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The Medieval Fable of The Fisherman and the Fish

Fishing is a huge industry worldwide; every year about 1 to 2 trillion wild fish are caught, representing vastly more animal deaths than the annual slaughter of terrestrial vertebrates such as cows and chickens. Overfishing is a serious crisis. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in 2024, about 37% of monitored fish stocks across the globe were overfished. Additionally, a 2018 FAO report indicated that nearly 60% of fish stocks were “maximally sustainably fished,” meaning that these fish populations were being exploited to the very edge of sustainability.1 Regulations and guidelines aim to reduce “illegal, unreported and unregulated” (IUU) fishing, in order to mitigate the devastating effects of overfishing and maintain populations of these animals for future human use, but IUU fishing is still extremely widespread in practice.

Fish illustration in Der Naturen Bloeme, National Library of the Netherlands, KA 16, fol. 115r.

Below, I translate and discuss a medieval fable, that of The Fisherman and the Fish (Perry Index 18). The Fisherman and the Fish has a decidedly anti-conservationist bent. It depicts an individual fisherman who is angling (fishing with a line), seemingly for his own table rather than for recreation or profit. Though the man’s catch is given a speech, the fisherman gets the last word, saying that the more prudent thing is to kill and eat even a small fish that one has already caught, rather than to hold out for a larger one that may or may not come. Though the fable suggests we are meant to agree with the man’s judgment, I find the fish’s plea to the fisherman—one of many examples in fable where a vulnerable character begs a more powerful one for their life—quite affecting.

This version of The Fisherman and the Fish is by Avianus (ca. 400 CE); it is preceded by a Greek version by Babrius.2 I provide a Latin text of Avianus, and an English translation, below.

De piscatore et pisce
Piscator solitus praedam suspendere saeta
exigui piscis vile trahebat onus.
sed postquam superas captum perduxit ad auras
atque avido fixum vulnus ab ore tulit,
“parce, precor” supplex lacrimis ita dixit obortis;
“nam quanta ex nostro corpore dona feres?
nunc me saxosis genetrix fecunda sub antris
fudit et in propriis ludere iussit aquis.
tolle minas, tenerumque tuis sine crescere mensis:
haec tibi me rursum litoris ora dabit:
protinus immensi depastus caerula ponti
pinguior ad calamum sponte recurro tuum.”
ille nefas captum referens absolvere piscem,
difficiles queritur casibus esse vices:
“nam miserum est” inquit “praesentem amittere praedam,
stultius et rursum vota futura sequi.”3

The Fisherman and the Fish
A fisherman, who was accustomed to catch his prey hanging on a line,
drew up a little fish of paltry weight.
But after he had brought up the captive into the air above,
and a wound pierced through its hungry mouth,
the pleading fish said, “Spare me, please,” with tears springing up,
“for how much benefit will you get from my body?
Just now a fertile mother has spawned me under stony grottoes,
and told me to play in our own waters.
Remove these threats; I am young, let me grow up for your table.
This edge of the shore will give me to you again.
Soon, when I have fed on the depths of the vast sea,
I will come back fatter to your rod, of my own accord.”
The fisherman, replying that it would be a sin to set the caught fish free,
laments the hard conditions of fortune:
“It’s a shame,” he said, “to let go of the prey in hand,
and even more foolish to pursue future wishes again.”

The fish’s plea makes both an appeal to reason and an appeal to emotion. He reasons that his meager body is now of little worth as food, and that in time, once he has grown, he will make a better meal. He further suggests a sort of bargain: he will return “willingly” (sponte) to the fisherman when he is a well-grown adult.  

As for emotion, the little fish, in his abject entreaty, describes himself rather pathetically. The fish having been spawned“just now” (nunc) implies that he is very young and small indeed. Anthropomorphic touches, such as the fish’s tears, and the detail that his mother has told her children to “play” (ludere) in the waters, could prompt readers’ sympathy for the creature. The prospect of a playful “child-fish” having his life cut suddenly short is a pitiful one.

