Saturday at King Richard’s Faire
After years of talking about going, Dan and I finally made time in our busy Fall calendar to attend this year’s King Richard’s Faire. Created in 1982 and located in an eighty acre forest in Carver, Massachusetts (South of Boston), the Faire is New England’s longest running annual celebration of all things Renaissance.
The Faire recreates a 16th-century market and includes musicians, singers, dancers, mimes, jugglers, puppeteers, exotic animal , a royal court, along with many other entertainers. Artisans sells clothing, jewelry, ale mugs, ceramics, leather-accessories, and other period-appropriate goods to the visitors. There is also live jousting, comedy shows, and an exotic animal show. The food offerings include turkey legs, French fries, sausages, pizza, hot dogs, and other food typically found in amusement parks. I was happy to see cider on draft, and enjoyed a few of them that afternoon. (Woodchuck isn’t my favorite cider, but I’ll take it when it is the only cider available.)
We arrived at the Faire around 1:30pm and my first order of business was to eat lunch, as I was starving after running seven miles earlier that morning. We shared a turkey leg and French Fries, along with us each having a Woodchuck cider. I had high expectation for the turkey leg, but was disappointed when I tried eating it. I fully understand that I’m at a Renaissance Faire in the middle of a forest in Carver, Massachusetts, so my food expectations weren’t high. Despite all this, I really thought the turkey leg would be good because I love all things turkey. The meat was cured, so it wasn’t moist, and I thought it was tough. Eating meat off the bone isn’t my favorite thing to do, and I felt like I really had to fight to tear it off the bone, which was disappointing. Dan and I shared the turkey leg and ended up eating less than half the meat because it wasn’t that enjoyable. At least it made for a good picture!
Following lunch, we went to see part of the Great Cats of the World Show but we had a really poor view of the stage since we were standing so far back. We decided to catch the same show later in the afternoon when we could get good seats and see the animals up close. We then made our way over to the Tourney Grounds where we watched a live jousting event. We arrived early to stake out a good spot, and the champion for our part of the audience in blue and silver was named Geoffrey (yes — it was hard to cheer for someone with the same name as one of the most evil characters on Game of Thrones) who’s rally cry was “Dilly Dilly.” He lost during the jousting (I think he’d had a touch too much ale before the tournament began) and wasn’t going to advance to the final round later in the afternoon.
Following the tournament, we walked around the Faire to check out some of the exotic animals up close (the baby “big” cats were adorable) and see some of the shops. Dan even took a “stab” at knife throwing. (Pun intended.) We then went to see a live acrobat show featuring a pig that was entertaining.
Our final event of the day was the Great Cats of the World Show that featured big cats from Great Cats World Park sanctuary in Oregon. The show has a focus on conservation and the Park works with other conservation groups to save endangered species of big cat. We made sure to arrive early for the Show so we could have front row seats, and our view didn’t disappoint!
Overall, we had a fun day at King Richard’s Faire and the people watching was pretty great. I’m not sure it is something I want to do every year, but I think it is worthwhile to go once if you’ve never been and maybe put it in your Fall-activity rotation to do every two or three years.
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 / @julieschultz79 / #mycrazylifeblog)
