The Armour Archive

Donal Mac Ruiseart

I used to think it was Teddy Roosevelt, but it's apparently attributed to Winston Churchill:

Sir Winston wrote:The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

There WAS a cartoonist whose work appeared in some SCA publications whose work reminded me of BodÃ©. It MIGHT have been Blackfox doing a different style. I remember one in which a little creature encounters a door just standing out in the open. He grins and points to it, then goes to open it (it's i...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

You'd also have to determine whether the illustrated club is intended for battle or simply a symbol that the illustrator has given to the bearer to denote rank. William and Odo are probably examples of the latter. William, perhaps; but it is generally stated that Odo chose to fight with a mace (in ...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

What Jonathon (Blackbow) said, and for my own part, my spears have always had either a hook or the back of the head reinforced to enable hooking. Maybe because I'm a glaivier as well as a spearman, I find the ability to hook shields and other spears very useful.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Actual hooks, probably not. But a real spear head could be rather broad, and have what amounted to barbs at the back of the head, which would enable their use for hooking.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Warthaven was actually a copy (of sorts) of the comic art of whacko artist Vaughn BodÃ©. Actually, Eff, I don't agree. I used to read BodÃ©'s stuff quite a lot (Long Live the Hat!). Blackfox might have been inspired by BodÃ©, but his work is of an entirely different order. I wouldn't consider their...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Another point: Isn't the metal for armour including helms, usually worked cold? Would a forge be necessary for armouring?

Donal Mac Ruiseart

THAT bugaboo surfaces again and again.

My definitions come from heraldry texts that I haven't at hand at present; but as I say, I'm probably exercising in futility, arguing such a fairies-on-the-point-of-a-needle question.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Those are modern definitions, Karen.

On the other hand, I guess I'm exercising in futility, using the narrow heraldic definitions when the common perception of a "banner" is anything that flutters in the wind.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

"It isn't period to say something isn't period..." ...and walk away as they screw their eyeballs into their skull trying to parse that one... Anyone familiar with the "Lady Tudor Glitz" comics will be familiar with that one. In one episode, LTG goes around telling everyone that ...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Derian le Breton wrote:Flags, then.

Ba-da-BING!

Funny how so many of us (and I've fallen into it too) seem to think some terms which have been in continual use over the centuries are somehow modern and not appropriate for 'period' use, like 'child,' 'children,' 'flag,' and one or two others.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

What banners? There are no banners in this thread.

We're going to make those, too. But we haven't yet. The standards are more dramatic.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Of course, the next ones she makes . . . her own . . . will have the advantage of experience (those are the first she's ever made) and be even better! There are a few very small flaws in the paintwork, to discern which requires closer examination than a flag usually gets. I need a taller staff; the ...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

. . . but I'm SO proud of my Lady Wife's handiwork that I've just Gotta show it off. The Lady also made a very good photographic record of the project, which you can see here. Pennon and Standard http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2773/4109680806_1719bf4a35.jpg Pennon (3' long, 18" high) http://far...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

.

I don't know tha . . . . YAAAAAAAAA!

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Magnificent. My heart ached to be there. The weather, however, did not permit it. A late storm buffeted my home area and plunged us all into darkness, and stalled our final preparations for the event. Even if we could have completed the constructions, or abandoned them and attended in simpler wise, ...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

As I have not the status to take an active part, I will offer you praise in your desire to take up so strenuous a deed, and encouragement to carry on with it when it becomes tiring and burdensome, as is almost sure to happen at some point.

Well begun - now get it done!

Your servant aye,

Donal Mac Ruiseart

FrauHirsch wrote:I've seen people who would never wear mismatched headgear, but will sometimes be seen using a parasol that is not correct.

Y'know, other than just staying indoors, I often wonder how noble ladies avoided sunburn/tanning, without using parasols or wearing big broad-brimmed hats . . .

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Kilkenny wrote:Master El of the Two Knives . . . was, however, mistaken on at least one occasion for Roosevelt Greer, lineman for the Los Angeles Rams.

I think El was bigger than Rosey. Fighting him was like attacking a castle.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Aye, he described himself as "all liquored up." Alcohol does not, in the main, improve one's judgement or one's perception. I've known some very reasonable and articulate people become varying degrees of unreasonable and inarticulate when they find their way around a bit too much booze.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

They're just not into making things that will be used in a martial way, or that go against their beliefs. And like it or not, ya gotta respect them for it. They're so anti-military that many of them won't even wear buttons on their clothes, because at the time their sect was founded the military wo...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

dukelogan wrote:baron mungoe is, from what i have been told, confirmed as a late entry.

Aye, that's whom I meant. Didn't want to tip the hand ahead of myself, though.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

[I]t's not 'heavy fighting', it's Armored Combat. It's not 'light' fighting, it's Rapier Combat. I try to always use those terms and encourage others as well. Not a few fencers dislike calling the "heavy" side "armoured" because many of them wear armour as well. I recall at one ...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Alex Baird wrote:There is a reasonable free font version of gothic bastarda floating around called "Batarde"

But if you vvant to vvwrite anything in English vvith it, the lack of a w is a bit of an impediment.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

There may be one more in the Crown Lists.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

This rig is fairly typical. The basic garment is a bag-sleeved houppelande. I have several but that is my best one. The hood was given to me at my elevation to the Pelican; I wear it on special occasions. The leggings I'm wearing there are knit but I also have bias-cut hosen in various colours. The ...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

I've participated in several military weddings at which the Arch of Steel was formed for the bride and groom to exit the site. And the Arch is sometimes formed at other functions such as formal dances. In another thread I saw a picture of what I suppose was an SCA wedding in which the bride and groo...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

BTW in reply to the OP, my current shield is a shoulder-wide, torso-high heater in the Atlantian fashion. When I started fighting back in single-digits, I used a strapped round, between 22 and 24 inches in diameter. I pretty much came into the fold when I realized that almost everyone else was using...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Ilia_Caid wrote:I started off with a side mount heater . . .

Pray, what do you mean by "side mount?" That term is unfamiliar.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

B. Amos wrote:Atlanitan Insidermundo

This just in directly from Vatican City... the Pope has decreed that in the third round all shields will be replaced with candy filled pinatas.

In the form of Spike. With the horm rebated to prevent offensive use.

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Thanks for the debunk, Chef (I guess I shouldn't trust chem teachers' etymology on such matters), but the central part of the question remains hanging . . . where does the name come from?

Donal Mac Ruiseart

When I was taking chemistry, they told us that the sort of beaker one sees in labs is so called because it has a "beak," the little pouring spout on one side of the edge. So why to they call the julep-cup-like drinking vessels discussed in this thread a beaker? It has no beak. The etymolog...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

(Echo post deleted)

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Simple heraldry gets passed all the time, despite the belief that all of the good simple ones are taken. I call it the homecoming queen phenomenon - like the homecoming queen who either sits home on prom night or goes with some ordinary guy instead of a BMOC because everyone figures she's already go...

Donal Mac Ruiseart

Vitus von Atzinger wrote:DON'T KILL YOUR FUN by getting carried away with being accurate. I can't believe I just said that.

<center>:shock:</center>

Forgive me for bragging . . .

Legacy of the "Arch of Steel"

Concerning the term "beaker"