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I went to the Norman Medieval Fair last weekend, the only one that it was held on. It was in Norman, Oklahoma, 17 miles to the south of downtown Oklahoma City, connected by unbroken urban land so that it can be considered a suburb. The fair was in a Utah-shaped park on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, and sponsored by that same institution. It was a completely soft faire; all the structures were either tents or trailers. They were densely placed together, with over 200 vendors, giving the impression of a sizeable fair when in the middle of the grounds. The fair was completely non-alcoholic, and there were also no tobacco products for sale anywhere. There was no enclosure around the park, the fair could be entered at any place on its perimeter, and admission was free. There was a huge free parking lot for their big-event auditorium a half block to the south, and there was no problem finding a place.

But the town was approached by a crowded and scary stretch of I-35, with 7 entrance ramps in Norman, 4 in Moore to the north, and 9 more the rest of the way from I-40, most a mile apart - where people in the outer lanes would not pull over for someone coming on because they usually couldn't, for the adjacent lanes were that full, and changing lanes was a death-defying act. I arrived in Norman at about 1 in the afternoon on Friday and drove all the way to the fair site, but found it still swarmed by kids, tho many were starting to return to the scores of school busses parked nearby. That and being tired from the 330 mile drive from Lawrence, KS, made me decide to leave and return tomorrow.

On the way back, I stopped at a place that called itself Econo-Lodge and found out their econo-price was $50 a night. I asked the guy at the desk if there were any cheaper places around and he said, "Not in Norman. You will have to go back toward Oklahoma City about 10 or 20 miles." I did, and found a Motel 6 in Moore that came to $35 after Oklahoma's 10 percent sales tax was added. But this created a 10-minute ordeal of white knuckles around the steering wheel going to and returning from the Fair.

The announced time for the Fair's opening was 10 in the morning, but on Saturday I timed my arrival for 9 because I didn't know if there might be a pre-gate show. But I found there was none, in fact there was really no gate to open. People started to trickle in about 9:30 and the vendors slowly and casually started to lay their wares out on their tables. At 10 there was what the program called the "Opening Ceremony" at the "Royal Pavilion", but the pavilion was an umbrella tent with a rope enclosure in front of it. The King came out of the tent, walked out thru the front gate made in the ropes, and announced to the three other people there besides me, "By the power invested in me by God, I declare this fair open," and then walked back inside. The King was called Alfred, and he was dressed in a rather plain medieval manner, tunic and trousers and a brown cape with no fancy metallic trim.

The sky was cloudy that morning and the temperature was in the 40s, with a north wind that made things a bit uncomfortable. The sun came out briefly, then was covered again by clouds that increased in density as the day went on. It got a little warmer by afternoon, but not much.

Since it was being called a medieval rather than a renaissance fair, I decided that the Italian noble gown would be more appropriate than the wench's outfit. I turned out to be correct, most of the male playtrons wore some version of belted tunic and tights, and the women were mostly in Guenevere style dresses, with relatively few laced bodices and bosom tops to be seen. There were lots of silken gypsy ensembles and plaid kilts, and I saw three men walking around in full shining armor. And as usual, there were some "mundane" kids in full goth-punk regalia that rivaled the garb.

There were only two formal stages for the musicians, one of them being the human chessboard - but thruout the day I observed musicians playing informally in the pathways. Shortly after the opening ceremony I went to non-chessboard stage and beheld for the first time the Bilge Pumps in pirate garb singing about looking for "booty". There I found something that I had not yet observed at any other faire, an electronic amplifying system. The singers wore little wireless mikes tucked into their coats, and the mixer and amp were right by the side of the stage. There were two speakers with large woofers, but the sound was rather tinny, lots of highs and not much lows. It sounded a little better later when other groups used wired mikes on stands, but not much. With the latter mikes there was lots of rumble from the wind that continued thruout the day. The Bilge Pumps didn't sound as well as I thought they could have acoustically.

The third act was the Rogues, the awesome bagpipe band from Houston that I had first encountered at the Kansas City faire two years ago, and they instantly recognized and remembered me. They asked my name again, I told them, and every time I was in their audience later they introduced me and about demanded that I dance. I obliged them several times, and my arches were aching by the end of the day. Lars and Jimmy the pipers were still there, but their wisecracking announcer and bodhran player Brian was not. Boru's Ghost followed the Rogues with their fast fiddle and four part harmony.

