It’s a Saturday in late August, and I’m wandering around a dusty field in the countryside, trying to get signal on my phone. No, I’m not hunting for a Nos Boss at Reading Festival, Lollapalooza, or Defected—I’m at the Loxwood Joust, an immersive medieval fair in the woods of West Sussex.
I’m here for two reasons. Firstly, because I want to see someone get knocked off a horse at high speed. And after I’ve done that, I want to uncover the different cliques and clans that make up the social hierarchy in the Kingdom of Loxwood, to understand how a fantastical (some might say “make believe”) society like this gets its dose of backstabbing, tawdry gossip, and petty beef.
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In order to fully immerse myself into the world of LARPers, cosplay junkies, and Skyrim modders who are obsessed with actual swords, I’ve come in the camouflage of any Dark Ages lurker: robes and a hooded cape. For the purpose of this article, Snake Denton, presenter and reporter is gone. In his place, is Mungo Littlewood, God-fearing serf.
Cunning new identity assumed, here are all the tribes you’ll meet at any Renaissance Fair the world over.
THE ROYALS
The Kingdom of Loxwood is a feudal society, which means that there’s someone here that gets to treat everyone like shit. Meet Queen Helena. Her Royal Highness is blonde and striking with the messianic air of someone who could make you disappear (think Taylor Swift meets Vladimir Putin). She spends most of the festival lounging in the shade of the Royal Marquee and making lofty speeches while I sweat my arse off in a potato sack. Off with her head!
THE KNIGHTS
Jousting is a bit like tennis, except there’s more horses and death. Here at Loxwood, brave and chivalrous knights with strange names compete to kill each other to amuse Queen Helena. Imagine getting killed by someone called ‘Squire Joan’ or ‘Alan Bigspuds.’ You’d be so embarrassed you wouldn’t want to live anyway.
THE CLERGY
The priests and preachers of the medieval fair fall into two distinct camps. First, there’s the stag-do brigade, who have come wearing slaphead wigs, Air Force Ones, and their girlfriend’s tights. Then there’s the sincere and sober LARPers, the moral nemeses of the stag-do mob, who spend ten minutes lecturing me about all the sin and wickedness in the kingdom. I have no idea what they get out of this. They remind me of the Greenpeace chuggers who stand outside Farringdon Station: You know their mission is righteous, but my God, you don’t want to make eye contact with them.
THE CAVALRY
You know that guy in the office who calls going to the gym ‘training’ and won’t shut up about Tough Mudder? Yeah, he’s in the cavalry—no, really—that’s him over there with the three-foot poleaxe. These people aren’t really here for the medieval role play or the fairy stuff. They’re the muscle, the meat, they’re here for the violence.
At Loxwood, the cavalry spend the whole day competing in something called “Full Contact Medieval Fighting.” It’s not a reenactment thing, they actually just batter each other with swords and spears in the 26° heat for hours on end.
At one point, 30 of the biggest, meanest, most unreconstructed blokes take part in something called “The Meat Grinder,” which is essentially the WWE Royal Rumble set in 700 AD. You know when you see tough nut schoolboys punching and kicking each other at the bus stop but they don’t yet realise they’re doing it for the buzz of human intimacy? It’s basically that. Knuckleheads of the world, I salute you.
THE ARCHERS
Everyone knows these guys are the models, the rock stars, the celebrity chefs of the kingdom (why do you think so many beardy comic book nerds take up the sport?) and it’s no different at Loxwood. When you’re an archer, it’s all fun and games, until you get decapitated by a massive flying rock.
THE EXECUTIONER AND HIS WIFE
Needless to say, this pair are not to be trifled with. Meet the executioner of Loxwood and his wife: the poor fellow swinging from the gallows behind them is their son who they hanged for overexciting the pigs. I wonder who they voted for at the last election?
THE BACONITES
The Baconites are a bit like football ultras or members of the BTS Army. They’ve gone beyond aligning themselves with a cause—they are the cause—and that cause in this case is supporting Sir Duncan and his jousting team, the Loxwood Boars. This mob spend most of the afternoon banging drums and chanting “Who art thou!? Who art thou!?” at their hated opposition, the Horsham Hornets.
FAIR MAIDENS
Thanks to BookTok, millions of young women around the world now spend their commutes reading erotic fantasy novels with titles like 30 Days of Knight and A Dungeon For Two. This has caused an unnerving shift in the demographic of the LARPing community (not even Merlin could have foreseen that baddies would start going to medieval festivals). These fair maidens don’t pay for a drop of mead all afternoon—even Queen Helena doesn’t get as much fanfare as them.
THE VIKINGS
Vikings at the renaissance fair!? Sure, why not. People have come here dressed as elves, dwarves, and hobbits. Why not come in cosplay as Beowulf? Fuck it, why not come as Ron and Hermione? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? One of the Big Worms in Dune? Yoda!?
I go up to confront them about the historical inaccuracy of their costumes, but it turns out that I’m a pedant and a moron because there were actual vikings who raided neighboring Chichester in 895 AD. I don’t know—I think I assumed vikings were fictional creations like goblins and orcs. That one’s on me, my bad.
THE PEASANTS
The NPCs of the Loxwood Joust, the sword-carriers and supernumeraries, the unsung heroes. I approach a couple of lowly farmhands and ask about their characters. They look at me like I’m a piece of shit, because they’re actually not serfs at all, they’re Germanic merchants (and apparently there’s a big difference). Good to see that the class system is just as deeply entrenched at Loxwood.
THE MAN HOLDING A DUCK
A maverick, a myth, a character shrouded in mystery. He’s the bloke on the train with the parrot, the Edgware Walker, the Sandown Clown. Where did the duck come from? Why does he carry it everywhere? No one knows (and no one dares to ask).
Some say, he was cursed by witches, and the man’s brain was put into the duck’s body. Others have sworn that the duck can speak perfect French. What am I trying to say here? The truth is I really don’t know anything about the man with the duck.
YOU
Now that you’ve learned about the different tribes that you’re likely to see at a renaissance fair, what’s stopping you from joining the fun? Don’t let your shallow prejudices get in the way of having a laugh. Go on, I know you want to—fuck off those extortionate Oasis re-sale tickets and get yourself a sword and a cape!! FOR LOXWOOD!! FOR LOXWOOD!! FOR LOXWOOD!! See you on the battlefield.
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