One fine evening in Concusare camp, I decided to light a fire. Now, as Tinker mentioned to me after this incident: 'Your fire foo is not strong'. Of course, she had the benefit of hindsight, but I digress. To make a long story short, the fire would not start. I used several matches, a lighter that finally got so hot that it almost burned my hand (I heard that snicker!), and lots of blowing on the puny coals that I did managed to coax to life.Finally, I was getting ready to just give up when Magnus walked by. I don't recall whether or not I asked him for help or merely advice (or whether he offered it freely), but he was the one who suggested I use white fuel. Then, of course, he walked away. Isn't trust a wonderful thing? Unfortunately, since that time nobody in three camps has left me alone with a fire (or white fuel) nor allowed me to try and start one.

I actually knelt down and peered into the pile of wood and flammable materials to see if I could detect even the slightest ember before using the white fuel (despite what you may think, I'm just lacking in common sense, not stupid). To this day, I would be willing to swear the fire was completely out. So I grabbed the white fuel and began to drench the fire. Well, needless to say, despite my caution, the fire wasn't really out.

There must have been something smoldering out of sight somewhere, because the next thing I knew, I was watching a column of flame traveling UP the stream of white fuel to the can in my hand. Now, this is not something one sees every day. I was more than a little surprised, so naturally I hesitated, with my brain still trying to absorb the frantic message my eyes were sending me and finding it a little hard to believe. In retrospect (as many nurses and volunteer chirurgeons gleefully pointed out to me when I was forced to re-tell this story over and over again, mostly because they didn't believe ANYBODY could be that dumb), I was very lucky the can did not explode in my hand when the flames reached it. Needless to say, you would not have had merely a flaming Ursus then, but a crispy-fried Ursus instead. But for some reason (thanks to whatever gods were watching over me at the time), it didn't, and thus you are forced to sit through the long version of this tale with all its pretentious comments and excuses.

Finally, when I started smelling the burnt flesh of my hand, my brain realized what was happening and that I probably should do something other than stare in fascinated horror as I slowly toasted myself. So I cleverly dropped the can, where of course it continued to spew out white fuel in a steadily expanding pool of roaring flames.... all around my feet. My cheap-o costume pants immediately became engulfed, and as the pain from my burned hand began to penetrate to my numbed brain, I also realized that my pants were on fire! It was only now, of course, that I began to realize this was quite serious. So I shouted 'Fire!' as I hastily tried to back out of the pool of flaming white fuel that surrounded me, while the same time leaning over and trying to beat out the flames on my pants. Yes, with my bare hands, of course, since nothing else was immediately available, which is how the legend of the 'flaming Ursus'dance came to be.

(And if I may pause for a moment, I'd just like to thank all of you....NOT!.... out there who took the opportunity for the rest of Pennsic to call out my name in public and then start dancing up and down, slapping one ankle with their hand in mimicry of this rather desperate measure.)

Up until that point, I was pretty much convinced I had the camp to myself since no one was in sight, but of course, that was the least of my concerns at the moment. Amazingly enough, mere seconds after I yelled 'Fire!', no less than four people suddenly materialized out of nowhere and rushed toward the flames. I was a little busy at the time, and the only one I remember for sure was Magnus, who saw that I was on fire and started shouting: 'Drop and roll, Ursus! Drop and roll!'

Although to this point I had shown an astonishing lack of good sense, I did retain just enough to realize that if I followed his advice, I would be lying in the flaming pool of white fuel. Since I was in pain from both hand and ankle by that point, I decided that probably wasn't such a good idea and continued backing up until I was completely free of the flames (and yes, beating my pants frantically the whole time to put them out). While I concentrated on making sure I lost no more limbs, the others present worked furiously to put out the fire, which was not easy. By the time they had finished, I was in serious pain. Of course that was the time that everyone in Anglesey camp just had to come over and see what was going on, and I'd like to thank you for all the sympathy shown by those individuals. (Wait a minute! This is Anglesey! Sympathy? You MUST be joking!)

Gaius/Kyrax drove me to the hospital, where I had to explain to a very nice nurse how I hurt myself. She was kind enough not to laugh out loud (although she did smile an awful lot), and was probably the last person who could make that claim when I told and re-told this story a hundred times for the next week. And not because I wanted to, I might add. Probably the worst part of the whole incident (besides being in constant pain from the second-degree burns which resulted) was the fact that I had to go to Chirurgeon's point every day to get my bandages changed, since living in a campsite generates an awful lot of dirt. Naturally, every time I went I got a new SCA volunteer who just had to hear how I managed such odd burns (one wrist and one ankle). This resulted in me being the laughingstock of their large tent on virtually every occasion. If I had a dime for every time I heard: 'Boy, that was really dumb!' at Pennsic, I probably could've retired by now.

It didn't die there, of course. Baron Gordo (I don't remember his name), the Fire Marshal, decided that this one incident meant not only the Concusare, but Anglesey as well, constituted a group fire hazard. Despite our protests and explanations, he insisted on checking up on us frequently for the rest of Pennsic and giving us tons of unwanted and condescending advice. Which of course was not calculated to make me feel any better.  Well, there you have it. The straight unvarnished truth, told by the fool.... er, man responsible for this tragic affair. I was the only one hurt, thank God, or else I'm sure I would NEVER hear the end of it. Come to think of it, I still haven't heard the end of it anyway, and knowing how loyal and understanding my friends are, I probably never will. I can laugh about it now, especially since that was the second time a campfire had leaped out to bite me (but that's another story....). Ever since this little affair, however, every time I try to volunteer anything having to do with fire, I get a rush of people grabbing things out of my hand and/or pushing me out of the way. From now on, I stick to water and leave the fires to others.

URSUS