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    or, a Michigan Wolverine in the Lands of the Dragon





    Tales: Decimus Tempore
    Magic, music, and love: the glorious 2014 season at Maryland Renaissance Festival, and beyond




    It was in August 2003 that dear friends brought me to Maryland Renaissance Festival, my very first RenFaire. Revel Grove, which in the ten subsequent years became the setting for so much magic and legend.

    Thanks to so many of those dear friends, last season was my first as a regular performer at MDRF. From Opening Weekend in August, through the end of the run in October, for a second year in a row I was kindly given the opportunity to make merry with so many MDRF stalwarts who generously invited me again to join them for the season. Cat and the Fiddle Morris and their adorable daughter, the budding Faire dancer who always ran up and greeted me each Faire day with a happy "Doctor Jeff!" Awww. Bob and Sue Esty of Echo's Children and Clam Chowder and many other famous filk groups. Maggie Sansone and Brigid, my primary sponsors for this season. From street performances to the Gatehouse Stage, another season of dancing in the streets and music at the Maypole and geeking on stem cell biology with fellow Hopkins researchers in garb.


    And then on the second-to-last day of the Faire, Cydowny Bowman and Columbina very kindly invited me to join them in a brief gig - on MDRF's celebrated White Hart Tavern stage itself. *The* stage at MDRF - the hallowed place that is MDRF's heart and soul and seat of legend. I remember still the first Pubsing Morwen and Constantine Blackhart brought me to, ten years earlier, and every magical Pubsing after that, shared with so many other friends; but never in my wildest dreams back then did I ever think I'd get the chance to play *on* it. From fanboy to fiddling on MDRF's most famous stage; how I ever got so lucky as to have such kind friends, I'll never know. But deeply grateful, ever and always, I will be. From 2013's opening day to that final Saturday; from my first time ten years ago to that gig on the White Hart stage, it was a glorious, wonderful, marvelous adventure.

    And then came the final day of Faire. Crowning ten years of glory and magic, the greatest day of magic and wonder of all.





    Elspeth is a medical student, a fiddler, a Neil Gaiman and Dr. Who fan who like me had lived in Japan for a number of years. *And* a SCAdian Rennie costumer fencer roller coaster Geek. We first met in the mountains of West Virginia, amidst the blooms of high summer, where she was on her 3rd year medical rotations. We went geocaching. We fiddled duets until the sun went down. We geeked out over fantasy. We basically got along *marvelously*.

    She was - is - kind and funny and imaginative and silly and geeky and we had a fantastic, *fantastic* time together. And when I sounded her out about joining all of us for the last day of Maryland Renaissance Festival, to join us in the traditional Danse Macabre, she leaped enthusiastically at the offer...


    Kind friends loaned us garb for her to wear for the Danse Macabre, and on a bright and glorious October fall morning, I picked her up for a merry Last Day at Faire. We bounced to The Rogues and Wolgemut. We cheered The Free Lancers on the Joust field. We laughed to Shakespeare's Skrum skewering Richard III and The Pyrates Royale. With so many dear friends, we made music and capered through the streets and the squares of Revel Grove in the traditional year end Danse Macabre, remembering absent friends.

    We gathered for the final, traditional Pub Sing. Thanks to the generous kindness of my dear friend Lynda (leader in the national RenFaire performer charity RESCU) Elspeth and I were able to share the magic side by side, on seats practically at the front of the house. Together, we sang all the old favorites - Health to the Company and Wild Mountain Thyme and so many others as brilliant sunset gave way to starry sky. We raised our mugs in salute as the cannon fired to close another glorious Faire season.

    And in the twilight, in the clearing by the White Hart Tavern, as the crowds parted one last time, I asked Elspeth for the privilege of being her boyfriend.


