I always like to stumble across interesting photos or stories. This one was taken in Barfield Park (Murfreesboro, TN).
Medieval combat is a sport that few maybe familiar with. However, you may have seen it unfolding at a local park and you failed to recognize exactly what was going on.
The sport, that involves role-playing as if you were from the Medieval times, is all about taking down your opponent with a sponge sword or perhaps a foam bat of sorts.
A local organization called Dagorhir (pronounced Dagger-Here) meets at Barfield Crescent Park on Sundays and fight. Not fighting that ends in injury, but fighting that ends with a clear winner or a clear loser. It's a game.
In Medieval times there was no acting. Instead, fighters literally fought to the death. Depending on their level of training, some made their fight appear to be a dance the way they jumped, dodged and returned blows with swords and shields in hand.
But in Murfreesboro, they don't fight to the death. They simply reenact such fighting with foam swords and depending on where someone is hit - they either survive and stay in the game or they are, figuratively speaking - killed and are out for the round.
Scott, who goes by the nickname or role-play name of Zaen (Pronounced Zane) stated...
"I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked."
- William Shakespeare