Most memerable Faire experience

[Jaythebarbarian]

I don't think the statute of limitations has expired on some of my most memorable ones, but I still keep one of my earliest.

I was about 6 or 7 (well over 20 years ago now) and checking out some daggers.  I don't think the vendor had ever encountered a second-grader who could use words like "eviscerate" in a sentence.

[Moldy Forest]

I was in about fifteen minutes into my first ren festival at CoRF when they were walking an elephant down the street for a parade or something. Almost everyone stepped aside to let the trainer and elephant through, except a girl and a guy (both 20ish) who walked right past them a little too close. The elephant grabbed the girl with his trunk and threw her down to the ground. She was fine, but that has always been one of my craziest and most memorable experiences at faire.

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

I was in about fifteen minutes into my first ren festival at CoRF when they were walking an elephant down the street for a parade or something. Almost everyone stepped aside to let the trainer and elephant through, except a girl and a guy (both 20ish) who walked right past them a little too close. The elephant grabbed the girl with his trunk and threw her down to the ground. She was fine, but that has always been one of my craziest and most memorable experiences at faire.

I hate the SMELLA-phants, plus they scare me. If it decided to go wacko, nothing could stop it from causing huge carnage, besides they SMELL SO Bad

[Moldy Forest]

I was in about fifteen minutes into my first ren festival at CoRF when they were walking an elephant down the street for a parade or something. Almost everyone stepped aside to let the trainer and elephant through, except a girl and a guy (both 20ish) who walked right past them a little too close. The elephant grabbed the girl with his trunk and threw her down to the ground. She was fine, but that has always been one of my craziest and most memorable experiences at faire.

I hate the SMELLA-phants, plus they scare me. If it decided to go wacko, nothing could stop it from causing huge carnage, besides they SMELL SO Bad

I think it was going to step on the lady too, but the trainer stopped him. I guess thats a lesson as to never cross an elephants path. (That joke just failed horribly).

[Anna Iram]

Well certainly to refrain from his parade..... *worse joke*


Let's see, many memorable faire experiences...the silliness with friends, the stolen kiss or two, laughing till I thought I'd burst at countless funny moments, but this one stands out as the moment that brought the magic to life:

This was some years ago when I first began attending faire in garb. A tiny princess was being escorted through our faire by a group of adults.  They were casually walking along with her in their midst. When she passed, my brother and I fell to with a bow and a curtsey and a greeting of "my Lady". I was enchanted that she didn't miss a beat, and with a noble gesture and a nod and a smile she acknowleged us and like a true princess the entourage continued on the way. Charmed I was. There really was a moment where reality was suspended and for a brief moment I had stepped into the looking glass so to speak. Enchanting!

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

I was in about fifteen minutes into my first ren festival at CoRF when they were walking an elephant down the street for a parade or something. Almost everyone stepped aside to let the trainer and elephant through, except a girl and a guy (both 20ish) who walked right past them a little too close. The elephant grabbed the girl with his trunk and threw her down to the ground. She was fine, but that has always been one of my craziest and most memorable experiences at faire.

I hate the SMELLA-phants, plus they scare me. If it decided to go wacko, nothing could stop it from causing huge carnage, besides they SMELL SO Bad

I think it was going to step on the lady too, but the trainer stopped him. I guess thats a lesson as to never cross an elephants path. (That joke just failed horribly).

I guess I should just start carring a white mouse on me. Mythbusters proved that a SMELLA-Phant will avoid a mouse which is so funny

[Yrose]

Though there are many memorable times and friends. The one that made me know what fair is all about is the first year we went in these horribly cheese "costumes" and I stopped Queen Bonnie and Lord A for a photo and the great conversation we had. They both made us feel so special and comfortable, I knew then I was hooked on faire!

[BLAKDUKE]

Well speaking of Elephants, I was at Ringling several years ago and they had an elephant ride there, and as I was not going to get up on it and ride I took a picture.   As I was walking away someone remarked that "hey that Elephant has 5 legs.  I turned arounf and sure enought the beastie had 5 legs.  Two up front and the 5th one right in between the 2 in the rear.  He sure was excited about something, and there were no females elephants around.   Not the best one but I am working on that one.   

