Going Medieval

If your high school yearbook allows you to submit a picture of yourself posing wearing something that reflects your interests and hobbies, isn't that a good thing? So an Eagle Scout might want to pose in uniform, a football star in uniform or whatever else reflects your passions or accomplishments. One school Portsmouth, Rhode Island does allow that.

Unless you happen to want to wear chainmail and carry a sword across one shoulder.

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — Seventeen-year-old Patrick Agin often spends a full week whittling an individual arrow and is learning to make chain mail armor by hand. So when it came time to submit a senior photo for the Portsmouth High School yearbook, he selected a snapshot of himself wearing chain mail and slinging a prop sword over his shoulder.

The school rejected the photo, citing its "zero tolerance policy" for weapons, and Agin and his family sued, claiming the school was violating his right to free speech.

But Agin and others who spend their free time sword fighting and feasting on medieval-style meals also wonder why the school would discourage his passion for a hobby they say offers tens of thousands of people a way to learn about history through hands-on experience.

"It's no different from wanting to appear in a Boy Scout uniform," said Tamara Griggs, a spokeswoman for the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group of 35,000 dues-paying members that hold mock battles, learn arts like calligraphy and conduct demonstrations in shopping malls. Agin belongs to the organization.

Griggs, 36, of Cincinnati, Ohio, who goes by the name Countess Tamara Di Firenze at group events, said an additional 20,000 people are more casual participants in the society, which was incorporated in 1968 and is based in Milpitas, Calif.

Zero tolerance = zero common sense, apparently. Now the school district gets to spend large amounts of money on defending itself from the lawsuit. I've mentioned the Society for Creative Anachronism once before. There are actually a lot of people who manufacture items for medieval enthusiasts. I bought my own sword from one, in fact. Here's the SCA website. Maybe they can organize a siege of the school!