My experiences at Essen Spiel 2014

Running the UK’s largest Hobby Games convention (UK Games Expo every May in Birmingham ) as we do, each October since 2006 has seen an annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of board games – Essen Spiel. For those who have not attended, this is the largest Hobby Games event in the world  with an attendance of 130,000 or there abouts.  They use three Huge halls of the Essen Messe (which is like the NEC) plus other smaller bits.  This event is all about playing and buying board and card games, and to a much lesser extent miniatures and role playing.

This year we had a party of 12. I took a carload of 4 with the UK Games Expo Stand in and drove through France and Belgium last Tuesday. Another car load and an “airborne contingent” lead by my fellow director, Tony followed on the Wednesday. We also had Expo senior managers like Lindsey, Pat “the main man” Campbell and coming to his first Essen, John Dodd and a number of friends who are all in some way associated with UKGE.   Wednesday is a setup day at Essen so we unloaded and set up a small booth of 5m x 2m consisting of a display/reception area to promote the show from and a 3m x2m office. In that inner sanctum we laid out a map of UK Games Expo so that during the meetings with the potential exhibitors we would show them the space and then they would get marked on a map with blue card.  A huge Tetris game then ensues.

In that room we also set up a coffee machine and a kettle and then we unpacked our secret weapon: Yorkshire Tea. As occurred last year we soon had British traders entering the room saying “I have heard you might have Tea!” or “I could kill for a cuppa”. Tea on the continent is usually herbal with a lemon in it and only Brits fully understand the kind of desperation that a Brit abroad encounters when you can’t get a proper cuppa! Next year I am going to take a Tea Pot and go the whole hog.

So then, we set to selling space at UK Games Expo. Pat and Lindsey with notable help from Alex Hickman backed up by John Dodd (who had sciatica poor chap and missed  a lot), Mal , Christine and my dad would stand at the desk and talk to any visitors and then book in meetings  for Tony and I. Tony and I had something like 50 meetings over the fair and only got out of our cell for an hour or two a day. We would then hurtle round and try and see the show, buy some games and grab some food. The result is that around 90% of Trade space at UK Games Expo is provisionally reserved and we confirmed some sponsorships and even picked up some guest ideas via John Dodd attending an industry party.  On top of that we have ideas for seminars, a movie to show and some cool game ideas too.  This means UK Games Expo 2015 is already looking exciting.

At 7 PM we would jump in a taxi and try to get fed in a restaurant. We had two decent meals in a German steak house where the beer was very good too. Our usual Chinese buffet restaurant was up to scratch.  However we had a well cooked but VERY slow meal in a Spanish restaurant that took 2 hours to serve us!  Getting food after hours in Essen can be difficult at times with 30,000 extra hotel residents!  Then we would retreat to the hotel and play some games.  UKGE organizers are first and foremost games players and we want to play a game in the evening!

As for those games – Essen sees hundreds of new ones each year and I can recommend a few. Orcs Orcs Orcs (above)was a twist on the Castle Panic style of game but with well thought out spell casting rules. A light and fun game of Mages vs Orcs.  Armymals (below) is a tank battle game with nice little tanks and terrain and a surprising amount of strategy for a light game.

As for more involved games, I really enjoyed (and won!!) a game of Castles of Mad King Ludwig.  Based on a historical king who built extravagant castles with weird designs, you are soon building your castle and juggling bedrooms and armories about.

I also opened the box of a what was leading the BGG rankings at one point: Alchemist  (BGG= BOard Games Geek by the way and at Essen it runs a live list of games recommended by the vistors).  I have not yet played it because the rules were complex and our brains on Saturday night were frazzled.  Its all about experimenting with potions and trying to make them. Lots of deduction needed. One for an evening when I am less tired.

I also picked up some of the new World War 2 planes for Wings of Glory – including the famous Memphis Belle shown below. I can see some air war over Germany games on a table near here soon.

