Location: Perth, Scotland

Savanna: Today we woke up early to get ready for the final day of fights! José picked Meaghan and me up at the B&B and we drove to the palace with the team. It was elimination rounds for the 10 vs 10’s in the morning and you could feel the excitement and anxiety coming from the team. We had to watch 4 fights before it was Canada’s turn to fight, and I was so excited to see Meaghan’s reaction.

Meaghan: Has anyone else seen this?! It is insanity. Even before the fighting it is an impressive sight to behold. The castle as the backdrop, the Game of Thrones-esque music playing over speakers, the flags flying in the wind and the fighters walking out in their armour all come together to create a lasting image.

I was both prepared and unprepared for the fighting itself. I’d seen a couple video clips and Sav’s told me about it, but it’s something you really need to witness in person to understand the intensity. The fighters do not. Hold. Back. The marshall gives the go-ahead for the fight to start and all hell breaks loose. It is full contact and the fighters are hitting each other with everything they have – axes, swords, shields and good old fashioned punches to the face. There were quite a few times where I thought that someone was seriously hurt because come on, how could they not be with a hit like that! But no, everyone I saw bounced back up at the end of the fight ready for more. How?? Believe you me, I am still asking myself this. There are rules of course and everyone was serious about safety so I think only one or two people were actually injured over the course of the tournament. Which if you think of it isn’t bad for a few hundred people beating the living daylights out of each other!

Sav: I left Meag right before the Canadian fight and went to help out the team. For this round I was flag bearer and extra weapons support. The fight went well even though we lost. It was a valiant effort and everyone played well, though needless to say it was disappointing. You could tell nobody was ready to quit fighting.

At the closing ceremonies I got to go into the list with Sky, Don, Land and Steve to represent Canada (Flag bearer again), which was a sort of surreal experience. All these countries in one little list. So many amazing people and an incredible amout if pride. All the medals were handed out for female and male categories in longsword duels, sword and shield duels, pole-arm duels, 3 vs 3’s, 5 vs 5’s, 10 vs 10’s and 16 vs 16’s and a lot of national anthems were sung.

Meaghan and I went back to Sky and Land’s camp to hang out and help Sky pack. We had so much fun chatting and sitting in the sun, you could tell it was going to be a great night. Land went to a captains meeting and eventually all 20 some of us went out for a big team dinner.

Meag: Post dinner we were feeling a little sleepy. But we were not done yet! There was naturally a party for all the fighters that we figured we’d check out for a beer or two. Famous last words, right? Fast-forward to 4am and sunrise: we were still having a great time, wearing new tshirts and sitting around the fire talking to fighters from all over the world.

Sav has met a few people throughout the tournament, including some Australian fighters. We all know Australians are always a hoot and a half so we were very happy to come across some Aussies at the party. It is such a fun and welcoming group of people so by night’s end we had new friends from Germany, Poland, Luxembourg, Australia and Scotland.

Sav: One really exciting thing that happened tonight was a polish armourer gave me a pole-arm and asked to make my armour for next year!! AHHH. I guess I have some measurements to take when I get home! (Help me, Land!)

Meag: When we finally got home I was quite ready for bed. Lo and behold, we were locked out! There was a key on the inside of the door and try as we might we COULD NOT get it open. (Note to future S&M: Maybe one of us should learn how to pick a lock? Might be a useful life skill for these situations). Our room walks out into the backyard so we thought “Hey! Let’s go around back!” We assumed the entire house was the same B&B so we could just walk around back. (What is that saying about “assume” again?) Let’s just say the man who owns the B&B that is in the other side of the building with the gate into the backyard was not impressed… Eventually we did get in and boy did we ever pass out.

Sav: I had such a wonderful night meeting new people and getting even more hyped up to compete in future years. The funniest part of the night was that everyone kept asking Meaghan if she was a fighter and she would like, laugh a little bit and say something along the lines of ‘I can’t hit people though?’ And everyone everyone thought that was just hilarious. I mean they did just spend a weekend beating the crap out of each other.

Shout out to our new friends Rob from Australia, Michael from Poland, Laurent from Luxembourg and Joshua from Scotland! Not to mention Sky and Land for being stellar company all evening!

S&M

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