First Games of the Summer

It occured to me after the fact that something like "The Transient" would be a much less poncy title for this blog. While "The Transient" does have a certain je ne sais quoi, it's just not Old Norse.

Also speaking of things that occured to me after the fact, it turns out that the letters that correspond to 1-8-1-2 can spell Ahab. This was entirely coincidental, but highly amusing. It's quite apt, as I think of my car as The White Whale, even though said vehicle is silver. So in the future I may well refer to myself as Ahab.^*

In May I went to the Aiken Highland Games. I've been to a few Highland games/Celtic festivals; my favorites are the San Diego Highland Games, which took place this past weekend and which was the site of the infamous Rogue Sheep incident a few years ago, and the Chicago Celtic Fest, which takes place mid-September in Grant Park. The Chicago event celebrates the culture and heritage of the seven Celtic nations: Brittany, Galicia, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Most Highland games celebrate Scotland, and, usually and to a lesser extent, Ireland.

Some of you may be saying, "We're not the least bit Scottish, Ahab, so we have no idea what actually happens at these 'games' you keep going on about." Although each Highland games differs, there are several common features that occur at most games. One is the clan booths. Many major clan organizations have booths at games where they offer information about genealogy and clan history. Some clan organizations provide refreshments for their members at their booths as well. There are, of course, vendors, selling everything from souvenir event t-shirts to swords, shortbread to meat pies. There are usually musicians, aside from pipe bands. There is Highland dancing and Scottish country dancing. There are often sheep and sheepherding dogs demonstrating their skill or competing in trials. There are heavy athletics, including but by no means limited to the caber toss. There are people in various modes of "Scottish" dress, from reenactment military kilted uniforms to the popular Utilikilt-wifebeater-and-combat-boots (tattoos mandatory) outfit. And there are pipe bands.

Perhaps you have seen Disney's wonderful movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks. If you haven't consider this my recommendation that you should. In the "Portobello Road" sequence, Carrie gazes adoringly at the leader of the Scottish soldiers, walking beside him after they dance. That is a good indication of my own feelings much of the time I'm at a games.

The Aiken Highland Games had all the usual stuff listed above. A band whose name I can't remember played the Proclaimers' "500 Miles" at least three times while I was there, and Scottish singer Alex Beaton performed. There was a brief opening ceremony that included a parade of the clan organizations, prayer, and the national anthems of the United States ("The Star-Spangled Banner"), Canada ("O Canada"), England ("God Save the Queen"), and Scotland ("Flower of Scotland," not "Scotland the Brave"). I, knowing most of the words and being myself, sang them all quietly. I am of the opinion that the people should sing their national anthem, not listen to one person sing it.

I enjoy watching the heavy athletics.










They remind me of being on the track team. Heavy athletics include weight for height (right picture), the clachneart, and the sheaf toss (left picture). In weight for height competitors toss a weight over a bar like a pole vault bar. The clachneart is the stone put--like shot put but with larger, heavier, irregularly-shaped stones. In sheaf toss the athlete uses a pitchfork to throw a burlap bag of hay over a bar. As if the throwing itself isn't hard enough, the competitors have to wear kilts. If anyone had ever asked me or any of my thrower teammates to throw in a kilt, we would have fallen down a lot, especially since we all fell down a lot in shorts. The implements in heavy athletics are also heavier than in NCAA track and field events. According to the emcee at the Aiken games, the original "games" in Scotland included races; a very few Highland games have running events as well as heavy athletics.

The Aiken Highland Games had one thing that I'd not seen at any other event before: the Society for Creative Anachronism. I have mixed feelings on the SCA, but suffice it to say that some of them do pretty good research (like the Viking Answer Lady (don't get me started on the word "Viking," though)). Anyway, some members of the SCA had a little village set up, with huts and tents, and displays of icons and fancy woodcarving, with notebooks of research and historical examples of the same arts. And a few members held combat demonstrations. Beat each other with sticks, they did. They also explained their weapons and armor and how points are awarded for fights. It was rather amusing, even if one of the members did insist on talking about Vikings. Okay, the term "Viking" was first used in the 18th century; it was a Norse word that meant going across the sea, for trading or raiding. Norsemen wouldn't have called themselves Vikings, and so members of the SCA, whose personas are all pre-1600, should not use the term Viking to refer to a person. The problem is that everyone calls them Vikings, and most people wouldn't care to have the etymology explained to them. All that aside, I enjoyed seeing the combat. Afterward the fighters let kids try on their helmets and hold their shields. That, I think, is the big appeal of the SCA: at some point in our lives we all want to be knights or ladies (or both).

The dining choices were limited to a funnel cake and snow cone cart and a Scottish foods vendor. Disdaining the generic festival food, I had a sausage roll and an Irn Bru, a meal the Tartan Specials would fully support. The vendors also sold meat pies, "haggis pockets," Scotch eggs, and some kind of meat popover whose name I forget. The sausage roll was a link sausage in a pastry-crust roll, quite delectable; Irn Bru is a Scottish soft drink whose flavor is reminiscent of a creamsicle. It's something that I'd heard about before, so I was glad of the chance to try it. A bit later I also bought from a baker from Tennessee a piece of shortbread with chocolate on top, something called "Eccles cakes" that are little pastries with raisins and spices in them, and cranberry-orange scones. Mmm, baked goods.