In terms of natural history, the premise of the fable—at least according to the fish’s speech—is that the fish is small (and of little worth to humans nutritionally or economically), but only because he is a very young member of a species that grows considerably larger. While the fish was spawned in “just now” (nunc), “under stony grottoes,” (sub antris saxosis), his life cycle entails feeding and growing in the sea, then returning once again to the same place, where he could perhaps be caught once more by the same fisherman. The word litoris in line 10 can mean the beach or sea shore, but it could also refer to a river bank.4 If one interprets it as the latter, the fish could be of an anadromous species (i.e., a type of fish which spends its adult life in the sea but returns to rivers or streams in order to spawn; examples of anadromous fish include salmon, sturgeon, and some smelt. Babrius’s version takes place at the sea shore). Avianus’s version of the fable doesn’t specify what kind of fish this is, only that he is currently a juvenile. Later versions deem the fish a flatfish or turbot (rombus)5 or pickerel (smaris).6

Fish illustration, British Library, Add MS 36684, fol. 27v.

Intriguingly, in a version of the fable found in the fourteenth-century Dialogus creaturarum, the little fish promises to bring the man a whole school of other piscine victims with him when he returns. In this version, the fish also persuades the man to cut off part of his tail, so that he can be identified when he comes back. The fish reneges on his promise to bring others along with him, and is killed by the man when he is caught for the second time.7

The moral of The Fisherman and the Fish runs rather contrary to the morals of some others (which is often the case in such a heterogeneous and adaptable genre). For example, in the fable of The Goose with the Golden Eggs, which I posted about a few months ago, the moral is to not be greedy and hasty, and, I argued, perhaps not to push nature past sustainable limits. In The Fisherman and the Fish, by contrast, the choice endorsed is to kill an animal as soon as the opportunity presents itself, regardless of whether this is an optimal use of natural resources (i.e., achieving “maximum yield”), because the future is unpredictable.

Fables often focus on interactions between individuals of different species, rather than commenting on species as collectives or populations (though there are exceptions, e.g., The Hares and the Frogs, The Frogs Asking for a King). The fable of The Fisherman and the Fish, too, represents a single encounter between two individuals. However, perhaps we can see this fable as a kind of microcosm of relationships between humans and wild fish. Fishing is essentially the last bastion of wild-caught food, for the majority of humanity, and, as mentioned above, we are exploiting these animals to their limits and beyond. Considering this fable versus The Goose with the Golden Eggs, this fable may speak to a harsher and more opportunistic approach to exploiting “wild” natural resources, compared to exploiting domestic animals and crops. Domestic animals and crops require the expenditure of human labor to raise or cultivate, for one thing, which may make them seem like more of an investment; perhaps, too, animal slaughter or crop harvesting is also viewed as more reliable, more under human control, than the outcome of a fishing or hunting expedition.

Though overfishing has increased significantly in the last several decades, the genesis of unsustainable practices can be found in the medieval period, argues Richard C. Hoffmann. “By the end of the Middle Ages, essential elements for present-day global fishery crises were in place in European waters…. Overexploitation, habitat destruction, selective predation on large or prestigious species, and human competition without regard for the resource were all part of medieval experience.”8 While The Fisherman and the Fish is a brief text and a small example, compared to Hoffmann’s sweeping environmental history, I think this fable can nevertheless be seen in light of medieval (and post-medieval) beliefs and practices regarding fish as natural resources.

Linnet Heald
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

  1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018, p. 12. ↩︎
  2. Ben Edwin Perry, ed. and trans., Babrius and Phaedrus: Fables, Loeb Classical Library 436 (Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 10–13. ↩︎
  3. Latin text from J. Wright Duff and A. M. Duff, eds., Minor Latin Poets, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, 1934), p. 712. English translation is my own. ↩︎
  4. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Clarendon Press, 1879), s.v. “lītus.” ↩︎
  5. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Clarendon Press, 1879), s.v. “rhombus.” ↩︎
  6. Lewis and Short’s Latin dictionary defines smaris as “a small sea-fish of inferior quality.” Taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, in the mid-18th century, used smaris as the species name for a particular fish, the deep-body pickerel (Sparus smaris, now called Spicara smaris). ↩︎
  7. Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, The History of the Graeco-Latin Fable (Brill, 2003), vol. 3, p. 747. ↩︎
  8. Richard C. Hoffmann, The Catch: An Environmental History of Medieval European Fisheries (Cambridge University Press, 2023), p. 413. ↩︎

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Reading Medieval Fables as Trans Narratives: The Ass and the Lion Skin Revisited

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about four fables where animals “dress up” as another species, and looked at these in terms of socioeconomic class—this is what medieval authors like Marie de France, Robert Henryson, and Alexander Neckam were clearly aiming to comment on, and these fables can be seen, I argued, in the context of medieval sumptuary laws and anxiety about social mobility.

