Battle Re- enactors and Living history

[Silverclaws]

They just have to be here, because this stuff overlaps and it was a lot of my crafts I learned as a requirement just to make the kit necessary for inclusion in Living History of my chosen period of interest. Bone working, leather working, horn working, weaving and dying and metal work, bronze lost wax casting and some ferrous metal forging, battle re enactment is a teacher of much that in bushcraft many do.

So who is 'in it', and what period do you do ?

I used to be 'in it' and my time period was Iron Age Britain, I may get back into it, an invitation has been extended, but Dark Age this time or as they who invited call it, Early medieval.

 

[crosslandkelly]

I don't have any interest in battle re enactments, but I love Living history. To be able to see how people lived and worked in specific ages, how they produced everyday items that we take for granted. This is another way of keeping ancient crafts and skills alive, and I applaud all the people who work so hard to do it.

 

[resnikov]

I'm in living history but it's the 1940's.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[John Fenna]

Just getting into it ... Iron Age - as I have been doing Bushy Demos at an Iron Age site and they wanted me to be in costume (ish) ...so I made myself a cozzie.
Now I am more interested and thinking of making some even better kit!

 

[Silverclaws]

Just getting into it ... Iron Age - as I have been doing Bushy Demos at an Iron Age site and they wanted me to be in costume (ish) ...so I made myself a cozzie.
Now I am more interested and thinking of making some even better kit!

Ah St Fagans then ? I never went there, we weren't popular with the Silures as yes politics exist in that game too. Sites I did do were Butser Iron Age farm in Hampshire and our local site the Chiltern open Air Museum where we built a new round house as the old one was sliding down the hill. Aso a bit at the Pete Moors Museum near Glastonbury, their houses, two of them are excellent and one of them is built on the site of a round house that was in that place when it was a crannog in the marshes two thousand odd years ago and it has it's own shadow.

But one thing about round houses, they are perfectly liveable, just remember, no chimney and that roof space makes a perfect bug free preserving environment with a waterproof thatch.

But the battling stuff, hack and bash I did it for a couple of years until my attention focused more on the living side as too many egos needed stroking out on the field, but of the living, one can only use what we could prove existed, so our knowledge of the period concerned was good as quite often we had to contend with the 'academic experts' who did try to catch us out.

 

[John Fenna]

Ah St Fagans then ? I never went there, we weren't popular with the Silures as yes politics exist in that game too. Sites I did do were Butser Iron Age farm in Hampshire and our local site the Chiltern open Air Museum where we built a new round house as the old one was sliding down the hill. Aso a bit at the Pete Moors Museum near Glastonbury, their houses, two of them are excellent and one of them is built on the site of a round house that was in that place when it was a crannog in the marshes two thousand odd years ago and it has it's own shadow.

Oh - not a fake site!
Castell Henllys - where all the new roundhouses are built on the original footprints of genuine Iron-Age roundhouses
The Real Deal!
I interviewd the Silures for a couple of Mags years ago - when they used to visit Castell Henllys.
I am not into the fighting bit - I am too old to be a warrior - but the living bit looks interesting

 

[Dreadhead]

I don't have any interest in battle re enactments, but I love Living history. To be able to see how people lived and worked in specific ages, how they produced everyday items that we take for granted. This is another way of keeping ancient crafts and skills alive, and I applaud all the people who work so hard to do it.

+1 to that mate. never been into the reenactment but the living history is great. and rediscovering those ancient skills and practices in all walks of life is fascinating to me

 

[Silverclaws]

A lot must have changed since I did the gig thing, I quit back in '97 due to an unsympathetic wife.

The fighting is not all what our ancestors were about, if they were would we be here today is a good question, but from observing history from such close quarters an idea is gained more than what history books describe, it was simple fighting was an extreme last resort as fighting depletes everything, something more pertinent when it was more difficult to survive than it is today.

Oh and something else, despite the use of blunt weapons, it hurts when you get hit and one gig in particular the local hospital casualty filled up with our lot suffering everything from heat stroke to broken limbs as despite the rules on pulling blows the frenzy takes over and blows don't get pulled all the time. So it is best to keep out of the fray, but one word of warning, if you are going to do some of the iron age stuff, beware of woad, it's not like Braveheart, that stuff stays on skin for weeks.

 

[neoaliphant]

I used to be in The Vikings aka NFPS, about 12 years ago, there wasnt much bushcraft in the living history, i enjoyed the batle parts, ive got all of my kit available if anyone wants. ill be keeping the firesteel tho.

I live a stones throw from the Peat Moors centre, thats always a good visit.

Al

 

[boatman]

Fighting is fun especially as an archer but for extensive interest Living History is the way to go for us. I enjoy both Iron and Dark Age regarding them as being on a continuum. I hope to make some excursions in my coracle or another "prehistoric" boat with kit based roughly in a prehistoric period.

