This weekend, Mason and I attended the annual Medieval Fair in Norman, Oklahoma. I took Mason once before several years ago, but it’s been so long that he barely remembered going. We were at the fair for a little over three hours. Here’s a brief rundown of our day.

Location/Parking/Walking/Facilities

For the past 10 years, the Medieval Fair has been held at Reaves Park in Norman, OK (they outgrew the Duck Pond, the previous location). The closest parking to the event we could find was at the Lloyd Noble Center. Parking was $5 and we were told it was one block from the park (we counted two). Only a small part of the fair takes place anywhere near paved paths, meaning most of your time will be spend walking around a (occasionally hilly and uneven) grassy park.

Attendance is free, so that’s good. Porta-Potties were everywhere, and (according to Mason) “somewhat” clean. Bottles of water were reasonably priced at $2/bottle, but the wait was often 15 minutes or more. (We brought our own.)

For Sale

Clothing. Weapons. Crystals. Oils. Carvings. Decorations. You name it — if it was related to medieval times, you can buy it at the Medieval Fair. While several booths were selling real weapons (swords and knives, mostly), several others catered to kids with wooden swords, battle axes, and shields.

Games and Activities

Think “fair midway,” but from the 1500’s. For just a few bucks (most of the games we saw were $3 for 2 tries) you could throw axes, knives, or throwing stars at wooden targets. There were several other games around for both kids and adults.

Costumes

All of the fair’s participants, along with a large number of attendees, attend the fair in costume. Throughout the day we saw kings and queens, pirates and jesters, knights and fair maidens … and this guy.

Food

Medieval corndogs. There were also medieval Indian tacos, medieval funnel cakes, medieval root beer floats, and even medieval “pizza on a stick.” In other words, pretty much every kind of food you can get at the fair, you can get here. Everything was priced at “captive audience” prices, which was to be expected.

Performances

What you see here are two “knights” about the beat the snot out of each other with taped-up sticks. It was loud, violent, fast, and awesome. Get hit in the knee or legs and the guys would go down and fight from that position.

Classic tournament rules apply; winner stays up to fight another opponent. There was also jousting, “human chess” (where the pieces were portrayed by people in costume on a life-size chess board), and lots of musical performances (drum circles, bard performances, and a three-man “lute” band.

There was also this guy, with his falcons …

… and this guy, with his unicycle:

The Norman Medieval Fair. It’s fun, it’s free, and we’re looking forward to attending it again next year.

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