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Society for Creative Anachronism sets up weekend kingdom

MARSHALL — The kingdom of Northshield crowned new heirs and recognized the Marshall area chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) as an official member of the region at a spring celebration on Saturday at the Marshall National Guard Armory.

The SCA is the world’s largest medieval living history group. The non-profit educational organization has about 50,000 members worldwide.

“One of the special things to happen is that the local group will be recognized as a full chapter of the organization,” event organizer Jon Chalmers said. “We have been a probationary group up till now.”

Northshield is made up of shires and baronies throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and parts of Canada.

“There are 38 groups spread across the Northshield kingdom,” said Mark Olfson, who goes by the Polish persona of Bazyli at SCA events. “Five of them are baronies, which means there are over 50 people on regular, active basis. Three of those are in Wisconsin, one is in Winnipeg and one is in Minneapolis.”

Smaller groups, like the Marshall chapter, are called shires.

“They’re our newest group and they started three years ago,” Olfson said. “They said, ‘Hey, we want to be a group,’ and we have a very serious process because we don’t want people to start a group and then fail.”

Olfson said the SCA started in Berkeley, California, as a three-day May Day party with a medieval theme.

“They had a blast,” he said. “At the end of the weekend, because it was Berkley and it was 1966, they had a protest. They protested the 20th century. They had fun with it. And now, we’re just starting our 53rd year as a Society.”

Word quickly spread, primarily by word of mouth, and new kingdoms were established over time.

“The first was the kingdom of The West,” Olfson said. “The second year, someone had moved over to New York, so then they said, ‘We’re the kingdom of The East’ and someone moved near Chicago and said ‘We’re the kingdom in The Middle.’ Then as it spread, little groups would form up in the kingdoms.”

Currently, there are more than 20 kingdoms worldwide. Northshield divided off from the kingdom of The Middle many years ago.

“We’ve kind of sub-divided into smaller kingdoms because geographically, it’s hard to go to an event when you have to drive from Florida to Arizona or something like that,” Olfson said.

Northshield’s current royalty includes King Yngvar inn Heppni II (Jason Coltom) and Queen Luce Tolle II (Elizabeth Coltom).

“One of the nice things we get to do is give award recommendations,” Jason Coltom said. “We had out awards for people who just started and for people who have been in for a long time — for outstanding works in service, arts, martial arts, teaching, you name it. And the people are what make it worth it. I make so many friends this way.”

The Coltoms will serve another six months. They crowned the newest heirs — Duke Vladimir Radescu and Dutchess Petranella Fitzallen — after Vladimir won the armored combat tournament on Saturday.

“The fact that it’s based on the honor system and has worked so well for the last 53 years is amazing,” said Master Bartel fitz Neel (Bart Saxton).

If a combatant is hit in the arm or leg, he or she can no longer use it. If the fighter is hit in the head or body, it signals the person’s death. The tournament featured seven combatants, including one female contender — Countess Gwen — and was a best of three format.

Protective gear and weapons are inspected beforehand and safety is of the utmost importance. Dan Stinogel, or Helgi as he’s known, was one of several individuals who practices armored combat skills but were not part of the tournament.

“It’s modeled after the Vikings,” Stinogel said of the heavy helmet he wore. “It’s about 10-12 pounds. And I wear bazubands to protect my forearm and elbow and a demigauntlet to protect my hands and the lower part of my forearm.”

Stinogel also wore a heavily-weighted chain maille suit. Other individuals wore other types of armor to protect themselves from serious blows to the body.

Trained marshals, including Chalmers, oversee the competition.

“I’m one of the marshals who are responsible for the combat activities happening safely,” he said. “All of these people out here with the black and yellow sticks are marshals. (As a Society), we do different kinds of combat because we span about a thousand-year era. Rapier combat is from the latter part of the Middle Ages when they migrated to using lighter, thinner weapons. The actual purpose of this event is a tournament to pick our next king and queen. (Saturday afternoon), we’ll have people in armor with heavy weapons, trying to be victorious.”