From an illustration by John Tenniel, “The ass in the lion’s skin,” 1848. New York Public Library.

I’d now like to revisit the same fables, considering them this time through a different lens: trans experience. This way of interpreting these fables has been on my mind the whole time. In discussing the fables with other people, I have found that they readily come up with trans readings of them (i.e., they suggest to me that the stories about one species wearing the skin or feathers of another can be seen as metaphors for being transgender, and that a trans reading of them could be interesting). As someone who hasn’t really worked in trans studies before, I have felt underequipped, in terms of offering a theoretically-informed take that meaningfully incorporates other scholarship in this area (there is a lot of exciting new work being done in trans medieval studies; see “Further Reading,” below, for a very non-comprehensive selection).

Despite this hesitation on my part, a trans reading of these fables feels far more salient to me right now than a socioeconomic one, and I think there are more urgent ethical stakes; medieval sumptuary laws are obsolete (and were, at the time, apparently rather ineffectual), whereas trans people are currently a hypervisible minority whose rights are under attack.

The thing is, when you look at these fables as trans narratives, they send a bleak message. These fables essentially suggest, as many other fables do as well, that we can never escape certain fundamental, supposedly “natural” categories, and that trying is dangerous and inadvisable. I’d like to look more closely at a couple of versions of a single fable, The Ass and the Lion Skin (Perry Index 188/358), to illustrate how this message is set up, as well as the parallels one could see between what befalls these fictional animal characters and the experiences of trans humans.

The first version I discuss is a Latin prose fable from the thirteenth century, by Odo of Cheriton:

Asini uiderunt quod homines male et dure tractauerunt eos, stimulando, (h)onera imponendo. Viderunt etiam quod timuerunt Leones. Condixerunt ad inuicem quod acciperent pelles leoninas, et sic homines timerent illos. Fecerunt sic. Asini igitur, induti pellibus leoninis, saltabant, discurrebant. Homines fugerunt credentes esse Leones. Tandem Asini inceperunt recanare. Homines diligenter auscultauerunt et dixerunt: Vox ista uox Asinorum est; accedamus proprius. Accesserunt tandem; viderunt caudas illorum et pedes et dixerunt: Certe isti sunt Asini, non Leones, et ceperunt Asinos et multum bene uerberauerunt.1

The donkeys saw that humans treated them badly and harshly, striking them and putting burdens on them. They also saw that they [i.e., the humans] were afraid of lions. They decided amongst themselves to put on lion skins, and that way humans would be afraid of them. They did this. And so the donkeys, wearing lion skins, leapt and ran about. Humans fled, thinking that they were lions. Eventually the donkeys started braying. The humans listened carefully and said: “That sound is the sound of donkeys; let’s get closer.” After a while they got up close; they saw their tails and feet and said, “Clearly these are donkeys, not lions,” and they seized the donkeys and beat them very thoroughly.

Odo’s moral then proceeds to analogize the wayward donkeys to “false men” (homines falsi), particularly those in the Benedictine order; his fables often criticized the clergy.

Odo’s version of this fable differs from others in some respects, e.g., the earliest version, which is also in Latin (Avianus, ca. 400 CE),2 or the late Middle English version in Caxton’s Aesop.3 While in the latter two versions, a single donkey comes across a lion skin by chance, in Odo’s telling, the act of donning lion skins is a collective decision by multiple donkeys, a calculated response to their ill treatment by humans. These donkeys aren’t just taking on the appearance of a different species, they are taking on the appearance of a much higher-status species, in an attempt to protect themselves (lions often stand in for tyrants, rulers, kings, etc. in fables, whereas fable donkeys are typically quite abject). If we are reading species as analogous to gender, here, there are, of course, differences of power and privilege when it comes to gender, too. The fact that women and men are not simply treated differently, but unequally, has induced some feminists to assert that transmasculine identities arise as a response to the social pressures of misogyny (i.e., that transmasc people are trying to “escape” womanhood because being a woman in a patriarchal culture is painful). One troubling implication of this line of thought is that a lot of trans people simply wouldn’t exist as such, in an “ideal” society without gender inequality.

