A Magically Medieval Fayre
PILLOW FIGHT: Part of the activities that you can find at the Medieval Fayre is the one handed pillow fights which participants have to do while balancing on a log and trying not to fall off. Photo: Dana Da Silva
Riding on horseback a woman in a flowing red dress takes aim with a bow and arrow, fires and hits a target.
Mounted archery is just part of the many attractions that you could find at this year’s Neigh-Bours Magical Medieval Fayre.
“It is a celebration of all things fantasy and medieval, think Game of Thrones meets Vikings,” said one of the organisers, Meryl Rosenberg.
The event was created after Rosenburg and co-organiser Dayle Mallinson decided they wanted to invite friends to an event where they could wear dresses while riding horses.
Since then the event has grown considerably and today it’s “just to basically let people come out and embrace their olden day time feel and dress up and do something fun,” said Mallinson.
Organising such an event can be challenging said Mallinson. “We are dealing today with 130 separate stall holders, we then got a performance and cast and crew of another 50 this year. So it’s incredibly difficult to coordinate,” she said.
Besides the dreary weather the fayre went on without any obvious hitches on Saturday at the Ball & All on the corner of Malibongwe Drive and the R114.
To attend you could buy four kinds of tickets, royalty, nobility, lordly and commoner. Royalty meant that you would be treated as such, getting in the event before all the others and getting access to the private royal banquet area.
Even without tickets you could still take part in different activities such as archery, Viking cheese, cable toss, tomato throwing, treasure hunting and many more.
There were also wolves, that you could pet, as well as Irish wolf hounds being walked around the venue.
In the afternoon rain the Live Action Role Playing (LARPING) crowd played a gamer of Jugger, which is basically like rugby, except that participants use foam swords.
The Medieval Fayre is one of the only markets that run into the evening. Those who stayed through the cold and rain were able to watch fire dancers, archers shooting fire arrows and the heavy metal bag pipe band, Haggis and Bong.
