Jack Ketch

Death, Satan or the Executioner?

The name Jack Ketch has been synonymous with death and execution since the mid-1600s when the real Jack Ketch was hired as an executioner by King Charles II.  You would think with his name being tied to executions that he was very good at his job, actually, the inverse is true.

Jack Ketch successfully executed two traitors to the crown but he did the job so badly that he became feared by those who were to be executed.  At this time in history, beheading, in public, was the preferred version of execution.  The victim, the condemned, would go up on the block, their neck would be bared, they would lay their neck across the block and then the executioner would bring the axe down upon their neck.  Crowds gathered to see the executions and though I would not describe the people as necessarily blood thirsty, this was spectacle that most of the commoners could not resist.  If the executioner did their job correctly, it was a one hit job and ended the suffering of the condemned very quickly.

Lord Russell was Ketch’s first victim.  It is said that the job was done so poorly that he had to strike the traitor at least 4 times.  The first two were not lethal at all and only injured Russell.  His second attempt at an execution was James Scott, Duke of Monmouth.  When Scott took to the block, he is said to have given Ketch money to do his job “well.” He said:  “Do not hack me up as you did my Lord Russell.”  Ketch, true to form hit him once and the Duke got up from the block as if to redress his executioner.  He sank back down and Ketch had to deliver several more blows to kill Scott.  In the end he had to use a knife to sever his head.

Due to his bad performance as executioner and the pain these high ranking prisoners, criminals begin to dread seeing Jack Ketch coming to do them in.  Jack Ketch made it into common parlance among thieves and pirates who dreaded Jack Ketch and his rope.  They apparently took his ax away.   Jack Ketch’s knot vecame another term for the hangman’s noose.  The Punch and Judy stories contained a reference to Jack Ketch as did David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

So, if you are looking to spice up your dialect or your piratey speech, you may want to throw Jack Ketch in there.  Make sure to show him the respect he deserves as potentially the worst executioner in history.

-Bobaganush the Pirate

Quarterstaff

A simple stick of wood in the right hands…

From the beginning of recorded history people have been fighting and one of the first items they probably choose to fight with was a stick.  One caveman picked up a stick from the ground and brained another caveman.  Thus, war was born and the use of weapons against another person was born, as well.  Many years later, the stick was changed and fashioned into a staff and the quarterstaff or short-staff was born.

Many cultures used a staff as a weapon.  The English quarterstaff really became common during the mid-16^th century, which is when we see the first uses of the word.  The term quarterstaff refers to a staff of wood, 6-8 feet long.  Sometimes these staffs have metal tips, called ferrules and sometimes they have points but certainly the most common is just a wood end to the staff at both ends.  The name quarterstaff might be tied to the way the staff was made (quartering a tree) or the way it was held (the hand being a quarter of the way in from each end).

Stick fighting is a version of martial arts that exists all around the world.  Each culture has developed a version of stick fighting and certainly in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, stick fighting became very popular.  There are books dedicated to teaching stick and staff fighting dating back to the 15^th century in England.  Staff fighting was something everyone could be involved in.  The staff was easy to manufacture and could be very effect as a defensive weapon and deadly as an offense weapon.  If you were looking to outfit the commoners with a weapon, the staff was by far the cheapest and the easiest to teach them to use.

Therefore, it is no jump in logic to find the quarterstaff being used in legends such as Robin Hood.  Little John and Robin fight each other with quarterstaffs instead of Robin paying the toll to cross the river.  Robin of course bests Little John but the important part is the fact that they fought each other with a traditional English martial art of stick fighting or staff fighting.  A commoner and a noble both understood the techniques of this ancient martial art and though Robin won, Little John was certainly no slouch.

