It's tournament time! This weekend knights have taken over Turku Castle to compete for the Finnish championship in medieval combat sports like jousting, sword fighting, skill at arms, and buhurt (that's the one in the picture. It looked fairly painful, but the name's got "hurt" in it, so . . .).
They had some lectures about medieval combat on Friday, which were really interesting. I took pages and pages of notes, 'cause let's face it, I'll be writing about knights at some point.
These modern knights study their craft from medieval manuscripts and try to use gear that's historically accurate when they can. The suits above are modern, of course, but the armour in the shots above is real. This is as close as you're going to get to seeing medieval knights fighting. For a fantasy fiction writer, this is a golden opportunity for research.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a writing course with these guys as the special guest stars? I'd love to have them recreate a fight scene I wrote and tell me how I could make it more realistic, like a write-the-fight-right kind of deal, but with more swordplay. Hmm . . . Maybe the powers that be at Suomen tieteis- ja fantasiakirjoittajat could make it happen? For Worldcon, maybe? Pretty please, with dragons on top?
The tournament will continue tomorrow if you're in the Turku area and feel like watching a bunch of guys (and gals) whack each other with swords.
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