Heavy Mettle at RennFest: with PHOTOS

October 14, 2008 by BYT at large  Send to a Friend

By Chris Keener
Edited by Patrick White
photos by Sean Peoples, full set here

Some friends and I take a trip out to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. The serfs in the marketing department decided to brand it RennFest. The public doesn’t have time to pronounce all those syllables anymore. And that’s the great challenge before this place: to retain an old-timey aire, capable of whisking you away to King Henry VIII’s Royal Court while still meeting the fire code.

After navigating a parking lot with what seems like fifty thousand other people, its time to piss out the road sodas. I venture to the port-a-priivy’s and there are two wenches-about-town using Olde English to direct the hordes to unoccupied shitters. It’s our first opportunity to suspend disbelief, but a New Jersey lilt (as opposed to an Old Jersey one) breaks through and I can’t help wondering where this chick got her tweety bird tattoo in 17th century Leeds. But she is enthusiastic, and that weighs heavily. I tidy up with some Purel antibacterial to balance my humours and head into the grove.

It’s a beautiful setting. For ten months a year, an epic oak canopy shrouds an abandoned midiaevil village. In late summer it wakes the hell up. Hundred of stalls become a bizarre bazaar. Hordes flock to games of chance, several stages, a jousting arena and even a castle (turned climbing wall). Sounds of merriment ride sunbeams that blaze through the trees. Acrobats hang from the trees by satin shrouds. Maiden’s corsets overflow with limp titmeat.

The proverbial elephant in the room (as opposed to the actual elephant frightening children over there) is a general lack of pestilence.
We can’t seem to find the flowing streams of urine characteristic of the age, nor the gnawing gremlins of plague. Teeth are white and abundant.

However, a croissant sundae stall spreads the modern plague throughout the village.
The Black Fat.

I really wish we’d come in costume.
Like any theme party, the more people who dress up, the better. There are a lot of folks here who’ve precisely dialed in their look, but there are inconsistencies. A perfect likeness of Gimley the dwarf is having a cigarette with a guy who looks like my physical therapist.

Some people take the opportunity to wear anything remotely historical under the guise of the Renaissance. A Victorian dandy mingles with Eric the Red, but who’s counting centuries. Several gentlemen take the opportunity to wear their Patty’s Day tartan. A ‘blacksmithy-look’ associated with Olde England inspires a contingent of whorish doms and blatant metalheads. There’s guys who just want to look like Neo from the Matrix and have finally found a place to get away with it while noshing on a turkey leg.
My mates and I make a pact to return next year in costume. We will be dressed as cyborgs from the future. I’ll get the blacksmith’s attention: “psst.” I’ll say, “you’re going to be needing this.” I’ll stealthily slip him a brick of titanium, wink, and slip away.

Which brings me to weapons. Despite a sign hanging at the entrance that reads ‘no weapons’ the place overflows with swords, sabers, scimitars, maces, bludgeons and anything else that cuts, bashes, or smears human flesh. It’s like when you go to a stadium and try to bring your own Mountain Dew. Gotta buy it inside, properly supervised. I try on something that looks like a saber-tooth tiger claw and think about how few chances I get in the average day to use such a thing. And how often a RennFester gets to. I’m jealous.

I wonder what these people talk about, as they hang out in costume. What happens to the conversation once they’ve exhausted the topic of the authentic raccoon tail sassily poking out from their chain mail skirt? There are clearly strong bonds formed here, and these people are passionate about something. For a second I let my hipster armor down and want to join in, full tilt.
We walk into a fur shop and pet some pelts and then start to feel creepy.
There is more death in this place than Gettysburg.
Alpaca are incredibly soft, it turns out. So are arctic fox, deer, rabbit, mink, and black bear.
I would think that a sixteenth century fur-lust should worry the modern beaver.

We are very excited when a flurry of trumpets leads us to the Jousting Ring. Fully clad knights parade bifurcated flags beneath the royal bench, shouting platitudes up to the blushing Queen. Fluffers stoke the crowd into a fervor as the horses snort by the grandstands. I don’t like yelling HUZZAH in general, but when I do, ‘tis for blood.

The main event disappoints.
The knights gallop down a lane, spear wooden blocks and then hold them up for the courts approval. I, for one, do not approve. A waste of a perfectly good lance. I could see more bloodshed at the ear-piercing tent. But the kids are so into it, it’s great. Makes me wish that I came to this sort of thing as a kid… Fully able to lose myself in the fanfare and drunk on the sounds of iron splitting wood and the passing glances of boobstuffs.

We sit to have a falafel pocket (the influence of invading Moors, I presume). The sack-of-nuts salesman walks by in all his pubescent glory and shouts a favorite one-liner. I really like it here. An unbelievable amount of craftsmanship and collaborative effort goes into creating this other world. There are plenty of home-schoolers and IT guys jousting and playing clanky gourded instruments, but there are also vetted artisans, and last masters of ancient crafts. Women weave with historical exactitude as they rock in handmade chairs. A whole culture of people are willing to suspend their lives, pause their ipods, focus intently on the details of a bygone age, and convince each other that they could have survived the plague.

We shuffle through the crowd to the gates as dusk settles. As weathered villagers totter off to their Pontiacs and the world outside, I think that I’d like to come back and visit my newfound, old-timey village. Maybe I’m a Renaissance man. I could take up a craft. Like horseshoesmithing. But I’ll probably just download the Iphone app.

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