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THE FOLK FAIRE IN THE ORCHARD Winter 1984 Written by Garman Lord In the southeastern corner of Lake Ontario, just north of the fabulous "Fingerlakes" country of upstate New York and in a green land of wooded hills and bright rolling meadows, there is a certain apple-orchard. At least it used to be an appl orchard, and there are still plenty of apple trees growing ther sending their fruit rolling and tumbling down the wooded slopes in their own due season. But this is not just any apple orchard. When the magic time arrives and Merlin's invisible wand is waved, this remote and beautiful spot becomes the annual stamping-ground of a crop of joyous European-American folkists who blossom there for some six weeks out of every summer, much to the delight of all and sundry who can find their way over the backroads to such an out of the way place... and part with six modern bucks to join the fun. The occasion? The annual "Renaissance Faire" in Sterling, just a few miles west of the Lake Ontario town of Oswego, New York. The event is not unique. Similar gatherings are springing up not only all over America, but elsewhere in the world as well. New York State alone has at least two such affairs including one which is held in Sterling Forest at the southern border, just north of New Jersey. It is obvious that in the face of awesome changes in cultural mores and standards, many people are looking to their past practices to find guide lines which might lead to a fruitful experience today. You know this will be a new experience as you are wished a "good day" in lilting Shakespearian dialect at the ticket booth. Once inside the gates, before you wend the High Road down and away amongst cottages and booths of of which are hawked goods and services of every kind, and all in keeping with the Elizabethian English period...most quite reasonable, some of them pricey, but none of them out of line, you know it is a well-run happening. But you do not need to buy a thing. Stand around gawking for long and you are apt as not to find yourself drawn into some spontaneous bit of "street theatre" such as is constantly going on here; entertained by strolling players, "purged" by a quack physician, or drawn along with the mob perhaps to rubberneck at a public flogging, juggling act, or perhaps some felon's turn on the ducking-stool at the hands of the town sheriff... it isn't always easy to know what to expect. You may be accosted by some sturdy mendicant, leper or town lady of fun, have to make way for swordsmen on some rampage or the progress of the Queen and her consort through the village, attended by full royal retinue. All around you are medieval people who have come alive, period costumed in appropriate finery, of course, who speak in authentic "Shakespearian" dialect -- as only a true folkist would know. It is, of course, summer-stockers or theatre students from nearby Oswego State U, Syracuse U, and other local schools, picking up some summer cash who have slipped their modern forms to assume the historic roles played by their ancestors. Well, sort of, since much of the everyday practices of ancient people is still obscure because records are either gone forever or remnant accounts are very contradictory. Along the High and Low roads are of course to be found a liberal scattering of pubs and eateries, staffed by barwenches generally as buxom of bodice and sharp of tongue as any romatic could possibly wish. Between ales you may have a go at archery or ax-throwing if your ambitious enough, perhaps to win a parchment chit entitling you to a kiss of any wench of your choice on the grounds. You may climb the arduous "Ladder of Truth" or be recruited for a spur-of-the-moment fold dance under some enthusiastic's expert guidance. In brief, it's another world you've walked into for awhile, and you might as well accept the enchantment and enjoy it! Another world is just what it is. Here you may also see a joust going on in full panalopy; there some lusty warriors bludgeoning away at each other with home-made weapons and armour. Take even a small part in it all and you won't be more than a few ales away, if you are of a reflective turn of mind, from wondering just what sort of another world, after all, it really is. It also envokes something like an "ancestral memory". On one hand, one hears the farr-off plaint of flute-and-drum and sees a flash of color in some half-remembered candence, punctuated by hilarities, while on the other, one espies a lady in ruffled collar and satin gown, come to life...and you are shocked to realize that, yes, people really did once look like this, and act and sound like this, in all its unreal gorgeousness suddenly made real, and you have to wonder; why on earth did we ever change the style? Even amidst the merriment it is hard not to wonder what in the world is going on here. Americans in four centuries from the time of the Faire leaped from stone-age Indians to Davey Crockett to the age of Steam and STeel to men on the Moon! It is possible we never had the time to evolve any sort of "folkways" in the course of so frantically creating a new society? An observer might perceive we seemed in the past to be like a "person", collectively speaking, but only as a body-politic with a collective conscious...and a collective unconscious. We are pleased now, by some common inspiration sprung up amongst us only in the last decade or two, to reach back and recreate some sort of identity or "roots" -- and it's happening everywhere. All in good fun, of course, but of some possible deep significance to persons who find it fulfilling to see themselves as part of a living continuum. As some persons momentarily turn off their in-house electronic image-makers, they are amazed to see a whole world emerge before their eyes and even more astounded to find we may have done very well in the past, with just old-fashioned magic to influence events. Who knows, gods wot, perhaps we will again! |
