as told by Helen's husband, Michael

"It was an accident!"

What sick and twisted mind came up with Xena, Warrior Milkmaid? The answer is no one. It was a series of accidents and coincidences. If you are looking for someone to blame, blame the fates.

The Warrior Milkmaid story begins with the pilot episode of Xena, Warrior Princess. Helen was flipping through channels one Friday evening when she caught a scene with two warriors, a man and a woman. They were fighting each other while standing on people's heads. She recognized the show as Xena, Warrior Princess. She'd seen ads for it all week, but thought little of them. The ads gave us the impression that the show was medieval Baywatch, but we both thought the fight scene was really cool! We decided to watch a couple of episodes to see what the show was like. It didn't take us long to get hooked. Helen became so enthralled with the show, she decided to construct a Xena costume.

Since the show had just started, Helen couldn't go down to the local Cloth World and get a McCall's pattern for the costume. She had to draft her own pattern. She began by video taping the episodes. Helen spent many evenings in front of the television, with remote in hand and notepad in lap. I watched in fascination as she would fast forward to scenes that featured Xena. Then, she would watch those scenes, frame by frame, furiously scribbled notes and drawings. I don't know any of the episodes by their title. I only know them as "the great boot shot", the "great breast plate shot", the "great shoulder pad shot", etc. After the first season, Helen had enough detail to draft her pattern.

Helen was not about to test her draft pattern using hundreds of dollars worth of leather. So she made a "mock-up" of the costume out of cloth. The largest amount of spare fabric she had laying around was a few yards of blue cotton. She made the bodice from this fabric and tried it on. It was too tight. So she decided to widen the side panels. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough blue fabric left to create new side panels. So, she searched for another scrap of fabric with some complimentary blue color in it. The only thing she had was some Gingham checkered fabric. She added the new side panels and the costume now fit. She called me to show off the finished product.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"It's very good Sweetie," I responded, "But it kinda looks like Xena meets the Beverly Hillbillies."

The story could have ended here, but... Halloween came around and Helen had problems putting together the leather version of the costume. She had never worked with leather before and the sales assistant in the leather shop gave her a mound of bad advice. With nothing else to wear to a friend's costume party, she decided to wear the mock-up. Both of us had been making jokes about the mock-up for quite some time. Helen decided the mock-up looked more like the Swiss Miss girl. She started referring to the mock-up as the "milkmaid Xena" and created this Swedish persona for her. To dress-up the costume for the party, Helen added a puffy white shirt underneath the bodice and braided her hair. At the party, people would come up to Helen and ask "What are you supposed to be?" She would respond, "Ja! I am Xena, Warrior Milkmaid. I am here to protect the cows!" Most got this "oh-my-god!" look that quickly dissolved into laughter. Helen was tickled that the other guests enjoyed the costume and her alter-ego.

The story could have ended here, but... A couple of weeks later, we attended Sci-Con 18 as members of an amateur sci-fi comedy troupe. The troupe was contracted to provide entertainment for the costume contest pre-show. Helen had finished the leather bodice of the Xena costume but not the armor. She decided to wear it during the day so that she could show off her work to her friends. She also brought the mock-up to show to a friend who is a professional costumer.

On Saturday night, the comedy troupe performed its show. As they were getting off-stage, the MC for the costume contest pulled Helen aside. He had seen her wearing the Warrior Princess costume earlier and thought she should compete it. Helen had never competed in a costume contest before, and she didn't want to compete an unfinished costume. The MC and the costume contest director, who wanted to get as many contestants on stage as they could, did their best to persuade Helen. After enough cajoling, she agreed, but not to the Warrior Princess costume. Instead, she was going to enter something "special". Helen and I ran up to their hotel room. In fifteen minutes, Helen was dressed and ready to go. She was the last contestant. The MC read from the entry form...

"Since Lucy Lawless has broken her hip, the show's producers have been forced to find a replacement. Renaissance Pictures and the Xena's largest sponsor, the American Dairy Council, are proud to present the new Xena. In the days of ancient gods, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero. She was Xena, Warrior Milkmaid?"

