Category:Village Activities

General Information

Generally any activity which was needed in our period can be re-enacted.

Most activities do not need specific permission and can be practiced without concern, but common sense must prevail and subsequently activities which may offer harm to the public require special permission (as noted under “limitations” below).

One thing to understand is that you do not need to be a craftsperson to populate the village. This is misconception based upon the fact that many people demonstrate crafts within the village ; this has been incorrectly taken to mean that you must be doing something substantial if you want to participate.

For the purposes of things to do in the LHE it doesn’t matter whether an activity is classed as a craft or not, if you can do something which is informative and/or entertaining to the public, or even just keeps you occupied, then it is worthwhile.

Perhaps the most important of these is finding something to occupy yourself whilst in the village. Apart from fending off boredom, in our period everyone would be doing something ; only the very rich had time to just sit around. Even if you are not wanting to participate in full demonstrations, the fact that you are sitting doing something adds to the realism of the village scene.

If you are not a craft person but want to contribute then there are many day to day activities which can be practised. Wood chopping and food preparation are good examples ; warriors can stand guard or play at games, and there is always water carrying and looking after the fire. (although some of these have specific safety issues covered in the Health & Safety section and require tests to be completed first).

When doing anything in the village the principles set out in the section ‘dealing with the public’ apply, especially the bits regarding knowing what you are talking about. Never assume that the people watching are ignorant of what you are doing. Whilst there are many shining examples of ignorance out there these are counterbalanced by a significant proportion of well informed individuals who may well be better informed than you are.

This includes the remainder of the Viking Society, many of whom will listen in on informed talks, and whilst there is no requirement to have any particular qualification in a craft or activity before undertaking it in the village, if you are seen to be doing something inauthentic or simply talking rubbish then you may be asked to amend your demonstration by the LHE co-ordinator or an authenticity officer.

Generally speaking village activities can be categorised into Crafts, Day to Day Activities, Acting (character portrayal), and Trading.

The borderline between these categories is not hard and fast, and many people will happily change from one role to another throughout a show. It should however be noted that for the purposes of definition a "Craft” is anything which the Society will test someone on for points towards Drengr promotion, whilst a “Day to Day Activity” is (as noted above) menial commonplace tasks which may be as important as a Craft but are not tested.

“Acting” and “Trading” are specialist subjects and which have their own Society rules and regulations listed on their own pages.  

Limitations

As noted above there are some activities which we cannot reasonably or authentically recreate in a tented village. As a prime example modern hygiene and decency standards prevent us from recreating an authentic toilet, which would pose an enormous health & safety problem, irrespective of whether any re-enactor would like the public to watch them ‘in action’.

Similar problems surround activities such as butchery, skin preparation and tanning. Whilst technically there is nothing wrong with stretching a skin and de-fleshing it, if it’s a warm day the resulting stench would have people retching. There is also the problem that the job uses loads of salt, which if dropped onto grass in the quantities required will undoubtedly damage or even kill off the grass. Our clients might not appreciate such wilful damage.

Subsequently if any proposed activity can be expected to produce health and safety problems for the public or your re-enactment neighbours, or if the activity uses undue heat (i.e. smithing) or chemicals, or if it produces fumes or is very noisy, then you should discuss the activity with the LHE co-ordinator before doing the activity at a show.

In some circumstances we will be able to accommodate such activities but you might find your camp apart from the general village.