STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Lions Park in Hailey will travel through a time warp back to the days of troubadours, sword fights, Celtic music and Renaissance games when the Central Idaho Renaissance Faire moves to Hailey from Carey where it has been these past few years.
Hoo-rah!
The event takes place from moon to 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, at the park at the entryway to Draper Preserve. Admission is $10 for those 8 and older.
A King’s Feast, an evening of feasting and entertainment, will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday and costs $15 a person or $45 for a family.
“Renaissance fairs are popping up all over,” said Roger Peck, whose daughter Richaela started the fair in 2020 for her senior project. “In the 1960s some woman started a Renaissance fair in her backyard in northern California and 5,000 people showed up. Since, fairs have spread across the country with fairs in Idaho Falls, Boise and even Burley and Pocatello.
Richaela Peck organized the first fair and her parents continued after she went off to college, using the proceeds for scholarships for those looking to study history, performing arts, literature and elementary education.
Paige Swanger, a theater major at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg, entertains children and adults as an Enchanted Statue, her wig and dress weighed down by multiple layers of paint. Drop a few coins in the wishing well and she comes to life, often startling those around her.
She will be joined by Archer Flynn, the Shanty Man, who performs English and Irish folk music, and Samantha Rose Owings, the Mistress of Melody, on her Celtic harp and other instruments.
Mermaids of the East Idaho Aquarium will be there, as will the swashbuckling Mayhem Makers, who will perform at 2 and 6 p.m. Friday and at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday. There’ll be aerial artistry and storytelling and a fire breathing sword swallowing comedy act known as Fingal Bonzi.
The Pyles Brothers Troubadours will perform period music on period instruments and Dizzy Hips will showcase the amazing things that can be done with hula hoops.
There will be food for sale from Texas Smoke Barbecue and La Parrilla Food Truck, in addition to cotton candy, funnel cakes, Hawaiian shaved Ice and Italian sodas.
And there will be a wide variety of handcrafted items, including hand-forged axes, soaps and candles, drinking horns, leather flasks, Viking sheepskins and dragon figurines hammered out on an anvil.
Ashley Roberts, who hails from the medieval village of Nampa, will show off a line of Viking shot glasses and drinking horns made of water buffalo horns onto which she etches designs. She even has translucent horns, which features such scenes as dolphins that appear to swim when filled with liquid.
Her husband--a blacksmith named Nick Roberts—plies his trade using corn, rather than charcoal or coals.
“A friend was watching ‘Forged in Fire,’ in which you have three hours to make a blade that’s tested for its durability and sharpness. And he said, ‘We have to do that,’ ” he said. “I use corn because I find it more palatable than coal or charcoal--and at the end of the day you have something that smells like popped popcorn.”
To see a schedule, go to https://centralidahorenais.wixsite.com/website.