Day 342: Joyous jousting

02/07/2022

Last night everyone had a fantastic sleep, Eloise slept through the night and Lachlan had more than 9 hours. Full of energy we sprung out of bed, chucked on the football tops and bolted out the door. Eloise was excited as Dad was taking her to her first football lesson. Lucky she has been practicing.

Once we had made our way past the friendly bear and into Westerton Hall, Eloise could not believe how many footballs there were to kick. As the children pilled in she was unsure but quickly joined in the drills. She enjoyed the warm-up, which probably reminded her of dance. She was then learning to dribble around crocodiles and kick goals. Eloise is still working on her celebration.

On the way home, there was an interesting discussion:

Eloise “Dad, we will need to get another big kids seat for the car”

Dad “mmmhmmm, why is that?”

Eloise: “For Emma”

Dad “Emma?”

Eloise “Yeah, next week we pick Emma up on the way”.

We’ll have to see about that Eloise.

After football fun we swung past home to pick up Super Mum and Lachlan. Lachlan had enjoyed some precious one on one time with Super Mum. We made our way across the country to Linlithgow Palace for a special Historic Scotland event. It was a nice walk from the car park around Linlithgow Loch and up the main street of Linlithgow. Linlithgow is a proper Scottish town. The size of Linlithgow Palace was impressive.

Unfortunately Linlithgow Palace was closed today for structural inspections. No worry, we were here to see the jousting and had arrived just in time. There was a lot of action, Lachlan was feeding off of the crowd’s energy.

The jousting was entertaining, sadly shots at the torso and head are frowned upon in modern jousting. It was fun but a wee joyous for our liking. After a wet week of summer showers we were enjoying periods of sun. It was a jacket on, jacket off kind of day.

With all the jousting excitement and atmosphere, Eloise was keen to give it a go on her wee horse.

The quintain, may have included a number of lance games, often used as a training aid for jousting, where the competitor would attempt to strike a stationary object with a lance. The common object was a shield or board on a pole (usually referred to, confusingly, as ‘the quintain’), although a mannequin was sometimes used. It was not unknown for a seated armoured knight to act as the target.

We then explored the wee medieval tent displays showcasing medieval skills.

The medieval bagpipes sounded crisp.

For a late lunch, pizza was back on the menu. It was actually not half bad considering our high bar for pizzas now. It was all we needed to entertain Lachlan until the next jousting round.

Now that we were closer to the action the power of the horses and the speed at which they were moving was intimidating. You certainly did not want to get in the way of them. It was a nice semi-choreographed show. They installed different tips on the end of the lance for some dramatic lance splintering, the dangling and falling off the galloping horse was well performed.

Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horse riders wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament. The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each participant trying hard to strike the opponent while riding towards him at high speed, breaking the lance on the opponent’s shield or jousting armour if possible, or unhorsing him. The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism. The participants experience close to three and a quarter times their body weight in G-forces when the lances collide with their armour. The term is derived from Old French joster, ultimately from Latin iuxtare “to approach, to meet”. The word was loaned into Middle English around 1300, when jousting was a very popular sport among the Anglo-Norman knighthood. The synonym tilt (as in tilting at windmills) dates c. 1510.

After a fun family day we headed home, worryingly both the kids fell asleep in the car ride around 16:00, the worst time for a nap. Fingers crossed they both sleep well tonight, we will need all our energy.