Greetings Lords and Ladies

Today we ventured to the 13th annual Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire in Kings Valley, OR. We had a grand time yelling "Huzzah" as we watched knights jousting. There were many vendors, sadly most were selling non-handmade goods. A gypsy man was selling his 72 diesel "gypsy mobile." He completely decorated and designed the interior on his own, if we had $10,000 I believe we would have bought it! There were several "stages" and areas roped off for various guild performers. One group consisted of a group of Scots, another was the Shire Reaves (we bought a lovely triple horse tapestry from them). Interestingly enough there were educational fliers at many of the booths (the Greyhounds of America for example), at the entrance and at the guild areas. Many of the vendors were in character, bringing great joy to my heart. The best booth? The McGilly Sassparilly, a booth selling home brewed sarsparilla, cream soda and birch beer (among other things). The beverages are fantastic, the pourers amusing and you get to keep the groovy bottles. So, my first ren-fest was nice, I probably would have had more fun if I'd been part of it, though maybe not. Julie has suggested I take up sewing with wool felt and then trying to sell stuff next year. Hmmm, probably a lot of work for a two day event. It would be funny though.

This all makes me ponder why we humans feel the need to dress up. I suppose the actors make some sense, they perform something they enjoy and educate faire goers, at least on some level. The plethora of individuals that attend in garb is what really makes me think. Some of them were really into it, others were just dressed up, wandering around and looking "cool." Why do we glorify that time period? There was a lot of misery, a lot of disease and death and a lot of really messed up goings on. Eh, I don't know. Ultimately it is good for people to have something to be interested in, something to be amused by. Being amused by a period of time when peasants hardly had the time to raise a family if strange to think of (though not non-understandable).