PHOTOS: Street Culture: Society for Creative Anachronism's Great Western War

Started more than 40 years ago as a party idea by medieval-minded Berkeleyites, the Society for Creative Anachronism now claims 30,000 paid members and estimates it has twice as many participants worldwide. About 2,000 showed up at the Buena Vista Aquatic Recreational Area near Taft, Calif., for the Great Western War XII, Oct. 6-12. They wore hand-made ensembles of Elizabethans, Vikings, Persians and others, re-created with academic accuracy. Activities included sword battles, mead drinking, classes in armor repair and arrow-making, royal pageantry and a general chance to escape from the industrialized world. Participants identified themselves sometimes by their SCA names and, on occasion, by their modern world names.

Cassandra Bailey of Los Angeles wears the garb of a 16th century Venetian, which she sewed herself.