Burn Her!

Well, I had a ball this weekend! Finally, I got out of the house and did some fun things for a change! This was the weekend of the Woodland Scottish Games. For those who don't know, the Scots and people of Scottish decent like to get together and wear their plaids and tartans and show off their brute strength, dancing skills, clan history and how good they look in a kilt. It is always great fun! There is also a very nice pipe band competition, although for me who knows nothing about music and has no 'ear' it all sounds alike to me!

I belong to a Civil War Reenacting group, who portray a Scottish Regiment, so we go to this kind of Scottish Gathering, as well, and do living history and demonstrations. The area where they park us is off the beaten path, and in a long row of other reenactors from all periods. Some of the reenactors are from some kind of 'fantasy' era! They depict the Renaissance Barbarian. They always draw the biggest crowd! The females walk solemnly around ringing bells with their breasts mostly exposed. You can imagine! Very Jolly!

They pretend to know Old English very well, and can be heard to say "Prithee" and "Anon" and other garbled speech which is fun to misinterpret. One of the demos they gave was a "How to Practice Your Battle Death Technique" display. All their soldiers lined up with their pikestaffs and the head pikestaffer would point at one and say BANG! I kid you not! BANG! And the doomed soldier would totter forward and practice a loud and verbal and thrashing death! This was done in all seriousness and you can imagine the throws of mirth and peals of laughter that this put me through. The dying soldiers usually chose their last words upon this earth to be: "Mother of God!" or it could have been "Son of a Gun!" you couldn't tell because the sound was muffled as their faces would usually be buried in the dirt and hidden by their chain mail.

These soldiers would take turns getting shot BANG! and then dying and then they would all line up and practice their attack maneuvers. As they advanced for the final kill they would shout in unison something that sounded like: IDLE FRUIT! IDLE FRUIT! This was screamingly funny. I have no idea what they were really saying, but that was what it sounded like!

I had fun wandering around and taking some photographs of some of the very stunning garments. Say what you will about the dubious authenticity of some of their habits, these folks really do know how to dress in gaudy plumage! The men look so dashing!

As I was preparing to take a picture of a well-looking couple, I was flanked by two men.

"Is that one of those boxes that captures the image of a man?" I was asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"BURN HER!" he screamed.