Overall I thought Essen was a lot quieter than usual – this was due it seemed to a main line rail strike in Germany. As a result I think a lot of the more casual day trippers probably gave it a miss.  However I enjoyed the trip as I always do – it has become an annual working holiday that is totally different to my day job. I now see so many  friends and contacts from the games world as well as UK Games Expo visitors that come by to say hello that is a real social occasion. It is now critically important to UKGE as we have so many important meetings and helps raise our profile both inside the UK and outside.

Now, If you will excuse me now I have a B17 to fly.

And a cup of tea to drink.

Wellington is  a small town near Telford in Shropshire. For  a number of years it has held an autumn literary festival. Today was their children’s day and Catherine Cooper (Author of The Adventures of Jack Brenin ) invited me to attend along with illustrator, Natalie Furnival, young children’s author ~ Ann Scantlebury, poet ~ Elizabeth Leaper, and Georgina Kirk who was a story teller for the day.

Ready for the day. My table at the festival.

I decided to take along a bag full of Anglo-Saxon replica items including weapons, armour, musical instruments, a game and other bits and bobs plus of course my books. I do find that having the replica items really helps with the conversations. Children love trying on helmets, picking up swords and axes and even looking at the things Saxons used to clean their ears!

One of the most amazing groups present was Arty Party. These took up station in the cafe of the Library and  gave poetry recitals. It is a local  group of young people have various problems who publish poetry and books and  work together as a team and run a market stall every week. Some of them cannot write but dictate stories which others publish. Their drive and enthusiasm was amazing and we other authors were soon taking down names of their printers and illustrators.

These types of activities are as much about “getting out there” and making connections and meeting readers as it is about actually selling books and today was enjoyable.

Many thanks to Catherine for  the invitation.

I am looking forward to attending the Wellington Literary Festival’s Children’s day at Wellington Library in Wellington, Shropshire next weekend. There will be several children’s authors along, an illustrator, a Poet and  a story teller. I will be taking some of my Anglo-Saxon replica items and maybe some clothes for the children to try on as well as my books.

The event is on between 10am and 3pm in the Library which is part of Wellington Civic Centre, Lakin Way, Wellington. More details click on this image:

Full details of the whole Festival is here: http://www.wellington-shropshire.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/05367-18th-Literary-festival-programme-v-1.pdf

Entertainment in Anglo Saxon times:

the year is AD 600. There are no Ipods, no Internet, no TV, radio and not even newspapers and books (unless you were wealthy ). What do you do to keep from getting bored?

Here are some ways that the Anglo Saxons had fun in the dark evenings.

Indoor entertainment and feasts

There was a high degree of ceremony connected with feasts. It would start outside the hall. A horn was blown to summon the guests to table and the host would great them at the door where there would be a hand washing ceremony at the door. The doors were shut to keep gate crashers away!

 Then the guests would enter and sit at benches lining long tables. The king’s warriors or thegns could sit in his halls but only men of high rank would sit at the high table. Women of high rank would be cup bearers and pour drinks for the king and lords. In the Christian era bread was blessed and then broken in remembrance of the Eucharist or holy communion/ mass.

Feasts might go on all day and night: there were even some 3 day feasts.

It was considered a serious matter to commit an offense or undertake violence at a feast

Entertainment at feasts: These might include playing the harp, lyre, horn, trumpet, drums flute or cymbals. There would be accompanying signing: often songs recalling battles.

They enjoyed dancing and juggling and the asking of riddles. Here is a typical Anglo-Saxon riddle from the Exeter book which has many riddles. Some are obscure and some lewd and suggestive. This one is straighter forward.
On the wave a miracle: water turned to bone.
What is the answer? See at the end of this section.

