by Cargilfield School (1st October)
All the P2 children arrived dressed in medieval attire for their Castle Day. Our magnificently dressed Lords and Ladies were expertly taken through their dance steps by Lady Brockbank in the first of many dances performed in medieval style. We then practised some jester skills such as juggling with scarves and some quite tricky acrobatic feats. Carrying on the jester theme, we then returned to one of the rooms in our castle to make our own jester hats.
Meanwhile the cooks were busy in the castle kitchen preparing a scrumptious banquet for us in the ‘banqueting hall’. We feasted on numerous courses starting with a tasty vegetable broth served with chunks of crusty bread. This was followed by an assortment of meats such as wild boar, pigeon pie, chicken drumsticks and quails’ eggs! We ate vegetables from the castle gardens and drank ‘wine’ crushed from the grapes.
Dessert followed with delicious berry tarts as well as jellied and candied fruit. We ate off ‘trenchers’ – slices of bread and ate with our fingers. There were no forks in the Middle Ages! During our feast we welcomed Lord Taylor of Cargilfield who had just returned from a morning of hunting in the forest, and entertained him with our jester jokes. The afternoon saw us in training to be knights and performing various challenges. Each required strength, accuracy, bravery and a lot of perseverance!
We used catapults to fire ‘rocks’ at the castle walls, threw ‘spears’ at increasing distances, and practised our jousting skills aiming our ‘lances’ through rings while riding on our hobby horses! We concluded our excellent and highly entertaining day with a jousting tournament bravely fought by those participating. A huge thank you to all those who helped make our first P2 medieval day at Cargilfield such a memorable one!