After lunch I made my way back toward the Tournament Field.
It was still early but I wasn’t that interested in the Mud Wrestlers or the Cirque de Sewer. As I walked by the Tiger Stage a lone performer was calling to the crowd to come and watch “Jacques” zee Whipper. We would not be sorry..or so he said. So with time to spare I slipped into a seat to see what this was all about.
Turns out that “Jack the Whipper” was a show using whips. My first thought was a medieval Indiana Jones but no. No adventure here. It was a very basic but silly show. “Jack” had a handlebar mustache drawn on his face and spoke with a very heavy fake french accent…when he remembered to use the accent . His lapses were deliberate, I’m sure. 🙂
He explained the difference in whips and cracked the various ones so we could hear the different sounds. He wrapped himself up in them and managed to break uncooked spaghetti that he held in his own mouth. When he was speaking and had to refer to himself, he had an audience member honk a horn…Jack zee Whipper (honk honk).
Of course he had a volunteer come up and hold a piece if spaghetti and he whipped that too. Between you and me I think that audience member volunteer was a “plant”. The liability would be too much if it was a real audience member. It was all entertaining but I was anxious to get to the Tournament Field.
Just as I was about to leave “Jacques” brought out a bucket of gasoline. He had a whip soaking in it. As he babbled on about the danger he lit a lighter and whoa! The whip was on fire! That made us all sit up and take notice. His antics with the flaming whip were impressive to say the least. Everything was moving so fast that it was hard to get a shot without motion blur but here’s what I caught.
Quite the finale and now (drum roll please) it’s really time to head to the tournament field for the jousting. This was the original reason for my visit.
I climbed the hill next to the tournament filed for an unobstructed view…Perfect. The king was just arriving. He hadn’t climbed to his viewing area yet. I’d made it in time…just!
There were costumed players urging the crowd to cheer for their champion. 
Each of the 4 quarters were assigned a different knight to cheer for.
The king stepped to the front of the podium, the gates opened and the Knights came galloping in!
Let the Jousting Begin !