The Utopian Vision That Explains Renaissance Fairs

I have two daughters, which has meant two trips through the Princess Phase, and many, many autumn visits to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. This is the second-largest such event in the United States, and thus the world, since nations that participated in the actual Renaissance appear to be less interested in these curious living-history fairs devoted to extremely loose simulations of ye olde village life.

I don’t own a jerkin and I haven’t read Tolkien since the sixth grade, but I’m very fond of my annual check-ins with helmeted GoT cosplayers and tavern wenches. Sometimes I go a few times over the fair’s nine-week season, which ended this past weekend—my kids, five years apart in age, now prefer attending separately, so I must take them serially. And I’m OK with that; who wouldn’t choose a fairy-tale kingdom over circa-2019 reality?