Medieval times in Dunn Meadow

Wearing jeans and a blue hooded sweatshirt, freshman Logan Bloom pointed a borrowed sword at Society for Creative Anachronism member Mike Underwood.

“Find a square stance,” said Underwood, who was wearing striped cotton pants and a blue yellow-collared shirt. “Sink into it a little bit here.”

As his SCA persona, Vincente Xavier, Underwood taught Bloom and 15 others the basics of 16th-century rapier fencing at the Medieval Activity Fair on Wednesday in Dunn Meadow.

The SCA, an international organization, participates in practicing the arts and skills of the Renaissance.

“I learned a couple defenses,” Bloom said. “I learned the difference between German, Spanish, English and Italian sword fighting.”

Due to light rain, the 65-member organization decided to switch the event’s date to next week.

But when curious students arrived to participate, they decided to go through with the fair.

“We had a couple people here tearing down the stuff, and people showed up,” said Paul Friebus, president of the Bloomington SCA. “We had to do something for them.”

In the SCA, Friebus takes on the persona of Peter Grau, the son of a noble family from Bremen in northern Germany.

Outside the SCA, Friebus is a manager at Barnes & Noble.

At a “reasonable age,” Grau moved from his family’s home in pursuit of personal fortune.

“I worked as a minor sub-commander in an army,” Grau said. “In whichever army would hire me.”

There is no specific method for choosing an SCA character name, Friebus said.

“A lot of it is looking at paintings or etchings from that time period or thinking of family names,” he said. “You find inspiration from ‘I really want to do this thing.’ Then you create a character around that idea.”

Under a tree near Jordan River, three musicians began to play music for the
“petit vriens,” a medieval Italian dance.

It started with a few steps on par with Dorothy’s movements as she’s “‘off to see the Wizard,’” said Shannon Conway, otherwise known as Sionnain O’Malley.

“This is a chasing dance,” Conway said, taking a second dancer by the hand.

Dancers weaved around each other in groups of three with one person leading at the front. After a few steps, the leader let go of the second person’s hand and skipped a few feet from the group, then waved to the second person to join.

“You come, too, my lady,” Conway said, waving at the third group member.

Together again, Conway repeated the action, leaving behind the other two dancers.

After a few more steps, Conway honored the other two members with a bow, then started the process again. A couple steps forward with one foot, a couple skips forward with the next.

Though Bloom did not participate in the dancing, he said he would come back to find out more about the group.

Bloom said he heard about the call-out event from someone who described it as, “a bunch of crazy people in the woods.” He decided to check it out.

“It’s just so bizarre,” he said. “It’s just people doing what they want to do. They don’t care about what the people walking by are saying.”