This is a story about the Tulare Renaissance Faire, hosted by St. Mortimer's guild--a more friendly Faire you'll never see!

I am what you may call a Faire Virgin. This Faire was my second, the Hanford Renaissance of Kings being my first. I would have to say that, though there was more of everything at the Hanford Faire, I enjoyed Tulare more. The atmosphere was much more relaxed. Everyone there went out of their way to say "Good morrow" to visitors of the Faire. The park at which this Faire is held is big. Upon entrance through the gates, one finds a large area with trees all over.

The park was divided by booths to form several areas. There were two lanes between three curving rows of booths to the right of the entrance. To the left of the entrance were a few booths and a small open space. The booths consisted of what I call the insult booth, a small encampment and an archery range. At the insult booth, a man sitting in the stocks throws insults at you and you throw rotten tomatoes at him.

As you walk down the lanes between the rows of booths to the right of the entrance, you see a great many different things to be bought. Tankards, shoes, garb, adornments, pouches, hats, and much, much more. One booth sold flowers. It had roses with vials of water attached to the end of the stem, and assorted dried flowers. Another had essential oils, incense sticks, and offered massages. Yet another offered tarot readings.

If you are walking down the right lane, instead of the left one, you come to a stage where two pairs of performers hold shows several times a day. I was lucky to have seen Grin N Bearit three times (Photo, right), and I loved it more each time. Grin N Bearit is a show composed of two comical jugglers, Katrina the Sweet and Mitchell the Ill-Tempered. Mitchell is constantly making Katrina do most of the work, and ends up being the funnier of the pair, though Katrina gets more applause.

After they have set up for the show, Mitchell sends Katrina out with her whip to gather a crowd. "Are you getting people?" he calls to her after a few minutes. She comes back with a smart remark and he says, "Well, I know how to gather a crowd in less time than you." Stepping up onto a bench, he gets a whimsically serious look on his face before belting out, "Hey everybody, free beer!" And the crowd laughs.

They then introduce themselves and start a pre-performance show. This isn't the real show, just a taste of the antics they pull to get you into their grip. Mitchell makes a child happy and Katrina turns another into a master balancer. Then, Mitchell has a man light a torch and yells out, "Come hither, there's a man on fire." Then comes the best trick of the pre-performance show, which is played on everyone who has not arrived at the show yet.

Mitchell and Katrina instruct the audience to start cheering and clapping while they join the audience, leaving the stage completely empty. Anyone who is not there yet is totally confused by the behavior of the already-assembled audience when Mitchell stands up and says, "If you were not here to see what's so funny, well, too bad, because you're late and we're not going to do it again. Next time, try to show up on time."

There were Puritans on hand, ready with bible and stick, to chastize those who wore inappropriate clothing. One girl showed up in shorts and was told she was a harlot for showing her knees. One downside I noticed to being a puritan is that though you get to tell others about their wrongs, sometimes your own wrongs catch up with you and you get hurt for it. The pair of Puritans got into a fight on Sunday (no doubt a staged one) with some harlots who the puritans claimed had sworn to become Puritans. The harlots voiced something, which I didn't catch, that the Puritans had promised to do but had not and the Puritans took off running.

Unfortunately for the Faire, Saturday turned out to be a disaster for some people. One guild, Clan McLeod, left before it even started on Saturday and another, the House of Gordon, tore down their camp after the rain soaked their clothes and tents, leaving most without dry clothes. The rain on Saturday was icy and the wind blasted through the park fiercely. A woman even ran through the park warning of a tornado threat, which turned out to be false.

Sunday was much better, though. It wasn't quite sunny, but not quite cloudy, and there was very little rain. There was a battle pageant in which the MacAoigh clan battled the English. Colin MacAoigh's daughter had been captured by the English because Colin was a wanted criminal guilty of treason against the crown. Colin gave himself up for his daughter's safety, but the English killed her anyway. Then, a fight broke out between the English and the MacAoigh clan. All of the English were killed or wounded and only one or two MacAoighs were killed after Colin's daughter.

Overall, this Faire was a wonderful one. It had a good variety of things to see and do and the Queen, played by Pat Standley, was marvelous. She was dressed in white for both days and her gown was exquisite (Photo, above: Her Majesty, the Queen, her players and Shakespeare on stage at the Tulare Renaissance Faire). If ever you visit Tulare County (California) at the end of March, be sure to stay for the Tulare Renaissance Festival!

RIDE THE DRAGON (below) to return to the Tulare Main Page by clicking on its icon!

All photographs on this page are copyright ©1998 by April Stiers.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page