BEDA, Day 22: Renissance Faire!

So, right now I'm at a Renfaire. A Renfaire is a Renissance Faire. (Think King Arthur, etc.)

This will be my first time at said faire. I have gone to faires before, oh, yes I have.

When I was younger, I spent my autumns at the faire in the state I live in. I mean, this was from around age 6 to around age 13, maybe. These actors (who will ALWAYS be their characters to me) knew me since I was tiny.

Spending my September and October weekends in the company of knights, mud beggers, singing executioners, swashbuckling pirates, gypsies, swordsmen, royalty, the fey and townsfolk was a pretty dang good time, I have to say.


I made sure that I caught the pub show (rated PG-13...so I sat in the back) every day. I know more Rennie* drinking songs than any teenage girl has the right to.

When I go to that faire now, I keep hearing how much I've grown.

The singing executioners (who have a stage show that I could recite from memory back when I did the faire) always are happy to see us. I think I've seen them ONCE without the back masks that they always wear.

I wanted to be a knight, instead of a lady, so when I got enough stamps on my card from the kiddie play yard, I asked the king to knight me "not Dame Irisa, but SIR Irisa." Repeatedly. I was THE MOST knighted person I knew. It was awesome.

As you can tell, I had a character. I spoke in an accent, had a character name, warmed up my voice in the mornings (if only by following the Big Kid actors and mimicing them). I was Irisa (eye-ree-sah), a Romanian Gypsy child. (roll the r's, it's better that way.)

Although I have made myself many, many, many swords, I have always wanted to do archery. It's so freakin' cool! And less dangerous. Less physical fighting.

I learned how to curtsy properly, what to say when someone says "Long live the King!" (God save the King!), how to faint (as told by a mud begger), how to harass people into doing the Maypole, every word of "the Itchy Britches song", the difference between an Irish, Welsh and English accent, that one NEEDS to watch out for the knight's swords, and that having a person explain what exactly a cell phone is is highly entertaining.

So, if you have gone to a Faire, go again, if you haven't...GO. You will not regret it!

Huzzah,

~Whimsy


*Rennie = cute version of renissance. Also can refer to a person who loves/acts in the faires.

P.S. With that as a part of my childhood, is it any wonder I'm on the Pirate side of things?

Question:
What side are YOU on, pirates or ninjas?