“Rognvalds Lith was a Swedish Viking who lived until 1043. He had a war troop. A lith is basically a village that can travel which is what we do. They travelled from the west up through Russia, along the top and down through Kiev to Byzantium. They picked up a lot of the Hungarian traits and weapons, Russian Russ pants. Our armour is heavily into that Russ side. Typical Viking armour was mail (linked chain) and often no metal armour at all. In a troop of say 12 warriors, historically speaking, there would be two sets of heavy armour, three suits of mail and everyone else is padded or leather.
We train fortnightly here on Trinity fields. Most of us are from Lismore and surrounds, a few from Coffs, Gold Coast, Kyogle and Tabulam. We have an event at Glen Innes this week so we have a few away. My main interest is the sword play and combat side of it but we keep it well rounded with trades that were practised back then. You don’t have to be good at it just involved enough to have a go. We do archery, textiles, spinning and weaving, leatherwork and sword making. Some of us are learning bow making, some jewellery making and ceramics.
Armidale is the big one for us every 2 years and there are 5 – 600 that meet. We all have normal jobs, trades and interests but come every fortnight we don the kit, put the mobile phones away and travel back in time 1,000 years.
We have a gig at Lantern Parade time in Jolly Fields in Lismore That event is hosted by us and we get people come from all over and it’s growing. We set up a functioning village, all the trades and skills are on show. In the village we have spits and cauldrons, designated kitchen area with all herbs and spices and we make very interesting foods. We try and keep it as authentic as we can so we stick away from new world foods such as potatoes, tomatoes and corn which didn’t exist then. Some of the food that is authentic takes skill to get palatable.(laughs). We have a few people that have conquered the skills for the marinades and the spit roasts, we have the bread ovens happening, the herbs and spices they had back then. It looks a treat with the cauldrons roasting, earthenware pots slow cooking over the fires, people weaving with their looms.
We all share and network our skills so if you see something you are interested in, just ask questions and slowly you get good at it.”