There were not that many street performers other than musicians. The Toy Man and the Tickle Man were there, whom I had seen at Kansas City. A guy walked around in a dragon suit, and another holding a falcon. But there wasn't much in the way of improv street theatre.

About noon, I returned to my van to do a little of what Merle Haggard told us they don't do in Muskogee (but I did last time I was there), returned to the fairground, and spent the rest of the afternoon in butterfly mode - just wandering about with no planned path and just letting things happen to me. The Society for Creative Anachronism had continuous stick fighting, and another medieval enactment group demonstrated with real swords. A blacksmith displayed his craft on an anvil by a barbecue brazier filled with coal. A local Scottish club performed on the pipes several times in their encampment. There was a Gypsy encampment with drummers and belly dancers going all day. The jousting field was only about 50 yards long, with no seating stands or royal platform. Two large and muscular horses performed under the knights. By about 2 it had gotten very crowded, with long lines in front of the food booths and the portapotties.

I ran into Bruce the Bruce and gave him one of my new CD, and saw someone in Brother William's robe that I wasn't sure I recognized at first because he had grown a full beard. His wife Lady Niniane I had encountered earlier. I was also surprised to find a Rainbow sister, Nancy, offering massages in her tent, but there weren't many takers on the cold windy day.

I left at about 4, returned to the motel and the nap that the Diltiazem I take demands, and spent the evening watching CNN tell me about how explosions rocked Baghdad thruout the night as coalition air strikes pounded Iraqi positions, while our ground forces encountered pockets of fierce resistance as they advanced toward the Iraqi capital. I don't have a cable TV hookup in my house back home, and I seldom watch broadcast TV, getting most of my news from the paper, NPR, and the BBC - but these three evenings I decided to immerse myself in how most of the rest of the country was experiencing the media coverage of the war. While watching the swordfights at the fair I was having flashbacks to the ultimate reality TV show I was seeing back at the motel.

It seemed to me that the coverage was about 20 percent events and 80 percent conjecture and prognostication. And none of the previous predictions by anyone had exactly come true, and none of them had come entirely false either. And everybody's opinion was based mostly on their prophesizing. If a year from now, I hear many Iraqis saying they're glad we came and got rid of that guy, I'll deem it to have been worthwhile. But right now, the images making the most impression on me are of the terrified faces on the kids and the people lying in hospital beds with stumps of arms and legs wrapped in bandages.

It started to rain outside the motel after sunset, then on the TV I started seeing severe thunderstorm warnings flashing. Near about midnight a gullywasher came down, and on the weather radar there were yellow and red splotches right over Norman. There were "reports of golf ball sized hail", and the next morning at the fair there were some confirmations of that from people who had slept near the site. (I didn't observe any hail myself up in Moore.) The grounds were soaked with large puddles still remaining, and there were a few collapsed tents. I found out after I had gotten there that the opening had been postponed an hour, and a few of the vendors had packed up and left.

But the sun came out and got serious round about 1 in the afternoon, and people started to show up, not quite as crowded as the previous day, but still quite populous. I parked myself at the chessboard stage for most of the afternoon, watching the human chess game, the Knameless Knights, a man and woman comedy team making liberal use of sexual innuendoes; the Counterfeit Bards, a quartet of singers with hammered dulcimer and lots of recorders, who made me a permanent fan as soon as they did "Hal an Tow".

I returned for another evening of reminding myself why I don't usually watch TV, survived the drive back up I-35 thru OKC the next morning (it was crowded as early as 6:30) and made like the Holy Ghost and proceeded, all the way back to Lawrence. The Fair was copious for vendors, moderately offering but strong for music, more scanty for interaction with performers, and the ultimate bargain in admission price. I recommend it to anyone considering going.

-Butterfly Bill

"Greetings, milady...or is it milord?...or..um...."
"So did you lose the bet?"..."No, I won it, he bet me I wouldn't"

more faire reviews like this one are at
http://www.grapevine.net/~butterflybill/RbStories.htm

some of my computer music can be heard at
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/247/butterfly_bill.html

a CD of it can be obtained thru
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/butterflybill