Cilgerran 26th Aug 2019

Since my brother will be learning about castles in September, we decided to visit Cilgerran castle this bank holiday. We expected to walk around a quiet ruin, read the information signs, take some photos and be done with the place - but what we experienced was so much more exciting.

Once we'd paid our entrance fee, we ambled into the castle grounds and weren't greeted by the empty green courtyard we were anticipating. We'd stumbled into a two day only medieval re-enactment camp! There were tents, re-enactors and visitors scattered around the place with bows, swords and shields on display. We approached the first tent, unsure of what to expect. Dad pointed out that they had long bows as we neared, and as if he'd just been stung, the man at the tent turned his attention to us and graciously explained that the 'long bow' was actually just a 'bow'. To the medieval people the long bow was a bow, and it was the Victorians who dubbed it a long bow as their 'bows' were much shorter - people of the medieval times called these shorter bows, well, 'short bows'.

Shortly after that discussion, a call rang throughout the camp, informing everyone that a demonstration and talk about armour was about to begin. We all crowded around and watched. It would take the demonstrator around fifteen minutes to put her armour on, if she wasn't talking to all of us as she went - ten minutes at a push. Her armour weighed a whopping twenty-five kilograms, however, her companion's armour meant that he was carrying around an even more impressive forty-six kilograms!

After this, we were all treated to a sword fight! In a coliseum-esque fashion, we all crowded around the arena and watched as the two competitors entered the ring. As the two fought with all their might, the clang of metal was astounding! The battle took place in short bursts, and very quickly, the two skilled fighters were dripping sweat and calling for water.

Video credit to mum!

Next we explored the rest of the castle, and found another aspect of the camp, the tent of the fighters! We managed to have a close up look of the helmets and weapons, feeling the weight of them in turn. The helmet (pictured on the right of the picture below) weighed seven kilograms, distributing the weight across the shoulders - the inside was not unlike a motorbike helmet - and his opponents helmet (on the left), while looking a lot more hefty and threatening, weighed much less. He disclosed to us that his helmet had been made in Ukraine!

The array of swords were very fun to handle as he explained in which types of battles he like to use each one in, he even had a flail on the table - however these were never used in battle, only possibly in coliseums.

On the way home, we also stopped off at Pentre Ifan, the cairn was very atmospheric and it's always baffled me how people could build something like it - the amount of prior planning and sheer precision is truly awesome.

I feel incredibly lucky to have all of these amazing places a stone's throw away from my home, today has been truly wonderful and I've learnt so much - it's not something that I'm going to forget any time soon.

Until next time,

Mort