The Saxons loved stories such as has every generation of  humans from the earliest times. In the long lost mead halls of the Saxons tales of the past, of monsters and kings and heroes were told. In one of these halls the tale of Beowulf would have had its world Premier as we think of such things today. Imagine the scene: the fire is crackling and dancing away throwing shadows against the walls. The bard stands in the firelight. The rumble of conversation from the benches dies away. The poet bows to the king who inclines his head, signalling that the tale should begin. The unknown genius begins his tale – a story that to the Anglo-Saxon settler echoed back to earlier times and linked him to his past on the shores of distant Denmark just as that same story remains with us a powerful link to our own past in these Saxon halls.

Above: a game of Hnefatafl 
The Anglo-Saxons were fond of dice games. Dice were made from the knuckle bones of animals such as pigs. Board games were also popular and often recalled battles in a symbolic way. An example is Hnefatafl which is played using stone pieces on a carved wooden board.  One player’s pawns coming from the corners of the board would attack the other side’s king and pawns which were positioned in the centre. The player with the King would be trying to get him off the board (to escape from the battle) whilst the other player would try and trap him. These un-even games – where the two sides were of different sizes and abilities – were very prevalent in Anglo-Saxon and later Viking cultures. The Romans seemed to have brought Nine Men’s Morris and Three Men’s Morris to Britain. The English were certainly playing this my medieval times and it seemed likely that may have been aware of it in the Saxon Period.

Nine men’s Morris

Outdoor Sports:

Horse racing  was mentioned in Beowulf  in 8th century copy which exists and by the writer Bede in the 7th. There are records of dog racing, hunting, ice skating, swimming, falconry, hawking, acrobatics wrestling and gymnastics.

So we see that the Saxons certainly filled the long dark winter evenings.

Here is the Answer to that riddle: 

On the wave a miracle: water turned to bone.
Ice or iceberg.

Easter is upon us. It is of course the greatest of the Christian festivals, celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ. In most of the non English speaking world the word used for this festival is one form or another is “Passover”. For of course the death of Christ occurred at the time of the Passover and the Apostle Paul even refers to this in Ephesians. ”Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed for us.”  Pascha here meaning passover.

Yet in the English speaking world the title for this festival is Easter. What is curious about this is that this is another example of where in the incoming Augustine mission and their successors did not abandon the pagan past but adopted it and built upon it.

Bede (672-735), the monk and great chronicler of the English Church talks about this in his work  De ratione temporum (The reckoning of time). He works through the months of the Anglo Saxon year commenting on them and the pagan rites associated with them.

When he reaches April he says this: “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month.  Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance. “

So then. According to Bede, Easter is named after the goddess Eostre. Now some historians pour doubt upon this and say that ONLY Bede mentions this. There are two main arguments for saying that Bede did not make it up. First very few documents survive from this period and so just because nothing else is written down does not mean it is not true. Bede had an agenda of his own – mainly trying to prove that that the Roman Augustine Christian church had authority and that the Welsh church should bow to it. So often you have to take what he says as a bit of propaganda BUT he has no particular reason to lie here.

Secondly whilst Bede is the only ENGLISH reference, the Old English goddess Eostre is replicated across the Germanic, Norse world  and further in forms like Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur. She is a Fertility goddess and there are associations with new birth and the dawn.  If we dig further back we find that the origins of the name Eostre is indeed a word for dawn or new light.

What do we know about her? Well, traditional symbols associated with Ostara, the Germanic equivalent to Eoster are eggs, lambs and bunnys - not surprising as these are all symbols of new life and fertility. So a celebration of the return of the sun at the Spring Equinox is what seemed to go on. When the length of the day equals the length of the night our ancestors thanked the gods with festivals involving these symbols. So giving and receiving of eggs replicates an ancient tradition.  Chocolate versions are of course much more modern.