Helen then ran on stage doing a war whoop. She suddenly stopped center stage and cried "Ja!" while giving a small curtsey. The audience erupted with laughter and applause, nearly knocking Helen over from surprise. Everyone who had previously seen the costume was in shock. It took five minutes for the audience to quiet down. When the applause quieted, she continued with the presentation which continued to draw laughs. Her costume won 'Best Presentation'.

The story could have ended here, but... many of Helen's friends started approaching her about costuming a character for the Xena, Warrior Milkmaid Universe. The first was Deb Fuller. Actually, Helen decided that Deb would be perfect as Gabby, the Swiss Miss and wheedled her into doing it. Deb created Gabby costume in time for Technicon 14, a convention run by the Virginia Tech Science Fiction and Fantasy Club, of which Helen is an alumnus. Helen wanted to expose her friends to this devilish creation of hers. Helen and Deb entered the costume contest and did a humorous spoof of the "Milk, it does a body good" commercial. Technicon had planned for a small amount of entertainment during the judge's deliberations. Unfortunately, it was too short. The MC tried to keep the audience awake but quickly ran out of material himself. Helen and Deb got back on stage and improvised, hurling milk puns at each other. They kept this act up until the judging was done. Helen and Deb's improvisation impressed one convention goer, Rori Klion; she invited them to do the half-time entertainment at another convention. That was WarriorCon.

After Technicon, Helen focussed all of her energy of finishing the Warrior Princess costume for competition at CostumeCon XV. The theme at this CostumeCon was puns. They had programmed an event for Friday night in which convention attendees could show off their worst "pun" costumes. Helen and Deb planned to wear their Warrior Milkmaid and Gabby costumes. Two other friends wanted join in. Cheralyn Lambeth costumed Cowlisto and Angelique Trouvere created Calfrodite. Unfortunately, events would prevent the Warrior Milkmaid troupe from forming Friday night. Instead, they decided to wear the costumes all-day Sunday. That morning, everyone got into costume, even me. Now, I did not have a Warrior Milkmaid Universe costume. The only costume I had was a black Elvis jumpsuit that Helen had made for me as a joke a couple of Halloweens ago. Helen wanted me to wear it to see if it would get a hall costume award. The group went out into the convention and became an instant hit. Everyone loved the costumes and groaned at the puns. Of course, after each of the characters were introduced, everyone would ask about the guy in the Elvis costume. I came up with a truly evil answer: "I am the King... The King of Grazeland." Thus, another Warrior Milkmaid character was born out of coincidence. The convention staff was so entertained by our group decided to create a special award for us: "Worst Pun and All Day Running Gag - Hall Costume". It was presented to the group at the Historical masquerade. As they accepted the award, one audience member was heard saying "My God! They even worked in Elvis!"

Since their costumes had generated such attention at CostumeCon, the group (minus me) decided to compete the costumes at the next convention they would all attend - ShoreLeave. Their presentation was called "Bovine Intervention". The costumes won First Place in the Showcase of Champions category as well as workmanship awards - "Out Standing in the Field".

After ShoreLeave, Helen began preparing a full-fledged Xena, Warrior Milkmaid, show for WarriorCon. She enlisted the help of of some friends and the show was performed to great success. Many of the other Warrior Milkmaid Universe characters you find on this Web site were created during the script writing sessions for the show. The show introduced a new character, Jaques Steer, the Moody. It also presented another alter-universe Xena - Xena, the Gay Blade. The world premier of the Warrior Milkmaid show was well received. We would like to thank Karl Urban ("Cupid") and Kevin Smith ("Ares") for their cameo appearances in our production. And, we would like to thank the convention staff of WarriorCon for inviting us to perform. You guys were great!

That brings us to the Web page. Everyone exposed to the Warrior Milkmaid has enjoyed it so much, we wanted to share it with the whole world. As Xena, Warrior Milkmaid expands, you will see it here. To this day it amazes me (and Helen), how interest in Xena, Warrior Milkmaid has exploded. After all, it was an accident.