“The quarterstaff is a great weapon to have on land.  Being a pirate, they are not much use on ship but if you have a large crew and you are planning on tramping through the jungle, outfitting the crew with quarterstaffs is much better than them losing a stock of cutlasses while you are on the march.  Plus, the quarterstaff can provide hours of entertainment when you are in the beach with the crew after days of being at sea.  Throw some treasure into the circle and tell them to hash it out. -Bobaganush the Pirate”

Three Barons Renaissance Fair

Revelry and merriment to shape the fate of nations!

Weekends – June 2-10, 2012 – Noon until 8pm

This is truly a unique fair.  You are not looking at your typical faire were they set up booths and have entertainment.  The Three Barons Renaissance Fair about nation building and celebrating the arts in a unique way in the Anchorage area.  The concept around this faire is that three barons are fighting to determine the ruler of the faire.  You have the Blue Barony, the Green barony and the Red Barony.

The Blue Barony hails from the south and they take on a Middle Eastern flair, the Green Barony identifies with a more British point of view and the Red Barony is identified with an Italian Renaissance court.  These three factions battle it out in human chess matches throughout the day during the weekend to determine a winner.  The people that attend the faire can even get involved by choosing a side.  This level of dedication to the theme of the faire is amazing and it has made this faire grow each year.

Along with the factions battling it out, you have entertainment, food  and the vendors to round the day out.  There are several entertainment stages throughout the faire and they bring in people from around the area to put on shows of juggling, comedy, music, acrobatics and much more.  The food scene at the Three Barons Renaissance Fair is nothing to be scoffed at.  From typical fair food to traditional Ren Faire dishes, there is something for everyone to eat at the 3 Barons.  Then of course there is the marketplace.

The purpose for this faire is to bring the arts and crafts scene of Asheville out to the public in a completely new way.  The vendors in the marketplace bring all types of handcrafts and art to the forefront.  You will get to see everything from glass blowing to blacksmithing being performed right in front of you.  You get to watch craft demonstrations throughout the day and those shows of talent become as big as the comedy shows and faire skills that are being performed at the stages.  The merchant marketplace at the Three Barons is the pace to be, you are going to find it hard to tear yourself away from shopping and browsing to watch the fight for the Barony.

Three Barons Renaissance Fair
Tozier Track
Anchorage , AK
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Jolly Roger

A Pirate Calling Card

The Jolly Roger has long been connected to the piratical brotherhood.  Since it was first used in print by Charles Johnson in his A General History of Pirates, the term Jolly Roger is as connected to the pirate as the cutlass and the eye-patch.  There are many theories as to why the flag is named what it is and I am going to put forth some of those theories here.

The term Joli Rogue was the term for a French ship flying a red flag that meant it would fight to the death.  Add to that the thought the English would call the devil Old Roger and you have a flag with a grinning death’s head that became a Jolly Devil or the Jolly Roger.  Thus, the Jolly Roger became the flag for a ship that was commanded by the devil and would fight to the death.

At least two pirates are known to have called their flags the Jolly Roger:  Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts and Francis Spriggs.  Though these two may have been the only ones to call their flags the Jolly Roger, they were certainly not the only ones to fly the deaths head flag. From Edward Teach to Edward Long, all the famous European pirates flew the skull and bones in some form or another.  In fact the death’s head flag might go back to the Templars which some people aim the canon at for the first contemporary pirates.

It is believed that after Pope Clement V attempted to have the Templars exterminated on October 13, 1307 (a Friday nonetheless), the Templars took the fleet of ships they had amassed and took to the seas.  While they were on the high seas and possibly became pirates themselves, they flew the skull and bones as a warning to other ships that attacking them meant death.  This Jolly Roger was either tied to the Skull of Sidon Legend or it might have been tied to the Head of Baphomet, it depends on which legends of the Templars you like better.  Either way it is known that the Templars flew the Skull and Bones though they may not have called it the Jolly Roger that Johnson later wrote down.

