Renaissance festivals weren’t a part of my childhood. The American southwest celebrates a more macho frontiersmanism: cowboys and indians, rodeos, gunslingers and sheriffs. And the festivals emulated that type of historical lifestyle. Performers lassoed cattle, twisted rope, boiled lye and ash into soap, and executed dangerous stunts on horseback. It was fun, but didn’t mesh well with a nerd culture. Sword and sorcery just wasn’t a thing.
And it’s funny to think that Ohio used to be the frontier. But I think that since the land works better for farming, as opposed to ranching; and the locals’ culture is mostly derived from Europeans and Scandinavians, vs Spanish (because really, Spain isn’t considered a European nation in the academic sense) – that the concept of enjoying medieval European history maintains stronger roots.
Whatever the reason, I like it better.
I also never posted about it before. So here’s some pics from this year’s Ohio Renaissance Festival:
And there we have our crew of nerds. Way better than rodeos.
–Simon