Here’s a bunch of guys after my own heart: Hurstwic.org is a group of individuals here in our neck of the woods who are all about Viking culture and legend and such and spend their time staging re-enactments, building Old Norse turf longhouses, doing educational presentations, and appearing in various videos and films as Vikings. From the gist of the text on the website, it sounds like the group somewhat disbanded a few years ago but still hang out and do Viking stuff together on the weekends…y’know pillaging and looting and such just for old times’s sake. They’re sort of like an SCA splinter group, or like the various Klingon organizations that have spun off from Trek fan clubs, but it sort of sounds like they couldn’t keep enough interest going in the group.
So if you’re out in the woods somewhere in central Massachusetts and you think you see a gaggle of Vikings hacking away at each other with halbards and oakenshields, it’s probably these guys.
The Viking bit is more attractive to me than SCA…but I wonder if other countries embrace and romanticize the old times.
No need to go to the woods to see Hurstwic. Watch us demonstrate techniques of the Viking battle axe on Modern Marvels on the History Channel on May 8. Or stop in at Higgins Armory Museum to watch a live demonstration of Viking weapons and combat techniques:
I will definitely catch you guys on the History Channel. Thanks for the heads-up!