Medieval week Wednesday and Thursday

 Another image heavy post from my recent visit to the Medieval week on Gotland. Wednesday started with a lovely morning concert and presentation of the history of the medeival Celtic harp. Held in a ruin. Of course. Very relaxing and full of atmosphere. The harpist was Ell, one of the few people these days who play the medieval Celtic harp with metal strings: gold, silver and brass.

    

Then it was time for the Great Visby Tournament, a traditional SCA tournamnet held since the 1980s. Sara isn't keen on that kind of thing, but my friend Erika, who saw it for the first time enjoyed it a lot. It helped that they had a good presenter, telling what was going on. And probably me giving explanations too. It was also a reasonable short tournament with only really good fighters. We started it all with a procession from the medieval Chapter House - Kapitelhusgården - to the old,dried up moats, outside the city walls. The King and Queen of Drachenwald in the lead. But I have no photos of that, I was busy walking,

Me and Erika 

My veil had blown back, that is not how it was supposed to look. More like this.

The finals - between Sir, Duke Padraig, and Sir, Viscount Ludwig. Ludwig won, and got the coveted lambskin.

Then their Majesties, his excellency the Prince of Nordmark (SCA Sweden) and their excellencies the Baronesses of Styringheim (SCA Gotland) held court.

Then Sara and I had dinner at the B&B, which also had a kitchen where we could cook our own food.

That evening was the free fre show by the group TriX, and I made an honest attempt to attend. But it was too much people and I got overwhelmed. So I took a late evening walk, and then went to bed.

Thursday I has slept really badly, so I started the day with a morning swim in the sea. The waves were fabulous.

Then I went and bought some bubbly, before exploring the various medieval camps while looking for people that I might know. The camps are all situated just outside the medieval city walls.

Then market again, where I shared some bubbly with Hans Gunnar, and Marketa, a Czech expert in medieval book painting and calligraphy. 

Not everybody dresses in medieval clothing, there's quite a lot of fantasy stuff too (and 16th century, and fatnasy pirate style). I thought this was cool.

Home for dinner, and amother swim to keep me awake. We lived almost at the highest point from the sea, so there was lots of climbing up and down the cobblestone roads, and stairs.

After the swim in my 13th century wool gown. It wasn't particluarly warm, but the water was still lovely.

Despite being sleep deprived I went to the the Chapter House to see Medeltidsbandet Själ . I like authentic medeival music more than medeival rock with gigantic drums and bagpipes, and half naked men, so this was a treat for me. They are both very good, and lots of fun.

The Chapter House is also a very nice place to just hang out, even if I got stung by a wasp that enjoyed the lavender as much as I did.

I also got to hang out with the three Black Metal Sisters, as I call them. One is obviously missing in this photo.

Rabbit to the left, fox to teh right. The snake turned up later.

Sing-along to one of the Cantigas de Santa Maria.

Then it was bedtime. Next post will show the Battle of Wisby camp. And some really pretty photos of yours truly.