Fair Morn Milady

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The Faire opens at 11:00 . I arrived just as the gates were opening. On the stage outside I saw one of the new additions…bagpipers!

 No mournful wailing for these pipers, the music was lively and the performers even more so as they jumped up and down as if to emphasis what they were playing.

I took my time wandering around outside. I spotted falconer  talking to a group of faire goers. As if on que the bird on his shoulder spread her wings.

 I gasped out “Beautiful” and his reply was “Thanks. The bird’s not bad either.”  Good comeback ! 🙂

Inside the gates it was very shady and dark.

 Just in the door was a young woman with a cage full of rats. The sign on the rats’ cage read Cirque de Sewer. The Cirque de Sewer show was at the “Mud Pit” and she was there to promote it. A lot of people we giving her a wide berth but I thought it was kind of fascinating. There was all this noise and confusion going on around her and the rats seemed to be completely un fazed. There was a little chair in the cage and one of the rats sat there quite calmly.

Only a few steps further 2 entertainers were circling in  a dueling circle.

 Before they got down to serious business they rounded up the kids in the audience to be their “seconds”.

 The costumes of the faire goers rivaled some of the actors.

This section of the grounds has a lot of shops.

 People were renting costumes and souvenir shopping as the made their way over toward the tournament field.

 The first show of the day would be at 12:00. It’s important to get to each of the shows at the tournament field as they tell a story that continues through the day. If you miss one of the shows you won’t fully understand what’s going on in the next show.

I had been stalling by the duels but they were still just warming up  their audience. I decided I’d seen enough of that and began to move on.

King Richard’s Faire

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It’s that time of year again or rather it’s been that time of year for a few weeks. Every fall for the last 30 years Carver, Ma has been the place to go for Knights and Pages, Royal Maidens and Wenches, Acrobats and Beggars, Kings and Queens.

So…..Hear Ye, Hear Ye

All ye Lords and Ladies of the Realm.

We are about to embark on a journey to the medieval past where knights are jousting, beggars begging and the Court Jester entertains us all!

King Richard’s Faire started running weekends September 3rd and as I work weekends I usually miss it. But I do get one chance and that is on the long holiday weekend of Columbus Day. The Faire is open on that Monday. I have been several times over the years and always enjoy myself but I’m not as dedicated as some folks are.

The Renaissance themes are popular all over the country. In Boston we have a year round restaurant called Medieval Manor. If you enjoy eating in a rowdy atmosphere with your hands you can have a great time watching the actors and performers…just don’t leave for the restroom without asking the King for permission…just a hint.

 Almost every place I’ve visited has a Faire or a Restaurant or some other attraction. It seems that jousting and medieval hijinks doth capture the mind of the masses. 🙂

Florida has one that I’ve been curious about for quite awhile called Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, Orlando Castle. Maybe I should include that on my next trip to Orlando. But today I am still in the northeast, in Massachusetts, just down the road from Carver, Ma.

Me thinks I’m about ready to step into my time machine and go back….back….back…….

Stay tuned for the next installment of Back to the Dark Ages

Sure Fire Way to Lose Weight

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As a weight challenged individual I am always on the lookout for hints to help me win the battle if the bulge. So far, the bulge is winning but as we walked around Salem we spotted on fellow who seems to have a sure-fire method to lose weight.

Sorry..I couldn’t resist a little Pirate/Gallows humor. 🙂

Columbus Day

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I thought it would be easy to come up with a short little post about Columbus Day. I remember learning a poem in about 5th grade and thought I’d use that. It was not to be. I can only remember bits and pieces . I tried to google it and found lots of Columbus Day poems but not the one I’m looking for. It had a line Sailing West to Find The East and another line about The Nina, The Pinta and the Santa Maria and the refrain referred to the date…1492.

So with no poem to share I thought that instead I would share some Columbus Day Facts that I ran across.

  1. Columbus Day is not an American Holiday but is a New World Holiday.
  2. Spain celebrates Columbus Day as Fiesta Nacional or “National Day”.
  3. Hawaii and South Dakota do not celebrate Columbus Day.
  4. Columbus Day first became an official State holiday in Colorado in 1906.
  5. It became a Federal Holiday in 1937.
  6. Many Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12, 1866.
  7. San Francisco claims the nation’s oldest continuously existing celebration with the Italian-American community’s annual Columbus Day Parade.
  8. New York City boasts the largest celebration.
  9. In 2007, Dane County Wisconsin Supervisor Ashok Kumar replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.
  10. South Dakota renamed the holiday “Native American Day”.
  11. Hawaii celebrates Discoverers’ Day, the day the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii.

Columbus Day is not without opposition by factions who feel that the day is being used to expand the Catholic influence. This opposition dates back to at least the 19th century.

A 2nd wave of opposition is based on the man himself and his character. Columbus has been described as a social climber and self promoter who would stop at nothing to advance his ambitions .

The Niña and Pinta

As more and more historians dig into the past, more facts seem to emerge and more of the myths are being dispelled. It remains to be seen if the weight of this growing body of evidence will eventually sway public opinion to the point that Columbus Day becomes just a quaint footnote or continues as a viable holiday. In the meantime, I will raise a cup of grog to the intrepid mariners of the day that dared to sail away to unknown seas and new lands.

(Photo courtesy of the Columbus Foundation and their two Columbus replica ships – their original Niña, the most historically accurate replica of a Columbus Ship ever built, and their recently built Pinta.)

 

The House of Seven Gables

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What a nice day we are having in Salem but the afternoon is passing quickly. Following our lunch at Murphy’s we explored the waterfront with the replica Friendship,

 admired the Custom House with the fierce Eagle emblem glittering in gold.

 But there was one last place that we just had to check out before we turned our eyes back south and headed home. That was the House of Seven Gables.

We didn’t have time for the tour and having just finished one  “old House Tour” we opted for exterior views only. I have taken the tour in the past and it is interesting.  Maybe next trip  there will be time for that tour too.

The House of Seven Gables was a real house. Not just a construct for a novel. The opening lines of the novel are the perfect description of the ancient mansion.

The novel begins:

“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm.”

The Pyncheon family actually existed and were ancestors of American novelist Thomas Pyncheon.

At the time the novel was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the House  was owned by his cousin Susanna Ingersoll whose  ancestors were involved in the persecutions of the innocents during the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne was plagued by guilt over the part his family played in those terrible years and some believe this to be the reason for the tone of the novel. His novel explores land fraud, depression, ghosts and by innuendo, witchcraft.

At the time that I toured the mansion many years ago, the novel was fresh in my mind so I could appreciate the references made by the tour guides. One thing that really stands out in my memory is the secret staircase. At the time that I took the tour this tiny secret passage was open to the public via the tours. Since we didn’t take the tour this time I don’t know if that is still the case. I think I will re-read the novel before I go back for a return tour.

Also on the grounds and visible from the street is another period home that has been restored. Not as grand as the Seven Gables, which was considered a mansion, Hawthorne’s boyhood home sits were it can view the building he immortalized. This is another example of the traveling buildings of Salem. His home was relocated to this spot to preserve it for its historical value.

I can just imagine touring the 2 buildings on a gloomy, rainy day. Throw in a little thunder and lightning and I bet we could all become believers in ghosts and witches.