I have a theory that there are three kinds of people: those who like bagpipes, those who hate them, and those who would follow the sound of bagpipes anywhere. There weren't too many pipers at these games; I think the massed band had maybe twenty people in it total. Even so, I followed them around as they played, and called home and left a message on my parents' answering machine that was just the band playing. The best part was when the band marched into the long barn-like area where most of the vendors were. It was out of the sun for one, and it sounded good in there. I do have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the tenor drum player, who didn't twirl his mallets at all. But overall I was pleased with the pipes and drums.

So while the Aiken Highland Games weren't the best games I've ever been to, they were quite pleasant. I had a good time, even though I got a sunburn which is still plaguing me today. Until next time, keep your bagpipe radar on.


*"Okay, Ted, George Washington..."
"Had wooden teeth, chased Moby Dick."
"That's Captain Ahab, dude."
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

I had to get it in here somewhere.

Under the Crown

For this post I traveled only about five miles, but over 220 years. (Not literally, though. The whole world definitely would have heard about it before now if I had.) Beginning in 1780, this area was occupied by British forces. This town and the next one over on a decent-size river, and rivers are always strategically important. "Colonial Times: Under the Crown" was held last weekend at the Living History Park, and I went, despite the rain. Reenactors set up camp in the park to show what life was like under British rule. The park has a few permanent buildings: a small cabin, a tavern, a meeting house (pictured below), a hunter's cabin, and a schoolroom-type building. Oh, and a blacksmith's forge. In real life, the blacksmith lives a few streets away from me.

The reenactors/artisans set up lots of canvas tents around the park. There were people demonstrating carpentry and woodcarving, hornsmithing (I don't believe that's a word, but the sign said "Hornsmith," and they were doing things with cow horns), blacksmithing, chandlery, calligraphy, music, butter churning, and tape-weaving. The last was pretty cool; a woman was using a small notched board and a shuttle to weave threads into patterned tape that was used like ribbon, to fasten and decorate clothing. All of the craftspersons explained what they were doing and answered questions and wore period-style clothing. My favorite was the blacksmith, in large part, I think, because it's so dynamic. The smith was also very affable and interacted well with observers. He explained that "smith" is related to the word "smite," and asked some kids if they ever heard the word smite in church. They didn't say anything, but he said that some denominations, like Lutherans, are more into smiting. Yay Lutherans and smiting! Anyway, I hung out watching him for a while, and he made some nails, and a hook like you nail to the wall and hang your clothes from, and in the picture he's working on making a cooking rig. There are two end posts, and a piece that lies across the top and from which one can suspend one's cauldron. At least that's the impression that I got. The reenactors actually cook their meals in cauldrons and on spits and stuff. I liked when the smith made the hook, because he twisted the stem, as wrought iron often is. I've always kind of wondered how they do that, but all you have to do is heat up the iron and then twist it around. It's one of those things I take for granted. It's easy to take things for granted.

Among the reenactors, there were some kids, from about six to teenaged. I always wonder when I see kids at reenactments whether they're there because their parents are making them, or whether they like dressing up and acting old-fashioned. There was a kid with one of the carpenters who came up to me with a piece of cedar wood and said, "Would you like to see some cedar wood?" like a little cedar salesman. It smelled just like cedar. I did not know that only the middle part of cedar is red. I thought it was red all through, but apparently only the heart is red and the outside is whitish. This girl at left was following around her older brother, also in costume. As someone who used to follow her older brother around, I found it very cute.

I don't know about you, but when it comes to nationalities in the colonial South, the first I think of is not German. But when you recall that Hessian soldiers fought for the British in the Revolutionary War, it makes more sense. Some of the "British" soldiers portrayed by reenactors were in fact Hessians, or, as they called themselves, Jägers/Jaegers/Jagers. Yes, like Jägermeister. I wonder how I made it all the way through college without ever having tried Jägermeister. Jäger, for those of us who don't speak German, means "hunter," and the Jäger Korps wore green jackets as part of their uniform. The reenactors were from the Second Company of the Hesse-Kassel Jäger Korps. One of the soldiers explained that "Hessian" is a geographical term, whereas "Jäger" describes their profession. Luckily somebody else asked the question of what the difference between the two was, and I was saved from having to look stupid. I happened upon two of the Jägers when they were explaining their weapons to some kids and their parents. They had rifles, pistols, knives, and swords, and one rather large thing that looked like a baby cannon. It was, we learned, a shoulder-fired mortar--a grenade launcher. The reenactor built it based on a weapon from the late 1500s in the Vatican, although he purposely made the barrel too small for an actual explosive, so as to curb temptation. He did say that it shoots tennis balls quite nicely, though. It has a little receptacle for the powder, and then the projectile itself (it's in the man on the left's left hand) is loaded in the barrel and its fuse is lit. Then the thing is fired, and you don't want to be within five yards of where it explodes. The launcher was quite heavy, and with a mortar in would have been even worse.

There were a few staged disputes to show justice in action in the colonial context. They "shot" one of the woodcarvers for something or other, and two women had an argument over a slave they had both allegedly bought. One woman claimed she bought the slave woman in the morning for eight pounds, and the other claimed she bought the same woman later that day for ten pounds. The slave, for her part, said she was free. The man who supposedly sold the woman feigned ignorance of English and also of both purchasers. The magistrate and some other dudes decided to hire the slave woman as a servant in town, and ordered the seller drummed out of town. There were no actual drums involved, though.

Even though it rained most of the time, wandering around with colonial people was a pleasant way to spend a few hours. I leave you with some various pictures.