The battles went on all day. The ref would yell at the two teams before a showdown, "Weapons up!" Both teams would then raise their weapons up in the air. The ref, with their arms stretched out, would then bring them together, yelling "play on!" Originally, I had thought that they had been yelling, "léon!", and it was some sort of fancy Belegarth talk; after doing more research, I realized that I was wrong.
Everyone would then cautiously (or not so cautiously) come against each other and fight. The main battle, where the majority fought in the middle, would usually only last about thirty seconds, then the skilled warriors would hunt each other down and defeat them. The remaining warriors would yell "Park?! Park?!" or "Street?!" Street?!" in order to find out who else was on their team. If one person responded differently, things did not go so well for them. At the end of it, people who were dead would then rise up and stroll back to their starting places to begin the cycle all over again.
I died countless times that day. My main position on the battlefield, along with Elizabeth, was being a shield-man to protect the spear-man. The spear-man's job consisted of poking their spear out from beneath our shields and trying and jab our opponents. There were times that I would manage to block some pretty heavy blows, which was no small feat, especially with the taller players.
In those few instances when I was still standing after the general clash of armies, I knew it was just because I had somehow evaded their blows. Most the time however, a jab here, a swing there, I had to drop down to my side dead and gaze after the last few fighters as they chased each other across the field. It was quite an amusing display.
The Belegarth players knew why I had come to the event that day, (hint: this paper) so while I was chatting with my friends on the sidelines while taking a break, Nick, a Belegarth player who had helped me get acquainted with Belegarth, came running up to me, demanding that I get my recording device and record what was about to take place. "If you're going to record anything, record this!" he told me. What he was talking about, was an epic showdown between the two monster clans of Belegarth warriors that had gathered there that day. You see, the Belegarth event I had attended that day was an event. Normally on Saturdays, Belegarth players would practice against each other in much smaller groups. This group today, consisted of around fifty or seventy people. This was the Belegarth gathering of people all across the state. Naturally, the monster clans from these various territories wished to battle one another.
"This is rare," people kept on insisting as I made my way to a different field. There, the clans were eyeing each other on opposite ends of the field. After a few moments of tension, a battle cry arose, and they charged each other, beginning the grand show-down. I even managed to get some good photo shots of them fighting. As far as I could tell, nothing seemed significantly different with their battle compared to the normal Belegarth battles. Before long, they grew tired and we all returned to the main Belegarth field. I am still not sure who won, but I do not think it made much difference. We all still ended up fighting each other anyways.
As far as I could tell, other than the clans, there were no cliques or separation of cool kids vs. nerds vs. grownups at Belegarth. They had all become one club, and no one was considered higher or lower than another (except the more skillful fighters, but that is only because they were better). I even found that the people offered advice to try and help each other. There was never anyone putting anyone down, or making them feel inferior. As one article put it, "There's no judging in this medieval society, no hangups and no putdowns. Just friendships" (Dunn). That was my experience; they only offered encouragement and advice. Part of me wondered if maybe this community was so welcoming because the people simply let loose and engaged in a fun activity that the world might consider geeky or lame. Belegarth was a place to abandon all those judgments so the freaks and geeks could be united in their weirdness and feel free to be themselves.
With the medieval garb on, it was hard to tell who these heroes were in real life. "'cops, nurses, cosmetologists, students, parents, engineers, IT guys, military people and lots of others," are the sort of people one could expect to find at a Belegarth event, according to one Belegarth article (Dunn). It really did involve a large range of people, which from my observations, extended from men who appeared to be in their 40s, to teenage boys and girls who fought with the same fierceness as their older competitors. As one distinguished Belegarth knight put it, "My favorite thing is just that, so many different types of people can enjoy it, [...] people who are good at sports can be good at this game, but then again so can people who are couch potatoes [...] Everybody can participate" (Johns).
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