San Jose Renaissance and Fantasy Faire holds court downtown

You had to beware the “flying dragons” from the airport that swooped overhead at the San Jose Renaissance & Fantasy Faire downtown. This was a world where you were invited to ignore anachronisms while you hoisted tankards of ale, took a whirl around a Maypole and watched falcons hunt their prey.

Alicia O’Brien, clad in the leather and lace of a shopkeeper’s wife, brought her three small children to the festival in Discovery Meadow Park on Sunday all decked out in period garb to help man one of the many booths selling everything from amulets to daggers. Leo, who is two, seemed somewhat perplexed by the festivities but six-year-old Kayla thought watching the Green Knight joust the Black Knight was “awesome.”

“I wanted them to experience the fair life and be a part of something I enjoy,” says 32-year-old, who lives in San Francisco. “I may not look like a nerd but I am. This is a place where you can be who you are and no one will make fun of you.

Lance-wielding knights bedecked in shining armor rubbed shoulders with all manner of elves and hobbits at the San Jose Renaissance & Fantasy Faire over the weekend. Imagine Comic-Con for the history buff set. This was genre-bending mingling of authentic historical recreators and cheeky fantasy devotees where a mythical Japanese creature known as a Kirin, a furry cross between a fox and a unicorn, may well be spotted next to a pirate ship flying a black flag.

The 9th annual San Jose fair drew more than 3,000 fans of corsets and codpieces over the weekend. It’s no mean feat to conjure an immersive world of yore amid the concrete and condos of downtown but almost 800 actors, vendors and volunteers donated their time to bring the past to life, cheerfully hiding their cell phones in coin purses and peppering their speech with words like “prithee.” For many, escapism is the mission.

“Sometimes you really don’t want to know what’s happening in the real world right now,” says Miriam Lynn Gunn, a 45-year-old clad in flowing robes who lives in San Francisco. She belongs to an ancient Greek-inspired group known as the Society for Creative Anachronism. They teach spinning and weaving to fair-goers. “Sometimes you want to escape into a bubble.”

For the record, the Renaissance Faire movement began in Southern California in 1963, when Los Angeles school teacher Phyllis Patterson held a small Renaissance-themed gathering at her home as a class project. Later the shindig held court in Novato. Now there are festivals festooned with doublets and hose all around the nation all summer long.

Co-founder Marti Miernik envisions the San Jose fair, where you can tuck into such hearty fare as Scotch eggs and turkey legs, as an antidote to a world obsessed with screens. Low-tech pleasures are the stars of the show from Old English country dancing and feats of falconry to jousting.

“As art and history are vanishing from the schools, we wanted to entice people with a living history,” says Miernik, as the Queen’s parade passes by. “We have some Shakespeare, we have some swordplay. We want to keep art and culture alive and help people learn about their heritage.”

While she says that attendance was lower than usual because of the recent spate of mass shootings, she encourages people to visit the fair, which has heightened its police presence and security measures over past years.

“We will not be cowed by fear,” says Miernik, who lives in Grass Valley. “We have to keep living.”

While traditional Renaissance Faires are set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, many modern festivals have evolved to embrace everyone from Captain Jack Sparrow to Deadpool. That’s what many fans love about it. It’s a realm where you are free to reinvent yourself amid the throngs of jesters, jugglers and ax-wielding executioners. Cosplay, or costumed play, is at the heart of this historical extravaganza.

“I love making up my own character, this one came from a dream I had,” says Shadae Milner, 22, a San Francisco decked out as a pointy-eared Vulcan high priestess from the “Star Trek” universe. “I love to role play. It’s fun to be to anyone but myself.”

Kim Dutra, whose petite frame was overshadowed by bedazzled, sparkly pink fairy wings, couldn’t agree more.

“Living with disabilities is hard, ” says the 39-year-old who lives in San Jose and copes with autism in her daily life, as she floated through the stalls at the fair, “Here I can be magical.”

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