Craig Priddle
This weekend, Saturday 5th July and Sunday 6th July, Winterfest is on at The Parade Ground, Old King’s School, Parramatta. If you are in Sydney, within striking distance of Sydney, or within bow shot of Sydney then pay heed!
Winterfest is a great day out for the whole family. While many people will be dressed in their medieval/renaissance/georgian finery, you don’t have to be a family entrenched in the past to have fun. Those dressed up as monks, knights, ladies, pirates, rakes and barbarians all certainly add to the atmosphere, though blessed are we for we have modern sanitation.
This year, as in the past, there will be a wide range of merchants selling everything from candles and oils, jewellery and comestibles, to swords and armour (such as the wonderfully named Medieval Fight Club). It is a one stop shop for anyone wanting to set themselves up for coming in costume next year. There will be jousting (yes, with heavy horses, armour and jousting sticks.you aren’t dreaming) which is always a wonderful spectacle, and the chance that brigands will be chased and placed in stocks (wet sponges then available for throwing at them). What ho, varlet?
There are lots of different groups who love to get medieval (such as The Society for Creative Anachronism, Stoccata School of Defence, and the always enthusiastic Uppsala Medieval Society) and they all love to talk to potential new members. There are organised displays and combats so they can display their skills, weapons and (targeted) aggression. Relay races between randomly selected children to dress and arm their appointed knight in preparation for battle are great fun to watch, particularly given the weight of the armour and weapons often being greater than the kids themselves.
One of the favourites for everyone who attends is The Birds of Prey. Travelling up from Victoria every year, this group brings a selection of birds of prey, such as owls, hawks and eagles for up close and personal photo opportunities, and also awe inspiring aerial displays. The reaction of the local birds when a falcon takes to the air as part of a display confirms that their reputation precedes them. They are lethal and breathtaking to watch.
A huge part of the pleasure in attending these types of events is the opportunity to come up close and personal, not only with reminders of the past, but with people who are passionate about what they do. There is always great pleasure in talking to someone who is trying to communicate, educate, illuminate and coerce on a topic that you have an interest in. You get picked up and carried along by their enthusiasm, so even if you decide that really you can’t do that Scottish broadsword class you were talking about because it is the same night as touch footy, or your ballet lessons, or your usual family boardgame night, it doesn’t matter…for the time that you were talking about it, you were imagining yourself there learning the parries, thrusts and strokes that would have held you in good stead as a man at arms.
You can look at the monks and the knights, the ladies and the pirates and get carried along with them as they live out the dreams and fantasies so many of us had and forgot. Pretty damn cool
And with good sanitation!
Winterfest is great fun, educational, a chance to see things you don’t normally get to see and it’s on this weekend. Huzzah! Tis most splendid, perchance we will meet then.
Winterfest
Medieval Fight Club
Society for Creative Anachronism (Australia)
Stoccata School of Defence
Uppsala Medieval Society
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