[BLAKDUKE]

This story takes place in the Florida Keys.  For some of you old timers, you may remember that the Florida Keys faire was the first faire of the year way back when and had occurred on MLK holiday.  Well this event took place in the only year that I reigned there 91' I believe.  If any of you have ever been to the faire you know how small the venue was.  During the course of the day you could run into the same person on an average of 6 or 7 times a day if you stayed the whole day.   Well during the course of making my rounds and talking to patrons I observed this lady who had brought her two children with her.  A mistake I'm sure she thoroughly regretted.  These two urchins were the poster children for METYS (I.E. Mothers Eating Their Young Society), you know the kind I mean "get me this, get me that, I want I want I want".  Along about 4 PM( I do not know how this poor mother lasted that long) These two .....  uh  "Children"  are still at it, only now the mother is telling them that she no longer has any money.  At this point we are standing about the dunking stocks, you know the booth that some local folks set up to pry a dollar away from you so you can have someone put in the stocks and then throw wet sponges at them.   So these children upon hearing that Mommy has no more money to spend on them proceed to ask that the stock proprietors take Mommy and put her in the stocks so THEY can throw wet sponges at her for not having any money left.   At this point I went over to the booth people and gave them $2 on the sly, then stretched up to my fullest height and in my best Bill Cosby imitation(with accent of course) screamed "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS" and proceeded to claim King's privilege and had the booth people grab the two urchins and put them in the stocks.  I then commanded that the booth people gather up as many sponges as they could.  They managed 20 or 25.  They then filled the bucket with water and proceeded to hand the bucket to the lady.  She looked at them  with a most haggard look and told them she had no money and they told her to proceed as the King had commanded it.  I literally watched  the look on her face change from one of exhaustion to one of maniacal glee and for a brief moment I thought maybe I had just re-created Frankensteins monster.  She then proceeded to nearly drown these two rug rats and continued until I leaned over and whispered to the boys that maybe she would stop if they apologized, which they did.  While they were taking the kids out of the stocks and drying them off,  the lady came over and could not thank me enough.  The sight of that lady having the only amount of enjoyment that she had all day has been imprinted in my brain all of these years.  I love it when a plan comes together even if I did not plan it.

[irishfolker]

That is beautiful!!!!!

[Celtic_Fae]

Carl Asch (Giacomo) putting on a private concert for my friends and me in between each of his sets with Empty Hats.

[raevyncait]

Both of mine are from Scarby:
'06 season, Mother's Day weekend, I was sitting in my usual spot in front of the Ivanhoe stage at about ten after noon, waiting for The Rogues to get back to the stage for the 12:30 show.  EJ was first back, and I think, had finally made the connection between me on MySpace & emails, and me in person. His usual routine was to sit on a bench in the audience area off by himself and warm up with his chanter for a bit until Jeremy showed up & then they'd warm up and tune their pipes.  This day he sat down in front of me, pulled out his smallpipes and played a little tune and talked a little about the set of pipes.  It was such an awesome gift, and that was definitely my best day at faire EVER.

'07 season, on a Sunday morning late in the season, I think maybe the weekend after Mother's Day, I was out front, talking and laughing with one of my friends from Galveston, when out of the blue, Mad Owen Fisher walked up to me and commented on the evilness of my laugh.  I looked at him, all innocent-like and said "who, me?" "BWAHAHAHAHA" His response was "yes, thah's it, it's quite evil."  He said something else about having a lovely day and went on off.  Then came back and talked a bit more, went off, and so on, for perhaps 15-20 minutes, until he finally came back and said "Thah's it, I am ALWAYS drawn to the most evil at any location, therefore, you MUST be The Center of All Evil."  My friend cracked up at this point, and I just looked at MOF and replied "Why, thank you, you may be right" and stood up and took a bow.  Every time I saw him after that he always made some comment about my evilness, and I've embraced it, and have actually been introduced to wenches at PA as Center of All Evil, then had a wench who claims to be evil run in circles around me because I am the Center.

[Yrose]

Blakduke, that was a great story. I'll bet that memory is still with her too.

[Bugsy]

.

[Welsh Wench]

Carl Asch (Giacomo) putting on a private concert for my friends and me in between each of his sets with Empty Hats.

*sigh* Oh yeah.....Carl.....