When the pirate wench known as Truly Scrumptious sashays through the makeshift curtain into the small wooden barn, Lord Captain RHUFF is standing by the buffet. A middle-aged man in a tricorne, tall leather boots and a ruffled shirt, RHUFF’s name is an acronym for Red Headed Ugly Fat Fuck. The epithet is apt, if a bit anachronistic. Scrumptious and RHUFF are well acquainted. By way of greeting, RHUFF unzips a small waist pouch and pulls out a marble-sized plastic eyeball.
“I’m keeping my eye on you,” he says.
Scrumptious doesn’t miss a beat. With an exaggerated wink, she takes the eyeball and stuffs it deep into her tightly bound bodice.
This is the scene in the staff lounge at the annual Connecticut Renaissance Faire in Hebron. Over four weekends each fall, a cast of 200 costumed volunteer performers join thousands of guests on this sprawling fairground near Middletown to create a fantasy village known as Caer Leon. Caer Leon is not bound by the demands of historicity. Medieval knights in shining armor mix freely with Renaissance ladies and 19th century pirates. Everyone speaks in an indeterminate and uneven accent that sounds as if it were lifted from a Midwestern regional theater production of Richard III.
In a ring on the edge of the village, six amateur knights are involved in a tournament. Huge bucket-like helmets and steel plates cover every surface of their bodies. They carry broadswords but no shields. Their fights are short and awkward, each blow answered but none blocked. After a few seconds, the judge calls out the winner and the next challenger
steps up.
The judge’s decisions are made with authority, but it only takes a few minutes to realize that they are totally arbitrary. Halfway through the event, the audience begins to giggle. The knights battle on. After the dust clears, the knights stand in a line, awaiting to hear who has been named the overall champion. Their armor glints in the late afternoon sun, and on their forty and fifty year old faces is the ecstatic grin of one who is living out a childhood dream. The champion is a tall blonde man whom the judge calls The Reverend. He steps forward and kneels to receive his prize, a brand new sword. Then, in a flash, he lifts it over his head and shouts, “God willed it!”
***
Outside of the Faire, Lord Captain RHUFF is a systems analyst for the Department of the Army. He lives in central Connecticut with girlfriend, Ernie, who works as a logistics specialist for an acting company. Six years ago, they came across an advertisement for the Faire in their local paper. That first visit changed everything. The next day, they went out and bought their first costumes. Those costumes begat more costumes, and now they’ve dedicated an entire room of their house to their renaissance faire wardrobes.
The couple spends between ten and fifteen weekends a year at the faires. They’ve traveled as far Texas to dress up and play make believe. “I can be anything I want to be,” RHUFF says. At Caer Leon, Ernie is known as Lady Reddy. Reddy is an outsized character with a purple buzz cut. A small pear is jammed between her breasts, which pop unnaturally out of the top of her leather bodice.
Most of the faire regulars only know each other by their faire names and affiliations. Reddy and RHUFF are prominent members of the Wench’s Guild and the Privateer’s Guild, respectively, amorphous fraternities of renaissance faire regulars. Founded by a vendor at the New York Renaissance Festival as a way to sell pins, the Guilds have developed into
essential elements of the faires’ social orders. In all, there are nine Guilds, each aimed at a different subset of the faire’s populations.
One member of the Wench’s Guild said it was for “strong women. We’re happy, and we can flirt.” The Wench’s website describes itself as a “sisterhood devoted to torturing men in the nicest of ways.” As Lady Reddy tells it, the central function of the Guilds is to set up and host the staff lounges at the faires, a place where cast members can relax and take a break from performing.
As the pirate wench Truly Scrumptious prepares to leave the staff lounge at the Connecticut Faire, she pulls out Lord Captain RHUFF’s eyeball and returns it to him. He pops it into his mouth, sucks on it for a minute, and then holds it between his lips, the iris pointing outward. After a moment, he takes it out and, in a low voice, says, “I can taste your
perfume.”
Lady Reddy looks on, bemused.