Last Saturday was a treat for Mer and me. One of our students kindly gave us free admission tickets to go to the Ohio Renaissance Festival, which is located a little over two hours south of us, south of Columbus. I had not been to a renaissance fair in over fifteen years, and Mer had never been to one before, so we were both pretty excited.

It was a very pretty day, sunny and not too hot, although it had rained as we’d driven down, so the grounds were a bit muddy. We got to the festival too late to see the opening ceremony, but we were still early enough on the grounds to have the place largely to ourselves. The fair sits on about thirty-five acres, and is organized roughly in a circle. We decided to walk the circuit to get our bearings, and that was when we hit our first surprise – the vendors in the shops along the road are very aggressive in pitching their wares. They call you out and try to embarrass you into buying flowers or clothing or jewelry “for the pretty lady.” The vendors stayed in character, and they were pressuring without being obnoxious,  but it took me aback a bit, since I am a shy boy and have a hard time blowing people off. I succeeded in not buying anything during the day, though, so I managed (we also had free vouchers for lunch, so we did not even have to pay for food).

The fair’s main attractions are the shows. There are five or six stages around the grounds, and they have various acts throughout the day. We could not make every show, since they overlapped, but we did a good job of being efficient in our viewing. The actors make their living based on tips from the audience, so we did tip each act, although looking back on it, we probably should have tipped more than the $2 per act we did. We can make it right next year.

We started the day’s shows by catching the end of a sword dueling show. The swordsmen were funny and skilled, and it reminded me that after my brother had seen real swordsmen go at it, he decided these movies where a novice hold his own against a master are pure lies. These guys really were good, even in goofing off.

We proceeded over to the “Muditorium,” a theater that featured a mud pit. Three actors did a very cut-down version of Beowulf, where the story had almost no resemblance to the real tale, but existed in large part to make three full-grown men wallow around in the mud. It was much fun. We had been tipped off to sit back in the audience, and with good reason – the first five rows were in the splash zone of mud, and people sitting in the front row were freely and deliberately splashed with mud. The show lasted about thirty minutes, and was very funny (and muddy).

We proceeded from there to the next theater over to see a juggling act. It was a man and a woman, and we were curious as to how they met – he looked to be over forty, and she was in her early twenties. They were excellent – they juggled fire and large objects, and the woman did some contortion. They had a couple of skits that involved audience members, which is always a good time.

We then headed back to the Muditorium to see their production of Dante’s Inferno. Again, it largely existed to get the men muddy, but they also hauled a woman up on stage to be the beloved one whom Dante was trying to reach. Happily, she remained dry and clean, but they used her as a foil for much humor. By this time, the day (and the mud) was warming up, so that even in the twelfth row (where we were sitting), we got splashed with mud once. Impressive.

We caught other shows throughout the day. We saw a retelling of the Robin Hood/Maid Marian tale that used audience children, and that show may have been my favorite, since they set the kids up to kiss often, which has inherent humor value when watching eight-year-olds. We saw a human chess match, and saw real jousting twice (very impressive and looks as if it hurts a ton), and we saw two washerwomen try to catch men picked from the audience. It was a pretty great day.

There were a ton of people “in garb” – that is, in costume. We saw a lot of people wearing elf-ear extensions, and lots of cloaks and impressive leather boots. We saw one woman dressed as Spock, which was a delightful nod to the show The Big Bang Theory, in which one of the characters goes to a renaissance fair dressed as Spock in order to study all the anachronisms that bother him.

We had a wonderful time, and on the way out, a woman from the wall who had tried to sell me flowers called me out and asked where my flowers were. When I said I had none, she made me kiss Mer there at the gate. When I did, the women on the wall all cheered. It was fun, and I hope we get back next year.