Thulean Archives

Holmganga Norse: "duel between two fighters on an islet/marked area" Most of the time, the dues was fought not on an islet, but on an area marked for this purpose. The fight was normally not "to the death", but to "first blood" or until one fighter was pushed out of the marked area. The rules/customs changed over time. Originally the fighters did not wear any armour. From the Middle Ages, we know rules for duels between men and women too. So women too could duel. "Ok. You can start the fight" No! Not with me. If a man fought against a woman, the man had to stand in a pit in the middle of the marked area. To make the fight fair, this boy has to stand in a bucket ("pit") when fighting the little girl. She lost real quick, but tries to cheat. Any "dodging" will be real difficult for the boy here. She almost stepped out of the marked area. She just stepped out of the marked area, but we pretend she didn't. She resorts to insults. I advice her to just charge with the shield first, if he falls out of the bucket, she will win. He just hit her shield hand. Why!? Why does he ALWAYS have to crawl into mud. The biggest boy just left the marked area. He asks her to wait for him to get ready. She did not. He doesn't want to fight her anymore. Yes! My turn! Hooray! Damn it! He doesn't want to fight me. :-( But if drop the shield and only use a small sword?! Nope. And now to an even less fair fight. Big boy still complaining in the background. Yes. This is degenerating into pure chaos. Yeah. Holmgang is for adults. Doing thinks like this should in theory be fun for the kids, but they still manage to complain, whine, cheat and of course leave in protest when things don't go their way. Hopefully they learned a thing or two about Holmgang though. I hope you did too. Thanks for watching.