A lot of the famous pirate captains through the Golden Age of Piracy were Masons, if you are following the conspiracy theory that I am following, the Masons may have been an offshoot of the Templars at some point.  Therefore, it is no great jump in logic to assume that the pirates of olde picked up the Jolly Roger flown by the Templars.  Of course, it could be that they were looking for a flag that would make people surrender without a fight, a flag that would inspire fear, a flag that had a history in sea-based warfare, thus using the flag that had been successful for the Templars would have worked.

Whichever way you like your history, a little more conspiratorial or a little more factual, the pirates embraced this flag and made it their own.  There were plenty of naval battles that didn’t happen due to the Jolly Roger being flown and seen by potentially a much bigger adversary.  Seeing the grinning skull, they would strike their own colors and run up the white flag of surrender… I wonder where that came from.

-Bobaganush the Pirate

Mad Hatter

Or Mercury Poisoning

Post Renaissance but certainly during the Victorian era, the term Mad Hatter came into being.  And certainly at each and every faire you will probably see some shop named the Mad Hatter.  Now, the term is certainly tied to the Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland fame but it is actually a term that relates to mercury poisoning a disease that struck people that worked in the millinery trade.

Mad as a Hatter or a mad hatter refers to mercury poisoning.   Especially during the Victorian age, lots of headgear was made out of fur-felt.  One of the chemicals used during the process of curing animal hides.  The shops where the hats were being made had poor ventilation.  Thus, the hat makers or hatters were driven made from breathing the fumes of the mercury that was being used to make their products.

The Mercury poisoning caused the following symptoms:  paraesthesias (tingling, burning or numbness of the skin), vision and hearing impairment, irritability, depression, slurred speech, anxiety, hallucinations, lack of coordination, and tremors.  I can’t imagine my job causing all of these potential problems, though there are times that my speech is slurred after a little too much writing.  The hatters would work in these hazardous environments and their symptoms would get worse and worse.  As they continued to work their actions would become more and more erratic until they could not work anymore.  These poor people were branded as crazy and it was not until later that we found out as a society that they were actually being effected by the career choice they made and poor working conditions.

Now, flash forward to Alice in Wonderland.  Lewis Carroll picked a job that was tied to this malady to make one of the most odd and humorous characters in his story.  Adding humor and a little bit of scary to the world of Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter was truly mad, due to the profession that he chose.  Especially in the Tim Burton version of the story, the Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp) is mad.  You can almost see him inhaling the fumes as he works on the very hat that he wears in the movie.  Maybe that is the hat that shoved him over the line.

So, next time you see something named the Mad Hatter or you hear someone refer to someone as being ‘mad as a hatter,’ you will have a little bit of background on the term.  You can also cast back into time and realize that maybe your job isn’t that bad.  You might get paper cuts from pushing paper in cube-world but I bet it doesn’t drive you crazy… of course, when I pulled that gig it did drive me a little mad.  And when you don your tricorne or top hat at the next faire or festival, think about the poor soul that might have been driven round the bend to make your costume.

10 BAD Ren Faire Pickup Lines

Is that a Turkey Leg in your tunic or….

Before I got married I will admit to the fact that one of the attractions of the Renaissance Festival was the women.  Beautiful, oddly dressed women that had no problem being flirted with by a pirate.  It was fun and if you were single is one of the single greatest places on the face of the planet.  Of course, if I am truthful, no substantial relationship ever came out of the many visits to the Ren Faires before my nuptials.  In fact, my wife was a Ren Faire Virgin until her first trip to the Georgia Renaissance Festival.

I love to people watch even now at the faires that we go to .  Seeing the guys trying to hit on the girls, trying to pick up the wenches and hoping that they will be successful is great fun.  Even better is watching the young men trying to pick up the Boothies and Rennies that are running the faire.  These amorous notions are usually met with kind words and a smile.  At worst they are rebuked by the other people working in the booths.

So, to that end I have worked out some pickup lines that you should stay away from if you are looking to pickup a Rennie, a Boothie or a Playtron at the next event you go to.

