Most reenactment societies wouldn’t be too happy with what you are asking, lot of training and tests involved….all about the safety etc. But there should be plenty of events on around Scotland, Edinburgh Castle on 3rd May have Waterloo. Check out Historic Scotland events or look up reenactment groups Scotland and most of them will have events diaries. Good Luck and have a great time in a wonderful country 🙂
I rather hope not. Free fighting with real swords is a skill that takes time and training to master. No-one with any sense is going to let a pair of absolute beginners lay into each other after half an hour regardless of what armour they’re wearing.
A taster lesson at a club is probably the closest you’re going to get, but to be honest you could probably get that at home (as well as having the option to go back if the bug bites!).
There is a lively LARP community in Edinburgh, and while some of the activities are more high fantasy LARPing, the city parks (Bruntsfield Links, Leith Links and the Meadows) tend to see battles ranging from 1-on-1 sword fights up to small armies.
LARPEvents tends to list a lot of these as you get into Summer. While many events will have spare kit, I would recommend getting in touch at the earliest opportunity and asking – they are generally really friendly and helpful, and while these events may be more roleplay than straight up play fighting, they are really good fun.
One of the options would be joining fencing schools. Some of these schools do not require a tight schedule to be followed – instead they run on a drop-in basis, which means you can just show up. Checking some of the schools’ websites showing that some of them offer free initial classes and cheap fees for classes after that. Please note, there might be other places where they provide you with real swords and real armors, but schools as seen in the photos are more likely to provide you with not so real swords and maybe no armors.
Some random examples of schools from Google:
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