My wife Gwendolyn and me.
My wife Gwendolyn and me.
Our then-nine-year-old daughter, Sarah Matilda and Andrea Cox.
Ziggy and Bo, Andrea's and Tump Laird's horses. He later made my Dane axe, which I ended up sticking in the sward behind me in the English line in 2006..
Randall Beggs and Michael Erlund ("Olaf", the maker of my turn shoes).
The visitors "ruin" this shot, which would otherwise contain no modern elements to date it to the here and now (well, other than my notebook and pen): Case Miner, Clare Leask, myself and Dave Hall.
"...lettuce and tomato only; and please put my rootbeer float into a mug and not a drinking horn." Actually, Sethrun MagAoinghous putting his contact info into my notebook.
"Sveni the horsegelder" (Melissa Erlund).
Alex Pickard (in the hat), Arild Barrett, James Barker and Bruce Dunkle
Jesse Bailey, Sethrun MagAoinghous, Melissa Erlund, Dave Wise, Stephen Allen and myself.
Taken from James Barker's video, this shows part of the initial Norman infantry charge. The papal banner and the Fighting Man (Harold's banner) are displayed behind the battle lines.
The Norman cavalry attacked, led by Jesse Bailey ("FitzOsbern").
The "FitzOsberns", Jesse Bailey on the right and Andy Lang. Jesse's kit was impeccable, Andy's only a crack less, and the two of them set a standard for all the Norman cavalry to emulate.
During the second Norman infantry attack, I took advantage of my flanking position to spear "Camric" (Scott Gelpi). As he was already wounded by either "Olaf" (Michael Erlund, two guys to my left) or "Snorri" (Trevor Clemons, next to me), I was administering the coup de grace: what I didn't know at the time (having been late to the rehearsals) was that Gelpi was taking the role of William the Conqueror!
(This first battle of Hastings was scripted, and free fighting was not part of the show: in other words, you couldn't just kill off the Normans - who were outnumbered in the infantry fight: they were supposed to struggle against odds, fail to break the English line, withdraw, return to the attack; then withdraw. The cavalry followed up. Then the infantry attacked again, and "routed": as they ran with their backs to the English, several of "us" chased them. I thought there were rather too many pursuers: so when the cavalry moved out and surrounded the English pursuers, I skedaddled back to the English lines, back to my place on the extreme right.)
Of course, "William" moved off and stayed on his feet, because later in the video he was still there, picking on Robb Schuster (as shown in this pic taken from Robb's gallery) during the final assault:
only to be killed off AGAIN by Clare Leask, the last English"man" to stay on her feet.
Just before that, "William" killed off "Snorri", and "Mikjal" (Michael Straatmann) engaged me in a brief combat.
The scripted battle of Hastings said that I must die, and I determined to do a good job of it. When Mijkal's shield got over the top of mine, I decided the end had come and didn't try very hard to disentangle: his spear slid along my back, I threw back my head and yelled ("in articulo mortis"), dropped my spear, bent over and he bore me to the ground. I hope that I die as dramatically for the crowd next year (much bigger battle and much bigger crowd anticipated).
In a subsequent "Hastings" - unscripted - the English won rapidly: having the bulk of experienced English fighters on their side: I survived that one. This is the right end of the English line. (I seemed to wind up on the extreme right; probably because I was usually the last one to get ready.)
This is a pic of the opening of the third go at Hastings, also unscripted. The Norman foot close with us English types. Arild Barrett and I are on the end.
The same a little later into it.
Dave Hall ("Sigurd Drum") about to plug me. I was the first to die in the longest, best battle we put on; and I never even saw the shot coming. Talk about "target fixation", me upon Arild Barrett. I also didn't even notice the horses riding around poking us in the rear: I don't think one of them got me though.
Anyway, I reached down and picked up the arrow: Arild said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I just got shot and shouldn't be defending myself." And Arild dutifully administered the coup de grace: I spent the rest of the battle lying "dead" on my back. (From which position, I gather I was the first to notice a flock of buzzards appear overhead and begin circling our battlefield: that was odd.)