THIS COULD HURT

The Renaissance Festival always involves a jousting tournament. It’s about as real as “professional” wrestling. Good guy, bad guy, whip up the crowd, waste as much time as possible before doing something, follow a script. Crowd goes wild. I keep wondering about the Knights who say Ni.                 

COMBAT

One of the big draws at the Renaissance Faire is fake jousting. Two people dress as knights, whip the crowd up and have at one another on horseback. Unfortunately, there had been some rain and it was announced that the field was too muddy for the horses. This led to other displays of ferocity.             

UNHORSED

So we took Ellie to the local Renaissance Festival yesterday. There are lots of these around the US and maybe other parts of the world. Here, the conceit is that St. Louis and Lyon, France, are sister cities (which has the better restaurants?) and then some imaginary connection about the year 15-something, well before this place existed, and, voila, an excuse to walk around in costumes and drink beer. Underneath, this event has about as much to do with the Renaissance as the Renaissance has to do with the hockey playoffs.

An ever-popular event is the jousting. It's as authentic as professional wrestling. Here, Sir Knight in red and Madam Knight in blue played three rounds. No one got a solid hit on the first two runs. On the third, however, the Lady in Blue hit the bullseye and knocked gallant Sir-whatever-his-name-was on his arse. About time.

If you like this, wait a day and see what the kid did on Madeleine Monday tomorrow.     

I HAVE TO PUSH THE PRAM A LOT

I am so sorry. As I was drafting this post there was something I just could not get out of my head:

So anyway, pretend knights jousting at the Renaissance Faire. Refreshingly, the blue knight is a woman.

Looks like it's going to be too wet to shoot our outdoors Halloween party tonight.         

In Days Of Old When Knights Were Bold

 

The Renaissance Festival always has jousting, a crowd-pleaser but about as real as American professional wrestling. There's more build-up than action - lots of trash talk, boasting and killing time. But once the competition begins, well, stay out of the way.

It's usually pretty tame but this year's version became graphically violent and, you know, there were lots of kids in the audience. More about that tomorrow if time permits. Two major annual photo ops overlap this weekend, Artica and Studio Open House. I want to catch as much of both as I can but I also need uninterrupted time at work. We'll see how it goes.

              

The Joust

Still some pictures to review from the Renaissance Faire. There is a jousting match every day. The audience is on either side of the field of honor and each side has cheerleaders. They train the crowd to scream for their hero, boo the other guy and chant "Blood! Blood! Blood!"

The event has much more talking than action (a common human condition, isn't it?). But when the knights charge the fans go wild. Rules of chivalry notwithstanding, the combatants are encouraged to cheat. There is an example in the bottom photo.         

The Joust

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The Renaissance Faire always has a jousting tournament (sort of), twice a day, every day. I've yet to see a limp body carried off in the back of an oxcart but the crowd loves it. Where else are you going to see jousting in the 21st Century? Well, The Excalibur in Las Vegas, sure, but besides that?

The knights (who never say nee!, but then the whole place is reeking with Monty Python references, more about which later) bellow their ferocity, contempt for their opponent, their loyalty to their liege lord and their fidelity to their sweetie. Faint heart never won fair lady, as they say.