10 Pick Up Lines

1. “I see you have a bodice chiller, do you have need of a bodice warmer?”
2. “I know Ded Bob… personally.”
3. “They have some fur lined handcuffs in that leather shop over there…”
4. “Nice corset, do you need to be tied up?”
5. “I don’t need a new sword, your beauty has cut me to the bone.”
6. Said to the Beer-Wench:  ”Where do you want my tip?”
7. “Mind if I pet your furry-tail?”
8. “I’m a pirate, I could use some booty.”
9. “Do you want to have a look at what is under my codpiece.”
10. Any line you decide to use from Shakespeare, cause trust me, YOU can’t pull that off.

- Bobaganush the Pirate

Hoggetowne Medieval Faire

January 26-27, 2013 & February 1-3, 2013

For two weekends at the end of the winter season, the Alachua County Fairgrounds become a medieval marketplace and fair, the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire.  Street performers, stage shows, merchants and food to please the most discriminating tastes.  Come and experience the jousting, come and shop til you drop and plan on having a great time.  The weather is cool and the crowds are always filling up the fair grounds with revelers both in garb and ‘mundanes’ that are there just to have a good time.

The marketplace at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire is spectacular.  We are talking 160+ merchants. These range from crafters to artisans, bringing everything from glassblowers to metal smiths.  The sheer volume of booths that they bring to the public is staggering.  You will see every kind of art and craft that you have ever seen at a Ren Faire and much, much more.  Prepare to spend countless hours roaming and shopping and shopping and roaming.

Along with the merchants, you will find that you are entertained from the moment you step foot through the entrance.  Stage shows, music, street performers and jousting to last each and everyday.    From jugglers to the joust , from singing to harpist, there is a little of something for everybody.  Barley Balanced makes this a stop each year, so make sure you are in attendance for each and every show.  The also have one of the best living chess tourneys that you will every get to see.  Come watch as King, Queen and the Magician fight it out on a living chess board.

Merchants – This is a big list but trust me, dig through it:

• Ace of Wands
• Art of Ed Beard Jr
• Avatar Staffs & Wands
• Badger Blades
• Ballena Bay Pewter
• Barbarian Arms
• Barrel of Bedlam
• Black Dragon Pewter
• Boss Wench II
• Bronze Age Studios
• Capricorn Arms
• Celestial Thymes
• Celtic Marketplace
• The Compleat Knight
• The Complete Fool
• Crane’s Post
• Creations In Glass
• Creations Under the Sun & Moon
• Crimson Chain Leatherworks
• Crystal Garden
• Crystal Rain
• Dark Lyn
• Defenders of the Crown
• Delight’s Fantasy Art
• Dragon Ocarinas
• Dragon Pets
• Dream Weavers Stain Glass
• Elfstar Pottery
• Enchanted Chains Jewelry
• Enchanted Forest
• Ethereal Threads
• Face Paint Emporium
• Fakirs Legacy Wire
• Fantasy Fynery
• The Feather Place
• Fellowship Foundry Pewter
• Full Moon Ventures
• Garlic Shop
• Gilded Parasol
• Got Kilt
• Green Deva
• Gypsy Jewelry
• Happy Hairbraiding
• Hearts Delight
• Heirloom Jewelry
• Herbes and Simples
• Hero’s Haven
• Historical Glassworks
• Hoggetowne Tarot Guild
• Hollow Earth Swordworks
• Horns by Lew
• House of Avalon
• Irie Lights Candles & Flat Earth Tileworks
• Iron Flower Forge
• Jen’s Crown Jewels
• Kansas Holiday Woodcrafts
• King of the Crowns
• Knox Pottery & Glass
• Lady Barbara
• Ladye Fayre Dolls and Puppets
• Life Lines
• Liza Jane Norman Designs
• Lost Island
• Magickally Intertwined
• Medieval Metal
• Medieval Silver
• Melting Dragon Candles
• Midsummer Knight’s Dream
• Minds Eye Glass
• Mo”Darva Glass
• Moira’s Shoppe
• Moon Beams
• Moonstar
• Morning Glory Henna Body Art
• Museum Replica Jewelry Shoppe
• Mystical Gypsie
• Mystic Merchant
• Mystic Rhythms
• New World Glass
• New World Mugs & Wood
• NorthStar Archery
• Nunzia’s
• Olde World
• Olde World Games
• Painted Makeup & Ziba Henna
• Palmistry & Tarot
• Pastime Games
• Pepi & Co
• Portraits in Time
• Precious Plunder Jewelry
• Princessories
• Pyramid Leather
• Raven’s Nest Herbals
• Red Dog Forge
• Regal Boots & Leather
• Renaissance Moccasins
• Royal Armoury Swords & Shields
• The Rolling Galley
• Sacred Earth Crystals
• Sea Dragon
• Siege the Day
• Silver Thistle, Frazzled Knot
• Something Different
• Somewear Beyond Coin Mint
• Spotted Pony Traders
• St George’s Dragon Orphanage
• Stone Studio
• Sultry Treasures
• Swampfires
• Thumbtack Leather
• Thunderhead Leather
• Time Traveler
• Tomas The Lapidary’s Jewelry
• Uncommon Adornments
• Under the Mango Tree Journals
• Unicron Strings Music Co
• Warlords Crusade Leather Armory
• Waxed Roses & Caricature Drawing
• Wax Hands
• Wood, Willow and Whatknots
• Ye Olde Pony Rides
• Ye Olde Wizards & Dragons

