On the weekend of the 9th and 10th of May we packed the car with steel, masks and far too many wasters and drove east to Pendennis Castle. FABLEFUSION 2026, the high fantasy and gaming festival hosted by Game On Cornwall, had asked if a HEMA club would like to come and show people what a real sword fight looks like. We said yes before they had finished the question.
Pendennis is a proper place to swing a longsword. Henry VIII built it to watch the mouth of the Fal, and the headland still does exactly that: grass, granite, wind off the water, and a keep that has seen more sieges than most of Cornwall put together. We sparred below the keep, we sparred on the grass, and yes, we sparred on the ramparts, where the view is spectacular and the footing keeps you honest.
What the visitors saw
Longsword, mostly, because longsword is the heart of what we do. Amy and Jake, Brandon and Regan, George and Meirion, pair after pair, and then the mixed bouts that always draw a crowd: Alice with the longsword against Amy with arming sword and shield, Brandon with a katana against Jake with a spear, then the spear and the katana swapped over just to see. Meirion and Jake fought with daggers in harness, which is Fiore's dagger play as he meant it, close and quick and mostly wrestling. Regan and Brandon went to the ground and stayed there for a good thirty seconds, armlocks on, both swords lost, and the two of them fighting over the last one. That is abrazare. Nobody in the crowd needed it explained.
Costumed festival-goers wandered over between bouts to ask what we were doing and whether it hurt. It does, a bit, and we told them so, and then we showed them the kit and let them feel the weight of a feder. A few of them wrote the Tuesday down.
The cost of a good weekend
One of our Sigi Kings snapped at the castle. That is what happens when steel meets steel with intent, and the maker replaced it under warranty without a murmur. Everything else came home dented, scuffed and happy.
Kay Kemp shot the photographs, and you can see the best of them, together with the sparring clips, in the gallery. Thank you to Game On Cornwall for having us, to English Heritage for the castle, and to everyone who stopped to watch. If you were one of them and you are still thinking about it, Tuesday is waiting.