The medieval feast was scheduled to take place on Wednesday evening.
On Wednesday morning, we went to the apple orchard on our friends’ property to set up.
We hauled laundry baskets of swords, wooden dishes, tablecloths, mossy monster puppets and costumes. We arranged tables and chairs. We strung homemade garlands between trees and tied strips of fabric (left over from the fabric we tied to the branches of the pine above Effie’s grave in my short film Flora in 2023) to twigs in the apple trees to bring it all together.
And then we went home to finish painting the tent and cooking our contributions to the potluck!
The paint on the tent’s final wall panel dried on the grass in the sunlight while we packed the car with food and silver-ware and candles and more tablecloths.
On the way to the feast, we picked up a friend (along with a pile of swords and shields and baskets of chain mail, helmets, tunics, belts, handmade jewellery, and a crockpot bearing a beef roast). Oh dear! We all wanted to arrive before the other guests and finish decorating before they got to the party—
But we were late!
And it turned out to be a good thing that we were …
Because our guests at the feast were dear friends and family. We laughed and collaborated on setting up the tent together, and decorating the orchard, and picking out costumes, and setting the tables, and putting the final touches on food and drink.
It was all team effort.
By the time we’d finished our preparations and had changed into our costumes, we were satisfied and ready to feast.
And feast we did! There was more than enough food, and it was a delicious array.
After the meal we rested.
Later my cousin brought out her fiddle and my dad borrowed a guitar and the thrift store dulcimer was passed around. We circled our chairs and sang together. There was a spontaneous recitation of William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem.” There were handmade flower crowns and a mug of beef broth and kids on a trampoline.
The medieval tent stood sentry among the leaves at the back of the feast. Welcoming weary revelers to rest and romantical youths to converse within its striped and cosmic fabric walls.
The sun set. We tore down and cleaned up our party as a team.
There were late-night hangouts in the kitchen while we washed dishes.
A full moon shone as we drove home.