By Lord Duncan Gabh MacLeod
It was a wonderful summer fifteen years past, AnnoSociatas
XXIX, Ealdormere was long past the Days of Silence and if memory serves, Prince
Gunter and Princess Joleicia were upon our thrones when we, the Skraels did
decide that it was time for swimming and songs around a good fire. Thus did a
good number of us embark for Murphy’s Point with food and drink and no thought
of war or mashial deeds.
I set out
from the Canton of Skraeling Althing (now the Canton of Cauldrithig) with my
son of 18 months, who was walking and talking and promised him an adventure. (I
have never again promised him an adventure.) I arrived early and set my own
tent and aided Lady Susana with setting up the common camp including her fly,
chairs and such as we watched more people arrive. My own memory is faulty, but
until the mid evening we sat around the campfire and sang and ate and told
stories as happens when we gather. As best as I can remember those present were
myself, Ivor, Lord Adelhart, Lady Eglantine, their daughters Hermione and
Pomona and young son, Philemon, Lady Susanna, Lady Isabella, Lord Cinaeth and
Lady Leoff and their young baby in arms, Jenny. A young woman was entrusted to
us by her parents, (it was to be her first trip without her parents) and Lady
Susana promised to keep a good watch on Grizelda and return her on the Sunday.
At about
sundown, Lady Susanna yielded to a headache and retired to her tent. I
attempted to put the young Ivor to bed, but he did not sleep but cried. As the
night grew older, the stars to the west were blotted out of the sky by a broad
band of cloud that was illuminated from within by flashing lightning, but we
were merry around the fire with good food and company and paid this little
heed. Finally, with half the sky blotted out from the advancing cloud, we
decided that it was time to call it a night, tighten down the lashings securing
our tents and go to bed, which was done in some haste for it was then that we
got the first sprays of rain and wind. It was at this time that Lady AElfwyn
arrived in the company of a young lord, just as the tempest redoubled itself in
rain and wind and bolts of lightning that would have made Thor himself proud of
a good night’s work.
AElfwyn and
her friend attempted to take shelter in Susanna’s Dining fly, but as it was
open on both ends and around the bottom, AND was set up in line with the main
direction of the wind AND it was downwind of the now drowning campfire, they
were treated to the vision of a mighty torrent of rain blowing horizontally at
them mixed with sparks from the fire.
At this
point the door to my tent blew open, allowing the great torrent of rain to
invade my tent like Englishmen invading my beloved Scotland, and I decided that
my wain in which I had arrived would make sounder shelter for my son and me. I
rolled Ivor’s blankets around him, and pulled open the remains of the door and
ran for the path that led to the wains. AElfwyn saw that I was abandoning my
tent, which was better than the shelter she had and decided to follow me. The
short path that led to the wains was already littered with small trees blown
down by the wind, but I made my way through them quickly and achieved my wain
and dry shelter. Ivor was much distressed by the storm and nothing I could do
would bring comfort to him, but he was as safe as I could get him.
I think it
is at this point, mere moments from the edge of the storm that the Great
Tempest struck. Lady Susanna had awakened and feeling a more mundane call of
nature in the midst of her headache, was making use of her chamber pot when her
whole tent lifted and rotated a full quarter! The following events are not what
I witnessed, but have been related to me by others who were there. Lord
Adelhart and Lady Eglantine’s tent, a rare round pavilion was dearly stressed
by the tempest and Eglantine carried Philemon in her arms while her daughters
followed screaming and crying in terror at the storm to the shelter of Cinneth
and Leoff’s wain, while Cinneth aided Adelhart in dropping the pavilion in the
middle of the storm to prevent it from blowing on it’s own back to the Canton.
Leoff was already taking shelter in their wain with their daughter. Leoff was
very proud of the young girls. When told to run to Leoff’s wain, they did not
stop crying- but ran straight there! Corwin des Linkehander was visiting from
Myrgan Wood, in the flatter parts of the Kingdom of AnTir, and was therefore
accustomed to wind. However, he discovered that the wind was unusual by the
fact that his tent was coming down and hitting him in the face, dispite the
supporting poles.
