor and self made cardboard plate armor after my costume armor broke. It worked well but I had few people to play with due to being the target of bullying as a kid thanks to all my role playing which weirded people out. Don't really care cause I always fought back against bullying so it didn't last long, though I still was hated. Then came Zelda and I role played that for long hours with the few friends I had along with my brother. For some reason historical medieval stuff always appealed more to me than fantasy stuff. Later I was given tons of books on medieval arms and armor and generally my interest in it was rather large, mainly due to my WW2 interest being deemed as "unacceptable" by schools as "violent and bad" yet they tolerated medieval stuff which made no sense to me. If only there was LARPing when I was a kid I probably would of had a blast. Age 16 I started my first medieval faire days which were enjoyable but I didnt desire to be a knight as I was too obsessed with celtic/viking stuff at the time. Now I basically do mainly due to my interest in the crusader era.
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My father was never one for flights of fancy; he didn't (and still does not) read and had no interest in such things. As far as I know, he still doesn't- my guess is, it doesn't make sense to him so he's got no interest. Ask him anything about cars or boxing and he can enthrall you. Having said that, I'm really thankful for my Mom- she's the reason the interest started when I was 10; she'd given Bulfinch's Mythology for my 10th birthday; my favorites were the Tales of Charlemagne, and Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I used to draw knights fighting on foot (easier than drawing horses, I sucked at animals then, still do) and dream that I could be one of them, but I guess I wasn't creative enough to try my hand at crafting armor or swords of any kind. I'd usually pick up a stick about the right size and start wacking at stuff but that was the extent of it. I didn't do Halloween after I turned 14 or 15...was generally discouraged from anything too outrageous. I would've loved to have been that kid in Role Models but they didn't have anything like that where I grew up.
I have no regrets...I grew up a big enough nerd w/out needing any help. lol
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It really all started for me when I was about 4 or 5 and my mom introduced me to the Hobbit cartoon and the Robin Hood cartoon where Robin Hood is played by a fox! I got hooked, started watching the cartoons weekly. I still remember sitting there watching the Hobbit over and over eating nutter butters and drinking cranberry juice (an awesome combination by the way which I will have now 25 years later just for that nostalgic feeling).
We lived in Staten Island, NY, so not too far from the city, and my parents took me to the Met at a young age, and once I saw the Arms and Armor collection there, that's it, I was done... hooked for life! I'm very thankful that my parents were extremely supportive of my interests and exposed me to a lot of different things when I was kid.
I still know bits and pieces of the Hobbit songs by heart thanks to that cartoon... 'Down down to goblin town!!!' (that one used to scare me, ha!)
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Ian, was that Robin Hood cartoon a series or a movie? I remember a disney version of Robin Hood where he's played by a fox, and I believe the king is a lion? Maid Marian is another fox, or rabbit, or some kind of animal?
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Ian, was that Robin Hood cartoon a series or a movie? I remember a disney version of Robin Hood where he's played by a fox, and I believe the king is a lion? Maid Marian is another fox, or rabbit, or some kind of animal?
Yep, that's the one!
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It really all started for me when I was about 4 or 5 and my mom introduced me to the Hobbit cartoon and the Robin Hood cartoon where Robin Hood is played by a fox! I got hooked, started watching the cartoons weekly. I still remember sitting there watching the Hobbit over and over eating nutter butters and drinking cranberry juice (an awesome combination by the way which I will have now 25 years later just for that nostalgic feeling).
We lived in Staten Island, NY, so not too far from the city, and my parents took me to the Met at a young age, and once I saw the Arms and Armor collection there, that's it, I was done... hooked for life! I'm very thankful that my parents were extremely supportive of my interests and exposed me to a lot of different things when I was kid.
I still know bits and pieces of the Hobbit songs by heart thanks to that cartoon... 'Down down to goblin town!!!' (that one used to scare me, ha!)
Staten Island huh? I grew up mostly out by the eastern shore of LI; I pass thru SI on my way to Long Beach nowadays, to visit the parents.
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I liked that robin hood fox one. But I also liked the one with Kevin Costner, which I think was the first medieval movie I ever saw as it came out 2 years after I was born. Needless to say I have had an interest in medieval stuff ever since.
