One day when he was 12 years old, Richard Goodwin and a crowd of other students from his middle school in the town of Hobbs, New Mexico, gathered in the gymnasium in the middle of the afternoon for a pep rally-styled event featuring a group called Ampguard.
Sitting in the bleachers, Goodwin watched as a group of 20 teenagers filed into the center of the gymnasium, each dressed in handmade tunics and other medieval styled clothing. Over the next half hour, a representative of Ampguard led the performers through four sets of mock combat demonstrations, a game of capture-the-flag and demonstrations on medieval military strategy.
Fascinated with what he had seen, Goodwin approached the Ampguard representative at the end of the show and took a flyer listing out local parks where the organization held their training sessions. When he returned home that day, Goodwin told his mother about the show and asked if he could join Ampguard. While she was initially reluctant about the idea of people swinging around foam weapons in parks, she agreed to take Goodwin to a park that was within walking distance of their home to see a demonstration wherein Ampguard members gave Goodwin and other attendees loaner foam weapons and clothing to use.
After seeing the demonstration for herself and deciding it was safe, Goodwin’s mother agreed to let him participate with Ampguard on a regular basis. Goodwin continued to borrow weapons at first but soon decided to try making one of his own. He took to mowing lawns in his neighborhood for money, which allowed him to buy pool noodles, one-inch PVC pipes and pillowcases to fashion into a simple sword. Goodwin also built a shield for himself out of a trash can lid that he covered in fabric and ringed with material from another pool noodle.
For the next six months, Goodwin trained with Ampguard at local parks every weekend until his family moved to Louisiana. While his family moved a number of times in the following years, Goodwin joined foam weapon combat groups wherever he could find them, even during his college years. After he eventually settled in Flowood, Mississippi, he went to the Flowood Public Library one day, where he spotted a flyer from a group called the Shire of Iron Ox promoting a medieval combat demonstration in Clinton Park.
“When I saw that flyer, it reminded me of all the good times I’d had with Ampguard in Hobbs, and I knew I wanted to be there,” Goodwin told the Mississippi Free Press. “When I got there, the group I found was practicing everything from fencing to combat in heavy armor. They were happy to let me use some of the equipment, much of which they’d made by hand, and before I knew it, everyone there wanted me to try everything they had.”
The Title of ‘Tink’
The Shire of Iron Ox is a Mississippi branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a national historical reenactment organization focused on recreating elements of pre-17th century history such as costumes, artwork and various forms of armored combat. A group of friends in Burkley, California, founded the organization in 1966 after deciding to host a mock medieval tournament in their backyard during a party.
The Shire of Iron Ox branch, which covers the greater Jackson metro as far out as Meridian and Vicksburg, has existed since the mid-1970s. The branch takes its name from the abundant red yazoo clay in the area, the color of which is due to the presence of iron oxide in the clay.
Goodwin officially joined the Shire of Iron Ox in 2013 as a volunteer combat marshall for training sessions, but he also put his accounting skills to work as a treasurer. A few years after joining, he took the position of seneschal, essentially making him a club president for the Shire. As seneschal, Goodwin acts as a point of contact for other SCA branches and helps to coordinate collaborative activities between them.
Within the Shire of Iron Ox, Goodwin goes by the title “Tink.” The title grew out of a childhood nickname he had that referred to a chain he wore on his wallet, from which he hung trinkets that made a tinkling noise when he walked around.
When he joined the Shire, Goodwin also had a set of three-ring piercings on his bottom lip, which another member suggested he hang a sheet of decorative chainmail from a month after he joined. Goodwin loved the idea. Within a week, he had used the SCA’s resources and help from metalworkers within the Shire to craft his new facial decoration.
“After I got done making it and putting it on, I knew that I had to make ‘Tink’ official as my title since it was now even more perfect,” Goodwin said. “I reached out to one of our heraldry groups and did research on viking sagas about people with piercings and names based on metal and settled on ‘Tinkar,’ which would be shortened to ‘Tink.’”
‘Propel It Forward’
SCA branches go by different names depending on how many members a particular location has and how large of an area it represents. Smaller clubs of roughly five people at a school or local college are cantons, while larger groups of 20 to 40 members are shires. Branches that cover cities are baronies and kingdoms cover states. The Shire of Iron Ox, for example, is part of the Kingdom of Gleannabhann that covers Mississippi.
The SCA’s various branches offer training on everything from medieval cooking, painting, calligraphy, gardening and beekeeping to weaving, leatherworking and metalworking to create period-accurate costumes and armor by hand.
“What sets us apart from something like a Renaissance Fair or LARPing group is the research-based structure we adhere to,” said Shire of Iron Ox Media Organizer Megan Barnes, who goes by the name “Broinninn Inghean Aindriasa” within the organization.
“Looking at Pinterest may be a way to get basic ideas for making medieval clothing, but we want to make people aware of sources that offer deeper dives into accuracy like academia.edu, Jstore, Researchgate, Google Scholar and more,” Barnes continued. “We want to make sure people know this knowledge is available and propel it forward to promote the importance of research and how to do it yourself. We do, however, emphasize that anyone can enjoy the SCA and its activities on any level they’re comfortable with.”
The SCA offers training on various forms of pre-17th century combat and regularly hosts mock battle melees in which three-person teams face off in outdoor arenas with rope barriers representing water or impassable terrain combatants must nativate around. Kingdoms also organize mock wars between themselves that can have anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 participants. One such event, “Gulf Wars,” takes place each March in Mississippi and draws between 3,000 to 5,000 participants.
In addition to mock battle tournaments, the SCA hosts craft fairs, feasts, balls and bardic circles focused on medieval music. The organization also holds educational seminars at local schools and makes appearances at events such as Celtic Fest and Mississippi Comic Con.
Many branches also feature an herbal guild that teaches members to grow their own herbs for traditional cooking and to conduct plant exchanges, in which members will give spices to each other as a way to barter for services such as training sessions or help with crafting an outfit.
“Everyone here in the Shire of Iron Ox values honor and courtesy above all,” Barnes says. “That spirit of southern hospitality is so important that it’s like a life motto. We work and grow with those around us and pass that spirit on.”
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