Hoggetwone Medieval Faire
Alachua County Fairgrounds
2900 NE 39th Ave
Gainesville, FL
352-393-8536
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Hamish’s Dreck

Plunder for the Non-Discriminating Hordes

As I have always said, the key to good garb is the accessories.  If you don’t have the right accessories you are just some dofus in a poet shirt or a peasant blouse.  Hamish’s Dreck is one of those places you can get all the accessories you need for that starter costume and do it on the cheap.

Now, if you are up on your etymology, then you know that dreck is basically detritus.  That flotsam and jetsam that seems to accumulate.  At Hamish’s Dreck, they have accumulated LOTS of flotsam and the jetsam is taking over.  From the selection of leather items to weapons to just about anything else they have happened to pick up, you are going to find all those little odds and ends that you need to fill out your costume.

Let’s start with leather…
Pouches, bracers, sporrans, baldrics and much more.  Bracers are probably one of those items that everybody has floating around in a box somewhere.  It is funny how you will find a pair of bracers and then replace them at the very next faire.  Hamish’s Dreck has plenty of options in the bracer department. More important then the bracer is the pouch and sporran.  These are essential and HD has plenty with plenty of options so that you don’t break the bank.  And don’t think you will be stuck with the same leather goods that everyone else has, you can find those one of kind and singular items in the dreck that will suit your costume and make you stand out from the crowd.

Pointy things…
Lots of weapons.  And I do mean lots.  Piles of swords and daggers with a few well placed axes and maces to round out the lot.  And here is the clincher:  they are not overly-expensive.  Dig through the bins.  Pick up the pointy-devices of destruction and see if you like what you find.  You always need a new dagger or a different sword to go on the wall of your dungeon.  This is your chance to decorate yourself or your home without blowing a huge mount of cash.  Hamish’s Dreck is an oasis in the desert of high-priced weaponry.

Where to find them…
You can find the good folks at Hamish’s Dreck hanging out at Renaissance Festivals across the land.  Here is a brief list of some of the places that you will find them:

• Gulf Coast Renaissance Festival
• Tennessee Renaissance Festival
• Shakespeare and Friends Renaissance Festival
• Pennsic War
• Sycamore Shoals Celtic Festival
• Fishers Renaissance Festival
• Alabama Renaissance Faire
• Mobile Renaissance Festival

Next time you are in desperate need of dreck and detritus, look no further.  Hamish’s Dreck can get you accessorized and you will still have money left over to throw an axe or two, eat a bread bowl or even tip a juggler.  Trust me you will love this vendor.