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Hey, I liked the Costner version as well...it is one of my favorite renditions, altho I will say that the newest version is probably my favorite overall. I have seen the Bergin one, which is a darker story than the Costner one, and I've seen Connery's version w/Audrey Hepburn...but the new one with Russell Crowe is my current favorite.
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When it comes to Robin Hood, my favorite is simply the BBC series "Robin of Sherwood" from the '80s. It only ran for a couple of seasons. But it was very well done.
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didnt clannad do the music for that one? i used to have that cd somewhere.
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Yep, that's the one!
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Ian, was that Robin Hood cartoon a series or a movie? I remember a disney version of Robin Hood where he's played by a fox, and I believe the king is a lion? Maid Marian is another fox, or rabbit, or some kind of animal?
Yep, that's the one!
It really all started for me when I was about 4 or 5 and my mom introduced me to the Hobbit cartoon and the Robin Hood cartoon where Robin Hood is played by a fox! I got hooked, started watching the cartoons weekly. I still remember sitting there watching the Hobbit over and over eating nutter butters and drinking cranberry juice (an awesome combination by the way which I will have now 25 years later just for that nostalgic feeling).
OMG Now I really feel old! I remember going to see Disney's Robin Hood when it was first released in theaters! I also watched 'The Hobbit' on its Television debut. The sequel Lord of the Rings was pretty cool when they combined it with some live action! That was pretty high tech back in those days. ;)
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Captain Nicholas Horton and I recently took part in three one day education sessions at Caerphilly Castle, for World Book Day.
We had somewhere in the region of 600 kids ( 7 to 11 year olds) attend throughout the three days.
We tried to talk about all things knightly, ie, chivalry, medieval warfare, weapons, armour, castle life etc etc.
One thing that the little "gentlemen" were none to pleased about was that we made the young ladies sit down at the front, but they had to stand. lmao ;)
Here`s a snippet in the local news;
http://www.itv.com/wales/welsh-children-get-ready-for-world-book-day97363/ (http://www.itv.com/wales/welsh-children-get-ready-for-world-book-day97363/)
G.
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Captain Nicholas Horton and I recently took part in three one day education sessions at Caerphilly Castle, for World Book Day.
We had somewhere in the region of 600 kids ( 7 to 11 year olds) attend throughout the three days.
We tried to talk about all things knightly, ie, chivalry, medieval warfare, weapons, armour, castle life etc etc.
One thing that the little "gentlemen" were none to pleased about was that we made the young ladies sit down at the front, but they had to stand. lmao ;)
Here`s a snippet in the local news;
http://www.itv.com/wales/welsh-children-get-ready-for-world-book-day97363/ (http://www.itv.com/wales/welsh-children-get-ready-for-world-book-day97363/)
G.
Sounds like a great time, Sir Gerard. Unfortunately the video doesn't seem to be viewable on this side of the pond, only within the UK. :(
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When it comes to Robin Hood, my favorite is simply the BBC series "Robin of Sherwood" from the '80s. It only ran for a couple of seasons. But it was very well done.
Oh yeah! Seven Poor Knights from Acre......a favorite episode of mine!!
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When it comes to Robin Hood, my favorite is simply the BBC series "Robin of Sherwood" from the '80s. It only ran for a couple of seasons. But it was very well done.
Oh yeah! Seven Poor Knights from Acre......a favorite episode of mine!!
That was an early episode too... maybe the second one in the series? I jumped on the chance to get the DVD set when it became available.
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Captain Nicholas Horton and I recently took part in three one day education sessions at Caerphilly Castle, for World Book Day.
We had somewhere in the region of 600 kids ( 7 to 11 year olds) attend throughout the three days.
We tried to talk about all things knightly, ie, chivalry, medieval warfare, weapons, armour, castle life etc etc.
One thing that the little "gentlemen" were none to pleased about was that we made the young ladies sit down at the front, but they had to stand. lmao ;)
Here`s a snippet in the local news;
http://www.itv.com/wales/welsh-children-get-ready-for-world-book-day97363/ (http://www.itv.com/wales/welsh-children-get-ready-for-world-book-day97363/)
G.
Sounds like a great time, Sir Gerard. Unfortunately the video doesn't seem to be viewable on this side of the pond, only within the UK. :(
Oh sorry about that. To be honest you ain`t missing much, just me wacking Cpt Nicholas in the C.O.P. to show the kids that his belly is really quite well protected ;)
G.