The worst of
the storm abated to the level of near continuous lightning, heavy rain and
strong gusts of wind when a young woman roused AElfwyn and I saying that we
were needed to help, there were people hurt. I quickly dropped off Ivor to what
I have ever since thought of as the “Kiddie Car” for safe keeping and found out
that all the tents had either been blown down, crushed or taken down by the
storm, the tent that was crushed was the handy work of the young lady Grizelda,
who was still trapped under the tree, but seemed mostly in good shape and
spirits, and a second Lady, who had been hit on the head with a large branch
and although alert and talking, was asking the same questions over and over
again.
We needed
help, but when one of us started down the road to the outside world, the way
was blocked by trees stacked on trees. We gathered what axes that could be
found in the storm, and by the light of lanterns, a length of good chain and
the slowly diminishing lightning, we fell upon the tangle of trees like Vikings
at a monastery. We would chop one end or both of a tree at the edge of the road
and then heave the log off to the side, then start on the next. After clearing
about 40 feet of the road, I put forth the plan that two of us, Lord Adelheart
and myself go forth through the debris and go to the Camp Rangers by foot, and
raise help to come at the road also from the outside, and so, forth we went as
the remainder of the crew worked toward the outside world.
Again I
diverge from what I saw and relate what was told to me. The young lady Grizelda
was still held to the ground by the large tree that came to rest just above
her. Using fire wood some people propped up the tree so that it would not roll
and then, using a jack from one of the wains, lifted the tree an inch then
re-propped the tree to steady it, and then raised it another inch when at last
they were able to slide the young lady out from under the tree on the remains
of her bedding. She wanted to stand, but was told not to as we did not know
what damage the tree may have done her. Shelter was erected over her to provide
as much comfort as we could.
Meanwhile
Adelhart and I were trotting down the road towards the ranger post when one of
their number came upon us with his wain and we quickly told him of our plight.
Riding hard we gathered tools and more people, including those skilled in
medicine and after gathering several wains with tools and people, we raced off
into the night, intent of blasting our way into the camp when we came around
the corner and there stood the stalwart troop of wet heroes, at the end of the
road, having cleared the last tree just before we arrived from the outside with
help.
Our injured
were taken away to the hospitallers and we who remained were left to make a
quick survey in the dark of the ruins of our camp. Grizelda’s tent still lay
smashed under the huge tree that had fallen upon it, other tents were torn or
just smashed flat. Clothing packed for our stay was soaked through and food
spoilt by the rain and mud.
I retrieved
my son, who had been entertained during all the rescue efforts with Fairy
Tales, drinks and cookies and went to the only shelter that remained to me, my
wain and attempted to find what comfort I may, but Ivor was displeased with this
and cried. After deciding that I was not
to get any sleep like this, I decided to return to Skrael proper, and put Ivor
in his own bed. When I returned home, my lady wife was just rousing from her
sleep to go to work. I put Ivor in his bed and told her “There was a storm.” I
pulled off my wet clothes, and fell into bed and slept.
The name of the event was Autocrat’s Day Off, and in as much
as it was run, was run by Lady Susanna. The approaching storm probably set off
her migraine, but when the emergency happened, people migrated to take care of
those people or tasks that needed attending to. In the strangest way, we all
pulled together in all directions, with nobody actually coordinating the
effort. Literally by the time outside help arrived on site, all that was left
to do was move the injured to the hospital. While we were very lucky, several
other trees fell within inches of people and tents, the rangers at the camp
congratulated us all on our self reliance and our self rescue. While the names of
the people who come out to this event change with every year, the “I can do
it!” attitude that goes though so many people in the SCA has not diminished. In
an emergency, we will do what needs to be done, what can be done, what should
be done. This event, although a disaster, has been my proudest times in the
SCA. Those that were there have long believed that the storm was in fact a
tornado, rare in our part to the land, but they do happen. There is no official
confimation for this, but when the trees fell, they fell in all directions,
with the worst of the damage concentrated in a fairly narrow swath, in which we
had the misfortune to camp in the middle of. We have also to remember that
there was a group of Boy Scouts camped that weekend closer to the water than us
who aided us in our labours with several axes, several of their leaders and the
chain that was used to haul the separated logs from the road.
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