A Field Trip to Dalwhinnie Fields

Our homeschool group takes a field trip together once a month and January’s was one for the books! We went to Dalwhinnie Fields in Marion, Alabama for a day of Medieval living history and I think it’s got to be the coolest. field. trip. ever!!

The program began in the Feast Hall with a brief history of knighthood and knightly virtues. This was followed by a demonstration of a knight’s armor, the purpose of each piece, and how it was worn. Fascinating!

Each piece of armor was passed around for us to hold and let me tell you they were heavy!

Next was a demonstration of hand-to-hand combat strategies and there was no shortage of volunteers from our boys!

We then were taken outside to watch a demonstration of equine sportsmanship (I have no idea what to call it!) including jousting and a friendly competition of splitting melons with swords while riding at full speed!

The red knight represented England and the blue knight represented France. The children were encouraged to pick a side to root for with their loudest screams and jeers. My son was loyal to our French heritage and proudly cheered on our French knight. (We actually have English heritage as well but my maiden name is French.)

The jousting was so exciting! These reenactors have not only studied the history of this sport but have truly put it to practice.

We broke for lunch in the Feast Hall and enjoyed a potluck by all the attending families. We were welcome to bring Medieval fare or modern dishes. There was everything from authentic meat dishes with veggies and homemade bread all the way to chips and cookies. Either way there was no lack of food, and we enjoyed our feast!

Then it was back outside for the Battle of Crecy! Here our history guides taught the students the battle strategy and let them become the reenactors. They loved this!

And for the grand finale we watched a sword fight between knights which we could appreciate even more after having felt how heavy each piece of armor was!

And because one of the virtues of a knight was chivalry, which included treating your opponent with respect, our knights displayed proper protocol of the winning knight allowing his defeated opponent to buy his freedom with his belt of silver pieces and leaving him with a friendly promise of a future rematch to earn his belt back one day.

The program was over, but they were very gracious to allow us to stay and ask questions and let the kids try on their armor. And they obliged us with lots and lots of group photos with them.

The grounds were amazing but unfortunately, I didn’t get pictures of all the buildings. It was soooo cold and windy that day, otherwise we probably would have walked around more and taken a lot of photos. You can check out their website to see more!

We had a bit of a trip back but as soon as we got home, I turned on the fire and made a big pot of steaming hot tea. It took us the rest of the afternoon to thaw out, but the day was worth all the frozen fingers and toes!