 "Photo: Callie Richmond")
Emblazed by the glow of street lights, Lady Catalina Ana de Salamanca moves fluidly to the rhythm of folkloric dance. Across the tennis courts fights a group of knightly heroes, cloaked in medieval garb and armor.
Every Tuesday, Patterson Park on Brookview Road transforms into the Barony of Bryn Gwlad in the kingdom Ansteorra, where mister and miss become "my lord" and "my lady."
In the "mundane" world, Catalina is Katrina O'Keefe, who served in the military before starting her current job at IBM. She assumes her medieval persona on Tuesday evenings at Austin's chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
The SCA is an international organization of about 35,000 paid members that aims to re-create life in the Middle Ages, specifically 600 to 1600 A.D.
SCA's members knead, cook, fight, dance and sing in ways that properly represent medieval times.
In a virtual-centric world, the SCA style of role-playing might seem like one for the Dark Ages, but that's precisely the idea.
"In the age of the Internet, it takes a lot to get people outside and interacting like this," O'Keefe said. "I have an obligation to show newer people why it's so much fun, because somebody took the time to show me."
Before its demise in 1993, a UT chapter of the SCA existed for four years, said Pug Bainter, an SCA member who had joined the group while working at a campus computer lab.
The club integrated the University's chapter with the local barony, Bainter said. Because the two worked in conjunction, a strong sense of community existed between the groups.
Bainter said many are drawn to the SCA because it fosters a sense of family, but most also have a genuine passion for studying the medieval era. Exploring one's historian side is a major driving force.
But by far the most alluring and visible facet of the society is the fighting. Youth and adults alike participate in armored combat.
Mike Vaello, 12, heard about the SCA through a friend and has since picked up rapier fighting, a medieval precursor to fencing. He will participate in an SCA-run tournament this month.
Interkingdom wars, perhaps the SCA's largest-scale events, happen yearly and involve more than just fighting. Gulf Wars pits Ansteorra, which spans Texas and Lousiana, against Florida's Trimaris. The battle itself is held in Lamberton, Miss., which is in the Gleann Abhann kingdom.
Although the wars are competitive, they usually don't get ugly.
Since fighters are normally friends with the people across the sword, they put safety first.
"We don't break butts, and we don't cut people open," said Sean Hertzberg, known in the group as Don Avery Shaw.
The kingdoms swear by an honor code in which a person who is hit by a blow "dies" and must exit the war.
But that doesn't mean the excitement is over.
Arts and science competitions as well as parties are held during these wars, which are more like festivals, halted once the last man standing delivers the final blow.
O'Keefe joined 10 years ago and has since become a bit of a Renaissance woman, participating in everything from fighting and heraldry to dancing and knitting. She first encountered the SCA at age 10. Fascinated, O'Keefe longed to join but was quickly denied the chance when her mother told her it was a "cult."
"To the mainstream society, we're a little weird," O'Keefe said. "But when you take a step back from all the trappings and the hoo-ha, it's a club - a historical club. Just as some people have a fishing or hunting club, I have a club where I want to go learn about history."
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