In The Ass and the Lion Skin, the wearing of a new skin is not just a matter of appearance; the animal in the lion skin looks different, and they behave differently as well, chasing others as though they were a feline predator instead of an equid beast of burden. Initially, those other characters react to the donkey(s) as if they were indeed a lion, until something gives the donkey away. If we choose to read Odo’s fable through a trans lens (though his aim seems to have been to denounce clerical misbehavior), the fact that it is the donkeys’ brays that give them away might sound familiar to anyone who has dysphoria about their voice not matching their gender identity, and anyone who has been misgendered after starting to speak.

The humans in this fable scrutinize, too, specific physical characteristics—the tail and feet—and on those grounds determine what the donkeys “really” are, and react with violence. I can’t help but think of “transvestigators” who pore over photos of trans people (or cis people that they think might be trans), insisting that a particular feature reveals that the photo’s subject is quintessentially male or female, at odds with their presentation and identity. I also can’t help but think that being “clocked” as trans can indeed be the prelude to experiencing hostility, from hate speech to physical violence.

Not only do the donkeys undergo physical violence, this violence is intended to restore the status quo. It is coupled with a kind of ontological violence—the (re)definition of the target in the dominant party’s terms. “Clearly, these are donkeys, not lions,” the men say before beating them. Even more strikingly, in Avianus’s version, the donkey’s master concludes by saying, “Maybe you can trick strangers with your imitation roar; to me, you will always be a donkey, as you were before” (forsitan ignotos imitato murmure fallas; at mihi, qui quondam, semper asellus eris, lines 17–18). In a trans context, this makes me think of a stubborn family member who insists that they simply can’t perceive or treat their relative as their actual gender identity, because they’ve spent so many years thinking of them as the gender assigned to them at birth.

So, when I look at these “trans-species” fables in terms of transgender experience, my takeaway is depressing. The texts promote a status quo in which no one really can, or should try to, appear or behave outside of the categories “nature” has assigned. They gloss the act of wearing a “new skin” as a form of untenable inauthenticity, and portray the “trans-species” characters as being inevitably put back in their place with violence. These are the lessons we are seemingly meant to learn.

I want to do some kind of reparative reading of these fables, and to find something liberatory or subversive, but I struggle to, because the texts themselves do work in the opposite direction—and transphobes have recognized that. Another famous fable of an animal wearing a different skin—the fable of The Wolf that Dressed in a Sheepskin (Perry Index 451), in which a wolf mimics a sheep in order to better prey on the flock—has been used in recent years by anti-trans authors and cartoonists (who I won’t platform with links—this should be easy to find if you wish). This kind of rhetoric often fixates on transfemininity, in particular, portraying trans women as deceptive and even dangerous. For instance, the trope of predatory men-dressed-as-women attempting to infiltrate women’s bathrooms has been used as an argument for anti-trans “bathroom bans,” which have been passed in 19 US states over the last four years, part of a larger wave of anti-transgender legislation. The “bathroom ban” laws purport to address what is in fact a thoroughly imaginary problem, making bathrooms less safe for anyone who is trans and/or gender non-conforming.

Woodcut of The Ass and the Lion Skin, from a 1479 incunabulum of Heinrich Steinhöwel’s Fables of Aesop.

What do we do with didactic literature, stories that aim to teach lessons—in this case, medieval fables with morals—if the lessons are not ones we want to endorse or to heed, and if the stories themselves are being weaponized against a vulnerable minority? I don’t know. I think one step is to acknowledge that these texts are “naturalizing” social categories by mapping them onto different animal species, in order to suggest that social differences (such as class and gender) are starkly distinct and immutable, impossible to change—as impossible as it would be for a donkey to become a lion, or a wolf to become a sheep. However, as I argued in the previous post, if these social categories actually were “natural,” “biologically innate,” and unalterable, there would be no impetus to tell stories, over and over again, warning people not to act “unnaturally.”

