Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 19, 1995 TAG: 9506200020
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To which I answered, before thinking better of it, "It's too hot for wearing any damn thing."
His eyebrows shot up. "M'lady!" he cried. "And from one of such fair countenance as you! I like the cut of your jib."
I was smitten. Swooning. Right there in the Georgia heat.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm a right fair wench, all right." And then I giggled.
Giggled! Me! Over-forty, over-weight, one-time intellectual, with more grey than brown left in my frizzy hair.
But there I was: flirtin' and lettin' this right fine fellow flirt with me. Delightin' in it, no less.
Shameless!
I haven't had that much fun in years.
It was Sunday a week ago, and I was at the 10th Anniversary Georgia Renaissance Festival just south of Atlanta. I was sitting outside the hair-weaving booth, waiting my turn for braids, when up came this fellow in boots and ruffled shirt, carrying with him a pewter horn of ale.
"Would m'lady care for a drink?" he asked.
Most likely, he was a member of the cast, just doing his job. Perhaps he was Sir Richard DoGoode, Most Chivalrous Man (played by Carey Means).
But there were many festival-goers dressed in costume at this theme park-cum-theatre, and maybe he was smitten, too. By my hair. By my giggle. By the line of sweat drenching the back of my tee-shirt.
That's the way, at any rate, I intend to remember him.
Handsome. Chivalrous. Smitten with me, even such as I am.
Last Sunday was the final day of the festival, which had opened April 22, "1536," in the lovely "town" of Willy-Nilly-on-the-Wash, in honor of King Henry VIII and his lovely, Lady Jane Seymour.
Along with assorted musicians, peddlars, acrobats, dancers, clerics, and soldiers, one could also meet strolling the wooded grounds Ariella Wink, Mistress of Michief; the Lady Emily Austyn-Taycious, Mistress of Manners; Roderigo Suave, Lover at Large; Carmencita Passionata, the Garlic Monger; Manfred Obin of Noxious, Entertainment Ambassador; Axel the Sot, Designated Drunkard; and Dr. Clott von Scabb, town doctor.
I also saw a number of Visiting Scots, one of them a huge kilted man who'd filled his shirt with cracked ice. (It was really, really hot in Willy-Nilly.) "Ach!" he shouted at passersby. "And have thee never seen a Scots on the rocks before?"
Entertainments included the Half-Wit Harbour Stage, upon which performed OxyMoron's Wheel of Moron and the Wise Guys' Pirate Adventure, "Chicken of the Sea"; the Old World Forest Food Area, where the favourite fare, along with various beers and ales, appeared to be Turkey Leggs; the Mud Arena, where a volunteer from the audience joined the Cirque du Soil; and Caxton Field, where falconers alternated with a jest of a joust.
There were also duellists, spinners, the Zucchini Brothers Danger Theatre, turtle races, the Dungeon of Terror, hand-powered rides, and a thousand-and-one (at least) vendors where could be had jewels, trinkets, spices, daggers, amulets, charms, doublets, dubloons, and raiment of all sizes. Much money could be spent.
Letters of credit were honored from the Houses of Visa and Master.
And, of course, there was my gentleman. Who, before leaving me to my braids, bent over my hand and kissed it. "And what is thy name, fair lady?" he asked.
"Francesca," I lied. Breathlessly. I am, after all, a married woman, right fair wench or no.
Keywords:
RENAISSANCE FAIR
by CNB