Kathy Belt, who portrays Hildegard from the Charlemagne era, said Northshield has had non-traditional royalty in the past.

“We’ve had a female king before,” Belt said. “We were also the first one to have two kings. We were recreating the Turkish Empire, which had a king of war and a king of peace.”

Marshall resident Jenny Parkhurst serves as the local seneschal, which is basically the president.

“It’s going well,” said Parkhurst, who is known as Christiana Gaylard. “We have a lot of people doing a lot of awesome things. It’s cool to see.”

Parkhurst said she’s always had an interest in Middle Ages, but she didn’t necessarily want to admit it. Having heard about SCA while in a fencing club in Mankato, she now has somewhere her passion can grow.

“It’s fun,” she said. “It’s also educational. It’s learning and teaching that we can share with others as well.”

Liz Roberts runs the operations for the kingdom of Northshield.

“I report everything to our corporate level, which is based out of California,” she said. “When I’m not in charge of operations and I’m just out and about enjoying my time, I participate in armored combat, some of our arts and sciences, scribal arts — so making some of the awards when award recommendations come in — and otherwise providing support in whatever way I can.”

Roberts said she bartered for the hand-stitched hood she was wearing.

“It’s very common to do that,” she said.

While the SCA focuses on the time period between 600 and 1600, Olfson said there is a lot of different ways that can be interpreted and presented.

“We’re primarily a history club,” Olfson said. “We’re not rein-actors. We’re re-creationists. We try to recreate parts of the past — from the medieval period. And everybody has their own thing they love to do.”

Roberts said there are people who will portray Egyptians, Romans, Norse or Japanese personas. Olfson said there are a lot of middle eastern personas as well.

“You get a spattering of eastern European, Russian, Polish, Lithuania and a lot of Italian, French and English,” Olfson said. “In Northshield, you’ll see a lot of people doing Norse or Scandinavian because it’s really comfortable (clothing) and it’s also part of our culture. There are a lot of people who are Scandinavian in this area and they feel a connection to it.”

Olfson said people are dedicated enough to drive a “crazy amount of time” to get to a SCA event. Roberts said she drove for 15 hours last year.

“You can travel as much or as little as you want,” Roberts said. “You can just go to the local meetings, where they have combat practices or arts and sciences gatherings where people can learn new skills, trades and arts. It’s fun. This is one of the pinnacle events of the year. And a lot of the times, you look around and it’s a family reunion of sorts. It gives people an opportunity to really branch out and get to know a lot of people.”

Oftentimes, whole families are involved, including children.

“I’ve been involved the last couple of years,” Tracy resident Alex Chalmers said. “I used to do this with my parents, about the time I was 6 weeks old until I was 5. We were playing over in Germany. Now I have my wife and kids here.”

Jon Chalmers wife, Veda and sons, Fabian and Todd, spent much of the day in the kitchen preparing food for the feast.

“It’s a family affair,” Jon Chalmers said.

Chalmers said about a dozen people currently make up the Marshall area shire. Mike Prahl, who portrays Lord Wilhelm from the shire of Rivenwood Tower, said his group helped mentor the new chapter.

“We hosted the group,” he said. “We held their money for them. Now we’ll transfer it back to them. We’re able to be non-profit because it’s an educational and learning organization.”

Parkhurst said she’s optimistic that SCA will increase in membership in the future.

“We have a good base growing,” she said. “We have a lot of new members coming to our events, so I’m hopeful. We cover to between the Montevideo and Granite Falls area, down to Fulda, then almost to Worthington and all the way to the South Dakota border. So our region has a lot of area we haven’t even touched yet.”

Alex Chalmers said he also hopes the local organization will grow.

“Most definitely,” he said. “I’m hoping to see a lot of arts coming out of here and a lot of fighters coming out of here. We’re all just a little new yet.”

To learn more about Northshield or SCA, go to www.northshield.org or contact Liz Roberts at seneschal@northshield.org.

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