Stand Ye Ready?

This weekend we went up to the area that my dad likes to call Grande Medveď to go to a Renaissance fair with JOUSTING. I've actually only been to a few Renaissance fairs--fewer than you might expect, really--but none of them had jousting. We wouldn't have gone without it.

The fair took place in what used to be a sawmill, an interesting juxtaposition of old and older. I assume the mill is 20th century, but knowing very little about these things, I can't say for sure.

I think my biggest problem with Renaissance fairs, other than the one I'll address in the next paragraph, is that for some reason most of the participants and coordinators feel that the experience must be ribald. It seems like most fairs deal in extremes: women will either be dressed as high-class ladies who are completely covered up, or lower-class ones with their breasts literally falling out of their bodices. I'm not trying to ignore that every period of history had its salacious bits, but those are not the most entertaining or interesting parts to me, and people who don't enjoy those things are mocked. And that's both off-putting and leaving out a lot of history, where, although the Renaissance definitely saw a weakening of the power of the Church, lots of people were still religious and didn't go out of their way to act "mischievous" or whatever cutesy euphemism people want to use for whorishinappropriate.

The silly thing about Renaissance fairs is that some people use them as an excuse to dress up however they want. Sure enough, there was a kid dressed as Link from The Legend of Zelda, and his friends were also in cosplay-looking outfits. Another girl was wearing fairly normal clothes but a headband with little antlers attached to it. People! When it says visitors are invited to dress in Elizabethan attire, they don't mean game characters or antlers! We didn't see a fairy until we were leaving, though, so I guess that's something.

That being said, most of the vendors and the court were really, really well-dressed. We sat behind Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and her ladies during the joust, so we got to see their costumes close up, and they were quite impressive.
The jousting was done by a group called Knights of Mayhem, who are helping resurrect the sport after centuries. I'm not gonna lie, much of my perception of jousting is based on A Knight's Tale, so while we were watching, lines from the movie kept going through my head (as they do in daily life anyway), and I daresay my mom's as well. Before they actually jousted, the two knights played a few games, like picking up a ring on the butt end of a spear and then throwing the spear at a target on the ground, and then taking swings at a head of lettuce perched on a poor volunteer girl's head. As you can see, she was wearing a helmet and a modern foam helmet underneath (and pretty good garb too, well done young lady), but it couldn't have been relaxing to hear the big horses riding toward you and not know exactly what was going on.


Sir Charles was using a second-string horse, Nightmare (above), who decided after two passes that she didn't want to do this anymore. She stopped short, which for some reason caused him to slide off the side. Twice. The first time was scarier, because we weren't sure what had happened and I for one thought he'd had a heart attack or similar. After the second time, it took rather a while to get back on. Here's when he finally managed it. I like it when the idiot woman behind me says, "Hurry up." Yeah, lady, you hurry up climbing on a horse in 140-pound armor.


I'll definitely be looking for National Geographic's special on the Knights of Mayhem. I suggest you do as well.