Real-live Jousting

Hengist Journey #5 

Today’s post is all about “Archer” – the guy who appeared fully formed in my head back in July 2002 when my friend Lyndsey and I watched Kevin Hicks, the Bowman at Warwick Castle loose one hundred arrows through a loop of rope the size of a man’s head in five minutes. Truly awesome. We stalked him around the castle asking questions, and when I launched the paperback version of Archer in August 2010, he and his son came to give him a great send off at Kenilworth Castle. Josh is on the front of the boxset.

The original version of Archer was a life-in-the-day-of, set on Beltane (May-day), and it opened with an exciting joust. When I wrote it, I had only seen one live joust (in the Excalibur hotel in Vegas, of all places), but since then I’ve seen several at Reenactor (Renaissance) Fayres all over – and there’s even a riding school in Warwick that teaches jousting. How much did I love researching these books? Watching a master bowyer demonstrate a tool for fletching eight arrows at once was one of the memorable experiences.

I was lucky enough to get all of these masters of their crafts to critique the chapters and give the benefit of their expertise. So if these scenes feel authentic, it’s because I had some of the best gurus. If you want to check out the original opening, you can read it here.

I changed it because of a couple of comments from people complaining about the “swiss cheese” structure, because it was all told in flashbacks throughout the Beltane festival instead of the current, more linear structure. I’d love to know if you think that’s better than the current opening – please leave a comment at the end of this post.