 

[neoaliphant]

Fighting is fun especially as an archer but for extensive interest Living History is the way to go for us. I enjoy both Iron and Dark Age regarding them as being on a continuum. I hope to make some excursions in my coracle or another "prehistoric" boat with kit based roughly in a prehistoric period.

Definately archery is the best, we had a very annoying safety test, but thats a political issue. I think i had the first back quiver as oppoosed to side quiver in the society, an archaeologist friend found manuscript evidence in one of the oxford museums.

 

[boatman]

Though the nice thing about bushcraft is that despite some of the discussions here there are no authenticity officers who can, unfortunately, plague reenactment. Kit standards are good but can be opressive and the irony is that the much vaunted standards tend to vanish actually at an event when numbers on the field is the most important as long as nobody looks too outlandish.

However, to return to topic. Something I am keen on is to get reenactors to use huts rather than tents. Tents were for posh people or the well-organised military, the peasants would have made some sort of shelter from stuff found locally. The Scots in the Middle Ages set fire to theirs when they moved off but this might not be welcome by event organisers today. Pure bushcraft to build shelters of course.

 

[neoaliphant]

Authenticity officers, up there with Tax collectors it seemed sometimes.

I remember getting grief for sleeping out in the living history village with a cloth tarp lean to and a twig bed, it wasnt posh enough, people kept stealing my bed for their kindling.

 

[Corfe]

Not very bushy, but while living in the States I was a Civil War re-enactor for a couple of years and it was an absolute blast. Up to 16,000 participants at some battles.

 

[Wayland]

I've been in and out of a few groups in my time, set up one or two as well.

Now I do the living history for a living and the bushcraft for fun.

 

[sam_acw]

I used to be involved in American civil war reenactment - more than a decade ago now. It was with various groups and I gradually migrated to groups worried more about a campaign impression and authenticity.
The trouble with later periods is that the kit lists to be more authentic can get huge. As there's more information there are more people trying to decide what's wrong or right and the hobby was getting expensive.
I've also been to events with Britannia (Arthurian Roman) who were quite into the living history side with lots of carving etc. going on and the RMRS (1st century Romans) who were more of a display society. If I lived in the UK still I'm sure I'd be involved somewhere!

 

[boatman]

It is quite an experience while demonstrating when a visitor tells us that they were brought up with their Mothers or grandmothers using what we think of as stuff used in the past. Its great to hear them describing the technigues and outputs, they get quite nostalgic. However, some things we think of as replicas for display can be used more seriously.

I once had a Kenyan archaeologist asking me about the production and supply of broadhead arrows which were being bought in Kenya and actually being used in intercine fights. Brought me up short because we are so Eurocentric and so used to reading that the last time a bow was used in warfare was on the Western front in WW11 in 1940 and the bowman regretted that arrows cost so much.

 

[Silverclaws]

The period so close as the war years of the early 1940's is particularly interesting as I used to be an avid viewer of the educational tv series; 'The Way We Used to Live'' as in the war years much was not available and there was a reversion to older methods of living where the people drew from what British nature provided including health care and medicine, something with the formation of the NHS was stopped and now we have the alternative herbal remedies resigned to almost quackery in the face of big industry. But with interest perhaps the colours of uniforms and various bits of kit, the RAF blue is very indicative of woad and I understand nettles were also used as a dye for such as netting. But so near and some of the things consigned to what is now bush craft were common practice in the war years and so us not knowing what our future holds in these uncertain times it is stuff worth remembering and passing on, because how much of what we have will become a problem when one commodity becomes either too expensive of we lose it altogether. Vehicles I understand there were as many in in the tens of thousand using wood gas for propulsion in Europe in WW2.

 

[treadlightly]

Ah St Fagans then ? I never went there, we weren't popular with the Silures as yes politics exist in that game too. Sites I did do were Butser Iron Age farm in Hampshire and our local site the Chiltern open Air Museum where we built a new round house as the old one was sliding down the hill. Aso a bit at the Pete Moors Museum near Glastonbury, their houses, two of them are excellent and one of them is built on the site of a round house that was in that place when it was a crannog in the marshes two thousand odd years ago and it has it's own shadow.

But one thing about round houses, they are perfectly liveable, just remember, no chimney and that roof space makes a perfect bug free preserving environment with a waterproof thatch.

But the battling stuff, hack and bash I did it for a couple of years until my attention focused more on the living side as too many egos needed stroking out on the field, but of the living, one can only use what we could prove existed, so our knowledge of the period concerned was good as quite often we had to contend with the 'academic experts' who did try to catch us out.

I know that round house at COAM well.

 

[Cap'n Badger]

Livin' history fer I.......Pirate (The golden years)....Also Done a few live sword shows, but not fer a couple o' years now.
And...Larp.....as a.......PIRATE!.AAAAArrr!.