A Most Pleasurable Fair…

[storytimewithjoe]

This past Saturday, my dear husband and I found ourselves heading to the middle of nowhere to take in the sights and sounds of the Renaissance Pleasure Fair. Unlike the fairs with which I am most acquainted, the Renaissance Pleasure Fair exists as a village during the reign of Elizabeth I. Thus, for the first (and probably ONLY time), I found myself wearing Elizabethan clothes. Surprising, compared to my typical 15^th century Italian, they were rather light and comfortable. Of course, I was wearing some of Giles’s old outfits, so needless to say, they were not confining whatsoever. 

 

Strolling around the fair, I could not help but get nostalgic.  So many of the merchants and the performers reminded me of Renn. Faires past. I suddenly found myself as a young 20-something year old, wandering through St. Petersburg for the Bay Area Renn. Festival, feeling oh-so-carefree and oh-so-at ease. Then came the days of the Pinellas Park Renaissance Festival. Those early years of committing myself to several weekends in a row left me wanting more, more, more! More history! More projects! More learning! And thus, my interest in the SCA was born.

 

I find the Renaissance Pleasure Fair to be a fascinating entity. It strikes me as being a more serious version of the fairs that I have experienced in the past. Now, don’t get me wrong. That makes it neither better nor worse – just different. The fact that it really does focus so heavily upon the golden age of Elizabeth means that there is a lot more history involved not only in the characters and the research, but in the clothing. Indeed, it had to have been one of the best assemblages of accurate all-the-same-time-period clothing I have seen. Yet, there is just enough light-hearted fun to make it all enjoyable. Indeed, the bawdy singing had to have been about the rudest and most R-rated I have ever experienced at a fair!

 

Throughout the course of the day, we laughed, we drank, we socialized with ghosts of Paul’s past, and I got to observe a culture that is, for all intents and purposes, extremely foreign to me, being a good 100 years after what I am used to. All in all, the fair lived up to its name.

Comments

[siobhan-genie.livejournal.com]

The last time I was at Faire, it was a bunch of women in fur bikinis trying to get laid. It sounds like things have improved, somewhat!

I do remember feeling pretty good when I walked by the Celtic Guild and got complements on my early Irish garb.