“Reality
is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
– Albert
Einstein
Back in
April my son and I attended a “buhurt”
medieval combat sport
event, “Mead and Mayhem,” at
a nearby winery. Several teams from
the east cost battled in the lists in a regulated melee. Participants
wore
period-authentic armor and bashed
at each other with blunted weapons certified to the league rules,
with no thrusts,
no hitting certain spots, until an opponent goes down (at least one
hand on the ground). The first day teams of five armored opponents
bashed at each other in the heavy wood-rail arena (the “list”)
while an audience of about 150 cheered them on (fueled, of course, by
wine, beer, and mead...). As a medieval enthusiast I enjoyed it; my
son quickly let himself get caught up in the action, despite my
droning historical commentary. Despite the rules each melee
demonstrated the power and brutality of medieval combat...and showed
how such fights often took less than two minutes to bring one team of
five to
victory. Of
course in
my head I
started
comparing
it to combat in roleplaying games, particularly my favorite
Basic/Expert
Dungeons & Dragons. Although
that’s a
fantasy roleplaying
game grounded in some aspects of the
real world,
in
actuality trained,
armored opponents clashing in battle goes pretty quickly.
