After a stop at the Royal Privies, Gavin tried his hand with a crossbow (no worries, it shot ping pong balls). Then we got something to eat and sat in the stands ready to watch the main event: jousting! We were not disappointed. Our knights Sir Thomas and Sir Marcus came onto the field with all the pomp and circumstance you would expect to surround a knight entering the tournament ring. Luckily, we were on the side of the field that we got to cheer for the 'good' knights. Our knights were from England and Wales and followed all the laws of chivalry. The other knights were from Spain and obviously did not follow the laws of chivalry. First, they all traded insults, then challenged each other to a joust. Sir Thomas was knocked off his horse first and than a sword fight led to him being defeated! I thought this was very unfair as the other knight cheated. We were very upset! But Sir Marcus challenged the 'bad' knights to a joust to the death in two hours...well of course, we had to come back for that!
So then we went over to the Enchanted Gardens where the king was knighting all the children. It was so funny because Gavin took this sooo seriously. The king was great considering he had a few dozen young 'knights' to dub (the guy in the Henry VIII costume looks thrilled doesn't he!). Afterward he kept telling us that he was going to save Sir Thomas from that bad knight! And a shot of Gavin posing as the frog prince.
After the knighting ceremony we walked around for a while looking at all the shops and stopping to watch some of the shows. You could spend all day there just watching the shows! They had some good ones. Here's pictures of the jester...he had one end of a rope tied around a tree, people holding the other end, and he was walking on the rope juggling fire!
At last we made it back for the final joust to the death. It was very exciting with more insults and Gavin learned the meaning of the word heckle. He boo'd and put his little thumb down every time that bad knight rode onto our side of the ring or did something mean to our knight. In the end, Sir Thomas and Sir Marcus defeated the bad knights and we were all very happy. So then we went to meet the knights. They were all so nice and and talked to Gavin for a long time, especially Sir Marcus. Even the 'bad' knight was nice because Gavin was a little scared of him and he just smiled and backed away. He was a little scary looking with fake blood and dirt smeared across his face! Gavin had a great time and I was so grateful to Sir Thomas and Sir Marcus for being so nice to him and talking to him and once again, Gavin was just so serious.
After the jousting was at an end, we walked around some more to see the blacksmith, craftsman and artisans at work. We even saw real armor and how knights put it all on. Gavin was very impressed by how heavy it all was. He wanted to try on the helmet but I was afraid it would break his neck! Oh, and Gavin won his first festival game. He was playing a game where you hit a board with a (real) wooden mallet, and the board flipped a piece of wood into a pond. Well in the pond were little lily pads and you were supposed to get the piece of wood onto a lily pad. I told Gavin it was impossible and started to leave but he really wanted to hit the board with the mallet. Wouldn't you know he got his very first shot on a lily pad! He almost got a second one but it skidded off. Not bad considering he didn't know how to aim. Anyway, he got a little stuffed frog for his efforts and he was very proud.
All in all it was a great day! We finished it off with a turkey leg before heading home.
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