A Knight's Tale

"Mom, I need a costume for some Medieval thing we are doing in school.

And it needs to be good, because they are filming us for TV.

Oh, and I need it by tomorrow."

Now, I have a few costumes laying around, and I can usually throw something together, but this particular request warranted a call to Trevor's fabulous Aunt Anya who is the queen of costumes.(I mean come on, we are talking about TV here!) Seriously, her hobby is researching and gathering or making authentic costumes. Her collection is AMAZING and so is she! And so at 10:30 PM the night before the big festival Trevor, Brandon and I found ourselves being outfitted and educated on how a true Knight would dress for battle. We left with a trunk full of... well, you'll see.

The underclothes.

Brandon was particularly intrigued with the leggings. He was a little hesitant. And what 12 year old boy wouldn't be slightly nervous to wear leggings to school in front all of his peers. But, he slipped them on and continued to dress. The best was yet to come.


The chain mail.


Which was hand made painstakingly piece by piece by Aunt Anya's son. It took him a whole summer to make it and it weighs a ton. It took 2 of us to get it on him.


It was AWESOME!



Almost done.



My knight in shining chain mail.

I walked to school with him that day. Heads were turning as he clinked his way through the halls towards his classroom. He was a little nervous, a little embarrassed and a little proud because his was by far the best costume there. The 6th graders were all abuzz with excitement for the "Knights of Mayhem" program to begin.

The show consisted of this knight

Verses this knight.

They did several demonstrations. They even put a melon on top of the principals head and then sliced it in half with a sword as they rode by on a horse.

Impressive.

And of course, there was jousting!

There was lots of jousting.

(It only took about 15 shots to actually get both horses in the picture)

My knight did not joust, but did get his picture taken by the National Geographic photographer (no doubt due to his costume), and his picture taken with the jousting World Champion. After the show he insisted on wearing his costume for the rest of the day at school. I don't know how he did it, that chain mail weighed as much as he did.

When he got home and 2 of us helped him get all of the gear off, he literally collapsed from carrying around that weight all day. He was exhausted, happy and an absolute filthy mess from all of the metal. Tis the life of a Knight, I guess.

It was definitely a day and a "knight" to remember.

Thanks Aunt Anya.