The Society for Creative Anachronism hosted Medieval Fair in Pine Island

Sara Guymon, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
Updated ·4 min read

Apr. 27—PINE ISLAND — The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) hosted a Medieval Fair at Miss Angie's Place in Pine Island on Saturday, April 27, 2024.

The Shire of Silfren Mere is a branch of the SCA that services the Rochester area. The organization gets together for meetings and events where they do things like arts, crafts, martial combat and more. This event showcased their skills with weaving, dancing, clothing, armored and unarmored combat with swords and more.

"One of the cool things with the organization is that even if you're new and you have a desire to help out and help other people and contribute, there's a place for you and a place for you to be a part," said Philip Dennison, the Seneschal, or president, of the group. "Whether you are interested in language, fighting, archery or art, there's so much variety to explore. The time period, the 17th century and earlier, the sky's the limit."

During the event in Pine Island, there were dancing demonstrations and weaving inside. There were also stations to learn more about certain time periods or about the group. One of the big highlights of the day is the fighting demonstrations that were performed outside.

"We have people fighting in Roman, like the ancient Roman, almost all the way through 1630 or so," said Rachel Gray, a member of the organization. "Sometimes on the battlefield, you have a samurai fighter with someone from the 14th century. It's whatever people want to do."

Fighting has a specific rule set participants must follow. People are only allowed to attack someone with proper protection. Safety is the biggest thing to them.

"We really want to make sure that everyone has super safe rules on the field, or everyone has to have knee armor on something to protect their elbows, kidneys, neck, and then of course the helmet, which is probably the most important part to keep their head safe."

It's also important to maintain a safe environment for the audience and the participants. For a lot of events, there will be a special area where the fighting takes place and everyone knows that when someone yells 'hold' it means the situation is potentially dangerous and the fight stops.

"Sometimes we have it roped off so that way people just don't accidentally walk across the field and assessing your situation like this is pretty easy to keep boundaries," said Gray. "Someone lost a piece of their sword. We saw something fly off so people yelled 'hold' because we want to make sure that anything that happens out there doesn't hurt anyone."

The fighters of the organization get together biweekly to practice with each other. They all wear belts that signify different ranks among them. People with white belts are knights while people with red belts are apprentices and squires.

"Over the winter, we've had fighter practice every other week," said Gray. "If you want to go to one event like we get together we do practice and then we go to events with people from the wider region. So we're currently in the Kingdom of Northshield which is Wisconsin, Minnesota, up in the Dakotas and then everything north. So we've got two or three groups in Canada as well. So we have practices, but then every weekend of the month or the year, there's pretty much something going on that you can go and see friends from all over the area."

There is armored fighting which is what most people would think of during the Medieval time period but there is also rapier fighting in the group which is more like fencing. Each person has their own weapons and fighting style as well. It can take years and years to become good at the performance and athleticism of fighting.

"Theoweard has been fighting for 30 years," said Gray. "He just got his knighthood at 58 and he's 64 now so he's been a knight for eight years but he's been fighting for 30 years. ... It just depends upon your natural progress, your athleticism and that kind of thing."

The Shire of Silfren Mere are planning to continue doing events in the area and are excited to move their meetings outside again for the summer.

"We have monthly business meetings on the third Wednesday of every month," said Dennison. "Our summer meetings are going to kick off here in May and will be at Essex Park from May to September. ... The website is also a great place to learn about the events that take place. There's just a slew of them all throughout the summer and even offseason in winter."