Kaia and I have been planning and looking forward to this trip for many months!  I knew as soon as we decided to study the Middle Ages that we would need to go to a Renaissance fair!  The Renn Faire in NC is one of the biggest around.  The village is built on 20+ acres in beautiful woods.  We planned to spend the weekend there so we could see everything.

Kaia quickly settled into her own queen bed. (Oh, let me tell you, it was such luxury sleeping in my own squishy bed, all by myself.  We almost skipped the festival so that I could just sleep all day!)

Kaia quickly discovered the joys of the ice machine.

We thought it was important to dress the part in order to get the full Renaissance experience.

Many, many more pictures to follow:

The village was amazing!  Beautiful pubs, cottages… The festival grounds are only used about 12 weekends out of the year.  It was built to represent an average size medieval town.

Twig the Fairy

The jousts were very popular to watch.  We showed up an hour before each one so we could get front row seats!  I think this was my favorite part of the weekend!!!

This Irishman and Scarecrow were out ring side entertainment while we waited for the jousters.

The Lord Mayor and the King preparing for the joust.

Master at Arms, Lady Gwendolyn

Sir Mordren, the Black.  This was the knight our section cheered for.  He was fabulous!  He taunted the Master at Arms, yelled at his squire, and made faces at the audience.

Sir Maximillian, the other bad guy.

This is the good guy.  But, :-)  I don’t remember his name.

Listening to the rules of the joust.

The bad guys cheated at the joust, so they all hopped off of their horses and started fighting.  Their lances burst into splinters and flew into the crowd.  The largest piece landed in my lap!  You can see it coming over the fence in the right, upper corner of the picture.

Mordren threw down his gauntlet and challenged the good guy to a joust to the death!

It was down to fire and swords… But, of course the good guy won and saved the day.

The Royal Joker

The Queen and King… Love their expressions

Royal Revelers (and the cutest medieval baby every)

Face painting… a requirement! 🙂

The living tree

The second day there, we spent more time watching shows and less time at shops and the joust.

We went to a talk on the art of Falconry (and other birds of prey) with the Sky Kings. It was an amazing show!!!  The birds flew free and many were trained to fly right over the crowd!!

Oh, this is my new hair spiral… we were waiting for the falconry show to start and playing with the camera.

A beautiful Falcon

 

A Harrison Hawk.  This guy LOVED to fly low over the crowd!!

Artemis the Eagle Owl, the largest of the owls.  This one was only 7 months old!

In completely silent flight.

So beautiful!

This is Merlin, the 14 year old Great Horned Owl.  It is the largest owl in my area of NC, but still only half the size of an Eagle Owl.

This is Igor, the vulture.  He was a nut!  5 years ago, at a Renn Faire, he found a turkey leg under one of the benches.  Now, he always roams the audience to check for food!

We headed from the falconry demonstration to the sword swallower, Thom Selectomy.  Again we were in the front row.  It was a fabulous and gross show.  So hard to watch him shoving things in is nose and down his throat.  Ugh.  But we loved it!

He chose the most squeamish woman from the audience to put a magnet on his neck while he swallowed a sword.

Then, yes, he swallowed a balloon.  A very long balloon.

Going…

Going…

Going…

Gone…

 

He swallowed the whole balloon, then looked straight at Kaia, made some horrible faces, and let out a huge belch!  It must have popped in his stomach.  Ugh!

We had such a wonderful time.  I think we know where we will be this time next year!