my mediaeval weekend
Alas, ever seen a horse with a knight in full armour ascending in front of you? It's bloody scary and it's even scarier when it's the evil black knight with his black horse :-D
I've been to a mediaeval joust saturday night and it was the best joust I've ever seen in my life. The group called "Löwenritter" (Lion Knights) is a professional stunt team and they did a fantastic job.
Luckily my friends and I got seats in the very first row right in the middle so you had sand flying around your head while the horses were galloping in full speed, heard the lances break, smelled the horses sweat etc. It felt like you are right in the middle of the joust and it was pretty scary.
It was very realistic because you never had the impression it's a choreography. The actors really knew how to handle their swords and lances and I believe the sword fights weren't choreographed because they looked far to real and fast. The Knights were: "Der Ritter von Braunschweig"-the nasty monarch, "Der Schwarze Ritter"-the friend of the monarch, "Der Rote Ritter" - good one, "Der Ritter des Königs" -the mysterious good one, in the end being a woman, and the "Gräfin Adelheid"-very evil lady. Besides fighting and wearing armour and antique german mediaeval helmets where you can see almost nothing the knights had a lot to do to keep their horses under controll. The arena was only 100mX10m and they had to get the horses to full speed for the tasks while the horses were distracted by hundreds of people. It was all commented by a very funny reeve.
In the end the good knight won over the monarch and knocked him off his horse with his lance (in full speed !!!). Not only that-the monarch was wearing one of the german helmets mentioned above while he was knocked off his horse. I thought he must have special protection in his helmet because falling off a horse with a iron helmet isn't fun. Luckily for us that happened right in front of us so when the other knights took off his helmet I could see there was no single protector in it. *OUCH* . The highlight in the end was all knights riding through a wall of fire. Very impressive.
Pics: (sorry for bad quality but they were so fast)
-the black knight http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/Simi77/DSC00597.jpg
-the knight of the king (the woman) http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/Simi77/DSC00596.jpg
-the monarch being knocked off his horse http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/Simi77/DSC00602.jpg
-the fire wall http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/Simi77/DSC00605.jpg
Fantastic show, if you ever get the chance to see http://www.loewenritter.de/ enjoy it!!!!!
There also was a mediaeval market, http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/Simi77/bogensimi-1.jpg that's me firing off the 195836457594839894..arrow because archery is so fun.
There was also a czech fencing team called "Fechtgruppe Fictum" but unfortunately I couldn't see their show because it was the same time as the joust :-(