For some reason, once years ago I managed to be on the wait staff at a Renaissance Faire dinner. The occasion is based on those occasional Renaissance "Faires" (a common spelling used). These can be thought of as like cosplay for middle-aged people in which they deck themselves out in costumes that can range from the Authurian to the Renaissance. Strangely, there is a heavy attendance by lords and ladies, or Renaissance magnates or bishops. Very few peasants or commoners.
There was a strange anachronism going on: on the same landscape we can see knights and ladies, Florentine courtiers, pirates, assorted kings and queens, and even the Three Musketeers. Dumas would have been proud as to how Athos, Artemis, and Porthos got around, eating funnel cakes, watching belly dancers, and evil sorcerers.
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There was a strange anachronism going on: on the same landscape we can see knights and ladies, Florentine courtiers, pirates, assorted kings and queens, and even the Three Musketeers. Dumas would have been proud as to how Athos, Artemis, and Porthos got around, eating funnel cakes, watching belly dancers, and evil sorcerers.
The wait staff was instructed to introduce themselves as "serving wenches," as in, "Good day, Gentles, My name is Clarissa and I am your serving wench." When you're in a surreal setting, it's good to be surreal. Didn't Hunter S. Thompson say something like that?
Ren Faires are a good excuse for a Mardi Gras-like departure from the dailyness of life. It's a time for people to indulge their fantasies, and in which the straitlaced manners of ordinary life are set aside. In Medieval times, some communities had Feasts of Fools, in which things were turned upside-down.
ReplyDeleteThe word "wench" seems to be used only in Renaissance Faires. There's one of those nearby in Florence in October each year.
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