Hamish’s Dreck
Hermitage, TN
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The LimeyBirds

Love, Laughs and Limes

What happens when you get three classically trained singers together at a Ren Faire?  They invent the group called the LimeyBirds.  Always, sweet always on key and always sans0music, this crowd pleasing group is a little bawdy, very funny and they are great singers that will send you away humming the tunes they were singing for days to come.

The LimeyBirds were started in 1999 and the three sisters:  Faith, Charity and Bunnie have been going strong ever since.  These three singers are classically trained and they turned their love of music into a thriving career on the Renaissance festival circuit.  They are a ‘must see’ act that keeps people in their seats.  Plus, their voices soaring into the air makes filling those seats very easy.  The LimeyBirds bring traditional pub-songs, sea-shantys and folk muic from the UK along with plenty of original LimeyBirds songs that are becoming classics.

The LimeyBirds show on the Ren Faire circuit is fantastic but they also branch out both musically and comedically.  You might get to catch their swing style show, which is a tribute tot he 40s called the Spitfire Gals.  Looking for something a little more piratey:  The Yo-Ho’s Pirate Show is sure to make you grin.  Or, if you are a fan of the 50s, The PoodleSkirts are the LimeyBirds from a different age.  What doall these shows have in common?  The same three wonderful ladies with the same three wonderful voices doing what they love.  You can not only feel the warmth of their music but you can also hear that LimeyBirds comedic screaming around the ages.

If you like a little bawdy pub sing, the LimeyBirds are the very place you need to stake out when you see that they are performing.  Find a perch near the front of the stage so you don’t miss a raised eyebrow and ge ready for the funny, get ready for the songs and get ready to have a great time.

The LimeyBirds
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Bumboo

A Pirate Cocktail

During the height of piracy, in the Caribbean, there was a lot of drinking going on.  Pirates are notorious for their ability to consume vast amounts of rum.  Pirates that made their change from the Royal Navy to “going on account” had gotten use to having a rum ration on board ship.  It is no feat of logic to think that they would continue that when they made the move to piracy.  And one of the cocktails that the pirates made with rum was bumboo.

Now, I am a fan of rum.  Rum and the islands around the Caribbean have a long history.  Rum of course is a distilled alcoholic beverage that is made from sugarcane juice or from sugar cane by products.  The climate in the Caribbean is a perfect place to grow sugarcane and like anything that people crave, the want for rum made the for a thriving industry.  It is no doubt that the pirates made their home in the home of rum.  The pirate towns (Tortuga, Port Royal, etc) had huge rum distilleries that not only supplied rum to other parts of the world but supplied rum to the Caribbean and the pirates that made their home base there.

Now, at some point, a pirate decided that drinking rum by itself was good… but it could be better.  So, the pirates mixed the rum with gunpowder (a favorite of Blackbeard), thinking that the mixture would make them look manly in front of the other pirates in the bars and dives of the Caribbean.  This was not a good pirate cocktail and probably caused some early pirate deaths.

Finally someone hit on an idea:  ”Let’s take some of the spices that we have raided from these ships and mix it with the rum to make it taste better!”  Thus Bumboo was born.  Rum, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Almost an eggnog without the egg.  Bumboo became the drink of choice in the Caribbean for years during the Golden Age of Piracy.  Grog (made with citrus fruits to counteract the effects of scurvy) could be dropped from the diet of the Caribbean pirates due to the large amount of citrus fruit in their diets because they could have fresh fruit as they toured the area from island to island.  Bumboo was sweeter and had a better flavor and the pirates loved it.  Below is a basic bumboo recipe.

Recipe:

• 2 ounces of rum
• 1 ounce of water
• 2 sugar cubes
• sprinkle cinnamon
• sprinkle nutmeg
• Mix in an old fashion glass, served straight up, without ice
• an optional slice of lime can be added

-Bobaganush the Pirate