Renaissance Fair Frolickings

Last Saturday, I went to the Bristol Ren Faire with my sister and some friends, and it was EPIC. I know this has nothing to do with books or literature, but I'm assuming you lovely readers would like to hear of my adventures. :-) Prepare for AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT of photos. (I mean, "portraits.")

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to go to a Ren Faire, ever since I was a tiny hobbit and found out that Ren Faires were a thing. And finally, over ten years later, I got to go to one. WHY DID I NOT GO SOONER

My friends and I dressed up in all the Renaissancey stuff we could dig out of our basements:

We were greeted at the gate by a very raggedy and toothless old lady, who posed for a picture.

After being overwhelemed by the sheer magnitude of the faire (it's seriously like a little village), we found the fairie glen, which might possibly be my favorite part of the faire. My new career goal is to become a fairie.

This one had a spider web and would tie magical string bits onto the wrists of children. 

This was a quaint fairie couple. The yellow pixie would hop around and the orange fellow would just stare at people mysteriously and try to eat stones that the children gave him.

The yellow pixie is my absolute favorite fairie and I want to have one in my garden.

 Next, we went to see some comedians. The best of the shows we saw was a trio called Barely Balenced who did very impressive acrobatics. They called themselves Small, Medium, and Large, and the cutest thing is that Small and Medium are married! (Large is their best friend and personal bodyguard.) 

 

    

Then we went to see the jousts. Our knight was the green knight, Don Vincenzo from Italy - he didn't win much, but he was awesome nonetheless. The MC of the jousts was the Duchess Anastasia, Lady of Chivalry - yet another career goal for me. She was EPICNESS INCARNATE.

We saw both the Queen's Joust and the Fight To The Death (where Don Vincenzo died). But then he resurrected so we took a selfie... I mean, a "portrait":

We ate calzones in honor of our Italian knight. And my sister ate a giant turkey leg, which was very delicious:

This lady lets children paint on her skirt while she tells them stories. Another career goal for me. Can I just live at the Ren Faire please?

We also danced around a Maypole! It was so very exciting.

After some archery, we met up once more with the raggedy, toothless lady from the entrance. Her name is Lady Ettie and she has tea parties with the children. (We also got photobombed :-P )

We found an armory, where you could buy swords and daggers and whatnot. My sister's dream of actually touching a real dagger was fulfilled.

At the end of the day, the Queen's parade passed us by, and so we got to shout HUZZAH! and LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

The Queen's parade attracted some more fairies:

This one was a deer spirit:

We waited until most of the visitors had left, and it was kind of epic to have the faire to (mostly) ourselves. It's surreal. I HAVE to return next year because this was SUCH a great experience.

Have you been to a Renaissance Faire? Tell me about it! If you haven't - would you go? Would you dress up?