8/11/2023 0 Comments Medieval times food nicknamesYou go, in short, to indulge every conceit about the period in European history between CE 5 that’s been instilled in you by not only Braveheart, The Sword in the Stone, and Prince of Thieves, but also Game of Thrones, Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, the Harry Potter series, Magic: The Gathering, and much more. You go to see reenacted the timeless and trite story of a suspicious foreign intruder demanding a powerless woman as chattel and the "honor" displayed in battling to the death over her fate. You go to see an actual falcon soaring through the air above your head, and to witness a multipart jousting tournament that ends with pairs of knights flat-out brawling in the sand, miming mortal injury one by one until a winner is declared. You go instead to see a snow-white stallion bound into the arena under red light and billows of smoke. A staffer waved the morbidly curious and, alarmingly, their small children into something called the Museum of Torture. Suits of armor flanked nearly every doorway. At hulking wooden tables near an ersatz stone fireplace, paper-crowned guests in groups of three and four hunched soberly over their beverages and phones. The combination of pink and purple frosted tulips, dispensers of whirling booze slushies, and workmanlike bartenders produced an ambience resembling the world’s least fun Mardi Gras party. Opposite the entrance, cocktails were served from a full bar, backed with shelves displaying every imaginable kind of vessel-ceramic steins, hurricane glasses, Weizens, even a couple of drinking horns-most of them colorful and emblazoned with logos. Kids ran to and from kiosks (and a separate souvenir shop) selling wooden and light-up swords, shields, and battle-axes, plus the obligatory magnets and keychains. I couldn’t respond coherently to this comment due to the sheer onslaught of sensory information my brain was attempting to process. When this happened to me, I nonsensically responded, "Thank you," and immediately felt a degree of embarrassment that my surroundings didn’t really warrant. You’ll also end up facing the unprecedented question of how to answer when a long-haired, barrel-chested squire in a tunic passes by, inclines his head, and murmurs only, "Milady," with a soft smile. But somehow you never get used to it, especially because the level of cosplay varies considerably among the staff-some employees speak with a hearty attempt at an accent along the lines of a Peter Jackson hobbit, while others use their natural voices some wear tights or dresses with bosom-buoying cummerbunds, others the inconspicuous civilian attire prescribed for bartenders and souvenir sellers everywhere-but all of them will call you by your renfaire honorific if you engage them in conversation long enough, even about something as 21st-century as the price of a glow-in-the-dark dagger. The "milady" and "milord" treatment at Medieval Times actually extends to the customer service line’s phone scripts, as I learned when I called to make reservations (1-800-WE-JOUST, if you’re curious).
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