{"id":21175,"date":"2025-09-29T17:51:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21175"},"modified":"2025-09-29T17:59:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:59:20","slug":"hostfest-report-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21175","title":{"rendered":"H\u00f8stfest report, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
The whole Viking crew at H\u00f8stfest 2025. I’m 5th from the right in the back row, reading right to left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 2025 Norsk H\u00f8stfest<\/strong> in Minot is history now, and I feel as if I am too, almost. I\u2019ve often said that I experience Minot as a stop-motion film, altering just a little each frame, as the years go by. What I hadn\u2019t noticed before is that it\u2019s a stop-motion film of my own life, too. I feel a little older, a little slower, with each festival. And this year I felt it especially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think (or hope) that my perception was a little skewed this year. I was coming right off a month-and-a-half bout with a stubborn sinus infection. It sapped my strength and kept me sedentary, bad preparation for days of Viking play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn\u2019t account for my failure of memory. My shame is extreme \u2013 I\u2019ve been going to H\u00f8stfest for the better part of 20 years. I\u2019m one of the old hands. Yet I FORGOT that Tuesday is travel day. This year, for some reason, I looked at my calendar, where Wednesday through Saturday were marked off for the festival, and just thought, \u201cI have to leave on Wednesday.\u201d The upshot was that I missed a full day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get the feeling I properly belong in a nursing home. Or congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival went fine. We were once again in the outdoor venue, and it did not rain on us. It was unseasonably warm, though, and the prairie wind (especially on Friday) got pretty vicious. Oddly, the wind seemed to have a psychological effect on customers \u2013 the more frantically I was re-tightening stake ropes and repairing tears in my awning, the more buyers flocked in for my books. It was exasperating, but profitable. I tried to be pleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my tent poles actually broke. Fortunately, I have a spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sales were very good, for which I\u2019m grateful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday morning, as I drove in, my car\u2019s engine temperature spiked, right up to the red line. So I got somebody to recommend a local auto shop and took it there, a friend following behind to give me a ride back (I\u2019ve had this adventure before at H\u00f8stfest, you may recall). Later that day, I got the bad news \u2013 my head gasket is going out. If you know about Subarus, you know that\u2019s a very bad thing. It\u2019s a costly job to fix it, about what my old car is worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019ll almost certainly have to get a new car. The mechanic thought I could \u201cprobably\u201d get her home. I drove below the speed limit all the way, babying the vehicle, and had no problems, though I got in late (and tired).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But last night I slept well, and I feel better right now, physically, than I have in months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This picture is of me, with a massive drinking horn one of my friends has for sale. (I believe it\u2019s water buffalo horn from India, standing in for the horn of the extinct aurochs, which Vikings would have used.) My friend Dale Nelson, whom I visited on the way home, is writing an article about mead and asked for such a picture \u2013 though he did not anticipate my big thinking. Photo credit: Erik Patton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2025 Norsk H\u00f8stfest in Minot is history now, and I feel as if I am too, almost. I\u2019ve often said that I experience Minot as a stop-motion film, altering just a little each frame, as the years go by. What I hadn\u2019t noticed before is that it\u2019s a stop-motion film of my own life, … Continue reading H\u00f8stfest report, 2025<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[2046,3259,3266],"class_list":["post-21175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-norsk-hostfest","tag-viking-age-club-society","tag-viking-reenactment"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21181,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175\/revisions\/21181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}