Vikings and Swordsmen at Higgins Armory Museum
Our big adventure this weekend was to check out Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester. We hadn't been there and they were having demonstrations by the Higgins Armory Sword Guild of historical combat technique; fighting with swords, and I don't mean fencing. We decided this sounded like a fun thing to do, so we went.
Guild members Mark Millman and John Carter gave a very entertaining and informative presentation of sword fighting techniques. At first they showed us what it looks like when you do it at regular speed (very scary!). Then they went through their sequences step by step, stopping at each move to explain what they were doing.
What we (or at least I) learned is that combat fighting was an elaborate system of moves, counter-moves and trickery. I always thought it was more like in the movies - just a lot of hacking of inept opponents. Looks like the real combatants would have been a bit more difficult to fight than that. They were all trained fighters - eek! I also learned that there are training manuals from the period still in existence. It's those manuals that the Guild and other groups like them use to study and learn the techniques.
I know the Guild will be having other demonstrations so check the schedule if you are interested. They also have classes so you can learn to use the swords properly. Info. on that is also available on the Higgins Armory web site.
The other presentation we saw was William Short from the Hurstwic Viking Age History group. It was also very informative and interesting - no crazy swordplay though, but it didn't need it. I'll be blogging more about him in my next post.
Hurstwic is a loose association of individuals who have interest in researching and demonstrating Viking Age / Anglo-Saxon history and culture. The members of the group do demonstrations at museums and schools.
Some of what we learned was that not all of the people we'd call "Vikings" were wild, pillaging barbarians - only some of them went on raids and only on a seasonal basis. They were farmers first so the pillaging had to fit into their schedule.
We also learned that "Viking" is probably not the right word for them since it means "pirate" and as I just noted, they didn't all pirate and not all the time. So, probably not fair to call them all "pirates". Interesting.
There's a whole bunch of other interesting stuff and events posted on the Hurstwic site.
For more information about Hurstwic
About the organization
Articles on Viking arms and armor
Demonstrations and events
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