The name though is possibly even more ancient. The is much speculation at this point but the Indo-European languages of course originate in the Fertile Crescent. So this same word can probably be traced back to something like 2000 BC to the Babylonian goddess of Sexuality, fertility and birth Ishtar which is pronounced in a way very close to the English word Easter. Again her festival was celebrated at the Spring Equinox, and celebrate her return from the land of the dead where she went in an attempt t bring back her lover.  Possibly then a theme of resurrection and new life can be seen there but this may be stretching the point. Certainly her festival is at this point in the year, she was  a fertility goddess and Eostre can maybe be traced back to her.

So then some aspects of Easter do have elements of our Anglo-Saxon, Germanic pagan past with echoes perhaps of something older. Now when we look at England in around AD 597 and the years thereafter  we see that the Augustine mission had two choices. It could ban Eostre/ Easter or as it coincided with the Passover adopt and absorb it. A similar process and challenge faced Christianity as it moved into Germany. Jacob Grimm, one of the Brother’s Grimm, and not just a fairy tale writer but an academic, comments on this as it occurred in ancient Germany:

“We Germans to this day call April ostermonat, and ôstarmânoth. The great christian festival, which usually falls in April or the end of March, bears in the oldest of old high German the name ôstarâ …. This Ostarâ, like the [Anglo-Saxon] Eástre, must in heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries.”

Elsewhere Grimm says:

“Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God. Bonfires were lighted at Easter and according to popular belief of long standing, the moment the sun rises on Easter Sunday morning, he (the worshipper) gives three joyful leaps, he dances for joy

It is clear that the Church, as it moved into Anglo-Saxon and Germanic regions just adopted these celebrations in the same way as they did the pagan Yuletide. Not by banning it but taking elements that they could accept – symbols of life and light and joy and purity and incorporating  them into their own festivals. A pragmatic approach that works. So much so that it can be hard sometimes to separate Christian elements from Pagan elements.

So then. Happy Easter, glæd Eosturmonath !

As I write this blog a very loud party is going on downstairs as my daughter has a 16th Birthday party. As the aged parents we are in exile upstairs. That said it is a traditional party night as it is 12th night: the 12th and last night of Christmas. 12th Night was traditionally celebrated on the night of the 5th of January – the night BEFORE the 12th day.

This may seem odd to modern minds as we are used to a day starting at Midnight and so night follows day. To the ancient peoples (and right through medieval times) the day ended at sunset. The night that then followed belonged to the following day. Thus the night AFTER Christmas eve was the first night and also coincided with the pagan saxon Mother’s night. That night started the 12 days just as 12th night heralded its end.

12th Night was a time for partying. There was no particular celebration associated with 31st December as in Saxon times that was not the last day of the year. For a long time a new year started on Mother’s night (the 1st night of Yuletide which later became the first night of Christmas. ) and later a New Year actually started around 25th March which was the Spring Equinox date. The New year beginning on 25th March lasted until the 18th century. So 31st December was not a big night. 12th Night was.

“Twelfth Night Merry-Making in Farmer Shakeshaft’s Barn”, from Ainsworth’s Mervyn Clitheroe, by Phiz

In Saxon times a popular tradition is the custom of wassailing. This  word comes from the Old English was hael, meaning to your health. Everyone at a Twelfth Night celebration would drink from a large wassail bowl, followed by a toast or a wassail to their health.

Another custom is the lighting of fires with all those attending circling the fire drinking to each other’s health and fortune.

July 23rd  was the day the ancient Romans celebrated Neptunalia – a two-day festival in honour of Neptune as god of waters, celebrated at Rome in the heat and drought of summer. The idea was to appease Neptune so he would send rains to keep the crops healthy. The people used to build huts of branches and foliage  in which they probably feasted, drank, and then slept overnight, continuing the fun the next day.

In ancient calendars these days were marked as Neptune ludi et feriae. Ludi means games and Feriae festival or feast. This implies that the celebrations consisted of  games and sports as well as feasting. Neptune is sometimes associated with horses so it seems likely that horse racing was the order of the day, indeed his temple in Rome was close to the Circus Flaminius – the horse racing statidum