    To my extraordinary joy, she said yes. :-)







    Twelfth Night is traditionally a day of celebration and revel in the SCAdian Kingdom of Atlantia, as it is in many others. Just a year earlier, Brigid and I had travelled to the far end of the Kingdom for the celebration. And back in Cynnabar days, Midrealm Twelfth night celebrations with Jesse and Zach, in music, dance and song. Elspeth herself had marked such revels in Athelmearc, her own first home Kingdom, long ago. Cyd had been a SCAdian before any of us had been. And so, when Twelfth Night came to Storvik / Washington DC, all of us gathered, with so many others, to celebrate the day. :-)

    There was playing middle eastern tunes with Nina and her belly-dancing compatriots in the Hafla. There was traditional dance tunes in the rotunda. There was all kinds of musical silliness with SCAdian friends from over a decade. It was Elspeth's first formal SCAdian event since graduating from Cornell eight years ago (and for the occasion she sewed up a brand new set of garb for herself), and our first as a couple. And together with so many friends, a marvelous, marvelous time. Many and sincerest thanks to all my dear friends who came out to celebrate with us. Both those active in Atlantia whose welcome has made Atlantia a home for me since I began playing in earnest two years ago; and those who *haven't* been active in Atlantia, but came out specifically to welcome and share musical joy with . It was a wonderful first SCA event together as a couple. We look forward to the adventures to come in the Dream with joy. :-)



    And then a glorious day at the Shriner's became a merry evening at Morwen's, who and Breno generously hosted the whole lot of us revelers at her place afterwards, for a long evening of more singing and music and company and joy. *Many* times over the years has Morwen's home and hearth been the setting for bright celebrations, going back nearly to the turn of the millenium. And to share that warm magic with dear friends was a perfect cap to a brilliant day.



    Every winter for thirty previous years, one evening in February Master Chort hosted The Company at The Olde Mill Inn. Rakes and corsairs and privateers, all the boisterous merry crew gathered for one night of revelry and cameraderie at Master Chort's Pirate Feast. Many a joyful moment and happy beginning was celebrated there over three decades of story. Master Chort's Pirate Feast was among the very first stories I head from Morwen a decade ago; and three years ago, I was lucky enough to become part of the Company for the first time. At last year's gather, Master Chort had announced that he was drawing the grand tradition to a close. And so it was to end the tradition with glory that old and older friends gathered at the Adelphi Mill, to raise tankards at Master Chort and Mistress Paula's Pyrate Feast, one last time.





    The Homespun Celidh Band very, very kindly invited Elspeth to join us all on fiddle. Elspeth and I rehearsed together in person and over Skype, and through reels and waltzes and jigs Elspeth got to join the rest of us musicans in the fun. Songs were sung and dances were danced and toasts were raised and stories were told, and The Company filled cellar to rafters with celebration, one final time.

    For all that they've given us, and let us be a part of: many and sincerest thanks to Mistress Paula and Master Chort, who welcomed us all for so many years to their merry gather in winter's heart. And a Health to the Company, the merriest company, that any could ever ask to be a part of: Morwen who helped first introduced me to the world of the SCA and Renfaires; Eowyn and Christopher, veteran MDRF cast who first sponsored me to perform at MDRF with the Dance Macabre; Marcia, merry oft-partner in dance and mischief, who was there my very first night in the SCA; Jesse and Zach, with whom so many years of adventures were shared in Markland to Cynnabar and back again; The Homespun Celidh Band, who had kindly invited me to join them as one of their own at a Pirate Feast in years past. A salute once again to Mistress Paula and Master Chort, the grand hosts of the great Company. And more other companions than I could possibly name...

    And here, here in the last hour and the last chapter of the great and glorious thirty-year story of Master Chort's Pyrate Feast: with m'Lady Elspeth, the bright and bonny pirate Lass who so kindly captured my heart.






    Here's a health to the company and one to my lass
    Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass
    Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
    For we may or might never all meet here again.



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All materials copyright Jeffrey Huo, 2014
jeffshuo@alumni.northwestern.edu