On Saturday Grumpy and I found ourselves along the foreshore at Perth's inaugural Medieval Fayre. Apparently these things are big "over east" and serve as recruitment drives for the Society for Creative Anachronisms - one of those hopelessly daggy social clubs a friend tried to get me to join in our uni days. One day all these latter day Lady Gwendolines and Sir Rodericks will suddenly twig, join forces with the masses who play Dungeons and Dragons, and we shall all be ruled by pale, long-haired creatures whose CVs are littered with the gruesome slayings of trolls and rampaging Vikings.
It was quite an entertaining afternoon as we watched knights in combat and the colourful Perth Morris Men jigging around on the sward with their floral hats and their hankies waving gaily. Grumpy has got a couple of photos up at his blog.
It had been a while since breakfast and I was a little concerned that we'd be forced to suck on roasted pig toenails for sustenance. Fortunately I spied Ye Olde Dagwood Dog stand, right next to the historic Mr Whippy, and we feasted on the age-old delights of a battered sav, followed by the noble and sacred strawberry nut sundae (the delights of the very same having been noted in her journals by Great King Ethelred's consort, Lady Marmalade).
I also spied a blackboard advertising HOT ROAST BEEF PORK. Now that kind of treat, as both my grumpy husband and Homer Simpson would attest, can only come from "some kind of magical animal". And they say genetic engineering is the scourge of the modern age.
4 comments:
The thing that always gets me is that everyone always wants to be a "Lady" or a "Sir". No one wants to be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill miller, or cooper, or smith, or cook, or merchant, or... you know, the people that really made things happen back then.
I still don't want to be an ordinary run-of-the-mill person, but unfortunately I can only persuade small children to salaam before me and address me as "Oh Great White Queen".
Hang on. I knew you in your university days and I don't remember hearing about any of this goins-on. Had I known you could so easily be dragged to an SCA event, I most certainly would have done it. We were jolly good mates with some of the official Perth contingent (or, more correctly, the Goode Folke of the Barony of Aneala, in the Kingdom of Lochac). Even my own dear Bill has betimes donned a tin suit and borne many throttlings upon the backe sides of Severale Goode Lords (and not a few Goode Ladies).
The ting I was amazed with is the reason everyone wants to be a knight or a lady or some such is that you actually have to earn these titles within the group.
One of the knights last weekend told me he was one of only about 30 in Australia.
Then again, I'd told him I was a professional AFL player.
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