Partying with the Vikings

[fbhjr]

From our days being active in the Higgins Museum Sword Guild we know Bill. He’s a really cool guy who is very into research on Vikings and Norsemen. Although he has a Phd, it’s in electrical engineering, not history. But, he’s given up working at Bose and is about to get a book on Viking weapons and combat published by a company that specializes in historical books.

Every spring he has his Norse party where he cooks authentic food for folks at his house.

Although his house is in the middle of the Boston suburbs, it is surrounded by woods along the side of a stream that leads to a small lake. With the leaves off of the trees you can see other houses, but only in one direction. (It is very hard to find. I was not able to give someone directions today. The road he lives off of goes through two towns and keeps changing names as it crosses the border. And, his drive way is off of another drive way that then splits. So, driving along you see a house with what looks like a fairly normal drive way. Only if you know to look do you see the small road coming off of it and going back into the woods behind that house.)



Bill’s house is very nice and is full of things like helms and swords as well as a lot of reference material to go with it.



Although Bill is very tolerant of historical hacks like myself, he does his best to be very accurate. He cooked the stew for us in a reproduction iron bucket using utensils reproduced from an archeological find. He did say that some of them he had no idea what they were used for, so he just did what seemed right with them. They could have been a pot remover (which is what he did with it) or some sort of cooking thing to hold food out over the fire.



Not everything he has is historically accurate. He’s also got some things that are just fun.

He makes stew each year, which is good enough. But, I really like the bread he makes for it. It is based on a historical recipe that has all sorts of things in it from honey to nettles, but tastes really good. It’s the only place I’ve ever had it. (Due to my milk allergy I didn’t have any of the skyr, which I’m told is like a yogurt/sour cream milk based product. But, the others seemed to like it.)

Every year we play a game roughly pronounced “knock laker”. (No, I don’t know how it’s really spelled.) He knows it was played with sticks and a ball, and that’s about it. So we make up our own rules. This year, as it was cold and wet, only the kids were willing to play with me. Those kids are mean with the sticks. One, whose parents do study western martial arts, fell into a perfect pike position and got me in the liver and heart with his stick.
But, they were young kids so I could pick them up and toss them. I did. It was fun.
When running into the end zone, which was a swamp, I slipped and went splat full into the swamp. I was digging mud and weeds out of my pants for the next two hours.
We left about 4:30 and I came home and took a shower. My coat still smells of fire, but at least I don’t smell like swamp anymore.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Glad you had a good time.

I *completely* forgot the party was today...I figured I had a nice sunday where I had nothing to do but chill...And watched Return of the Jedi...(Seeing Empire Strikes Back on TV made me put Jedi in)

Damn I'm miffed I forgot about it Oh well.

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it was fun !
Perhaps he should consider putting some rune stones out to help guide people to the party ?

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I think he's OK with it being hard to find...

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Read the link if you want to see what Bill said about this:
http://fbhjr.livejournal.com/84394.html