Who am I and what's the SCA?

My real name is Taryn East, and I'm a member of the largest Medieval recreation group in the world: the SCA[1].

What's the SCA?

We aren't a LARP[2] group, we don't dress up as elves and orcs. Nor do we recreate specific battles or personages of history (not there's anything wrong with any of the above... it's all lots of fun, just not what our group does).

Instead we study the arts and recreate the activites that were done back then. We have feasts, tourneys, balls, & wars; make our clothing, beer, pottery & knives by hand. We brew, sing, dance, cook, weave, & tell tales over an open fire.

It's a community where Honour, Chivalry and Service aren't just old-fashioned concepts, but living values that we teach to our children.

It's great fun, and I think you'd like it more than you'd think...

So, what's "Arts and Sciences"

Look back over that list of stuff we do. All of that, minus the martial activities, comes under the banner of "arts and sciences" (or A&S for short). So cooking, brewing, calligraphy, costuming, embroidery, smithing, shoe-making, weaving, spinning, dancing, and much much more. Anything they did back then is open season, and it's a veritable cornucopia of cool stuff to learn.

So what's this blog about?

So much cool things to learn. It'd be a shame not to share it with other people. I intend to put up pictures, explain what I tried - my successes and failures both, and ask for comments and advice on what I could do better.

Thus, this blog. I hope you'll come along and enjoy the ride with me.

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Notes

[1] SCA stands for the Society for Creative Anachronism - it was a name made up on the spot by Marion Zimmer Bradley when the early group was required to give a name to book a venue... and despite it's strangeness, the name stuck.

[2] LARP stands for "Live Action Role Play" - where you get to dress up and use pretend swords, and usually a role-playing-game-like set of rules to battle it out and build a story. The SCA differs in that we don't play games in that sense. You don't roll dice to see who wins a sword-fight... you actually learn how to swing one and the person who does it best is the one that wins.