This past weekend, I joined up with The Knights of Lord Talbot, one of the fight demonstration groups in the New England area, to give a 15th century military presence to the Wyndonchire Renaissance Faire in Winchendon, MA. The Gardner News, the local newspaper published a photo essay on the event for their Sunday edition.
Background
This event was the first one for the area and the first year it happened. Brand new events are often hit-or-miss for those of us who attend or work at these things and I tend to give a bit of leeway for them. The organizers here took a leap of faith and as I understand things, it was a community driven event. Winchendon, MA is a small town in central Massachusetts that is nestled between the small city of Gardner and the New Hampshire border.
American Renaissance Faires today are an odd amalgam of historical fair, local market fair, and fantasy convention. If you’re looking for a reenactment of a medieval or Renaissance holiday or market fair, you’ll be disappointed, but if you’re out for a fun weekend of mixed entertainment, carnival food, and a lot of local small businesses selling their wares, you will really enjoy these. While larger faires, like King Richard’s Faire (in Carver, MA) and others around the country have themes and focus heavily on fantasy medieval themed entertainment, the small, local fairs are somewhat more loosely themed and locally based.
The performers and vendors were a mix of long time veterans of Renaissance Faires all over along with people totally new to the concept. As might be expected, this didn’t go perfectly, but it wasn’t bad either. I think this event is a great example of local people creating a fun event for their community.
Experience
I arrived at the site on Saturday morning and after dropping off my armor and weapons, parked and returned to help set up the encampment.
During the day, we interacted with the public. We answered questions about arms and armor on display and then armored up for a noon fight practice.
For the first show, the regular members of the group spoke to the audience about how medieval knights on foot would fight in armor and spoke a bit about how protective the armor was while still allowing movement. We all had a round or two of fights for the public. The Talbot Company has a nice mix of fairly easy fights (comparatively) and historical encampment.
After the fight, we ate lunch from a campfire kitchen operated by Allyson Szabo, author of The Re-enactor’s Cookbook.
The afternoon brought us to one more fight, this time with added drama of being a tournament as part of the interactive plotline of the faire. As I’m not a full-time member of the group, I added my fight to the beginning as a quick duel to get things started. I fought against their newest member who is showing a lot of promise. He’s already at least my equal, as he learns the techniques and kills and my body shows my age.
After the afternoon fight demo, we returned to our regular 15th century clothing and answered questions from patrons the rest of the day.
The faire closed at 7pm which is somewhat late for a local faire but not insane.
Sunday was mostly a repeat of Saturday, but with a breakdown and pack-up as soon as we closed.
I had a fun time and I hope the faire organizers listen to the veteran vendors and performers for feedback and that they make the little fixes to make it a really great event next year.