Nonetheless, if we want liberatory or subversive trans fables, we might have to write them, or rewrite them, rather than looking to the medieval versions of these particular texts.

Linnet Heald
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

Further Reading:

  1. Latin text from Léopold Hervieux, Les Fabulistes latins depuis le siècle d’Auguste jusqu’à la fin du moyen âge, vol. 4, Eudes de Cheriton et ses dérivés (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1896), pp. 198–99. All translations in this post are mine. ↩︎
  2. Duff, Arnold Mackay, and John Wight Duff, eds. Minor Latin Poets, Volume 2. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 434. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2006, p. 690. ↩︎
  3. Lenaghan, R. T., ed. Caxton’s Aesop: Edited with an Introduction and Notes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967, p. 179. ↩︎
Tags: animals, Avianus, fables, medieval literature, Odo of Cheriton, transgender , , , , ,

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Planting Seeds of Wonder: Local Farming, Regional Agrotourism and the Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire

Recently, I composed a blog on my role as playwright, academic consultant and creative & theatrical director of two recent Renaissance faires, and I then followed up with a blog centered on the community spirit that imbued our first faire, Wyndonshire Renaissance Faire. This blog will take the second of our inaugural 2024 spring faires, Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, as the topic of discussion, and continue discussion of the community efforts that went into putting this event together at warp speed. In addition, I will discuss the educational and agricultural focus of this faire, which brought regional tourism to North Central Massachusetts and offered the opportunity to create a story that explores issues specific to local and sustainable farming. This year, Enchanted Orchard will commence in just a few weeks, on May 3rd and 4th 2025.

The Gate Leading to the Fantasy Realm of Enchanted Orchard at our inaugural Renaissance Faire, 2024.

As I mention in my previous blog, after building the creative team at Wyndonshire, because of some uncertainty with respect to funding the project by the town of Winchendon, my wife, Rajuli, and I reached out to a local farm and festival venue, Red Apple Farm, owned by Al and Nancy Rose, to see if they might be open to bringing a Renaissance Faire to their business in the event that we needed a change of venue. After pitching the project, the whole team at Red Apple Farm was excited for the prospect, and once Winchendon determined they were able to move forward with the project, we agreed to produce a second “sister” faire with Red Apple Farm, with characters and plot lines intersecting with those at Wyndonshire. I began to conceive of a second fantasy realm, the agrarian kingdom of Enchanted Orchard.

Rajuli and the Nagashri Dancers at Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

Rajuli’s and my ability to produce a second large-scale Renaissance Faire was only possible with the help of our team, what became FaeGuild Wonders, and Red Apple Farm, our incredible partnering venue.  Red Apple Farm embraced our vision and helped shape and grow Enchanted Orchard into the fabulous event that it was, ranked by a popular vlogger, Chelle Belle, as one of the best Renaissance Faires in New England last year (2024).  Al and Nancy Rose, the entrepreneurial owners behind the blooming success of Red Apple Farm, are some of the kindest and most collaborative people I’ve personally had the chance to partner with, and without their leadership, there would be no Enchanted Orchard (and for that matter, no NorthFolk Nightmarket). They partner with local businesses, and are committed to growing regional tourism and community, which is deeply embedded in their mission and the way they run their business.

Orchard Wizard (Richard Fahey) with the Stewards of the Orchard (Al & Nancy Rose) at Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

In addition to Al and Nancy Rose, our Orchard Stewards, Enchanted Orchard thrived because of many other members of the Red Apple Farm team, including Sarah McLennan (who coordinated vendors and helped organize the event), Kirsten Killay (who manages the Red Apple Farm Cidery), Loryn Killay (who spearheads marketing and promotion necessary to advertise the event), Aaron Rose (who redesigned the webpage) and the Sams—Samuel Miller and Samuel Dosset—who constructed the picturesque towering gate that leads into the fantasy kingdom of Enchanted Orchard. The latter Samuel updated the event’s map to account for the faire’s expansion this year, and has become Enchanted Orchard’s royal cartographer.

Kristin Killay and Alicia Pelkey at the Red Apple Cidery also known as the “Toadstool Tavern” at Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

To further highlight the level of Red Apple Farm’s integration into the event, their Cidery—transformed into the Toadstool Tavern for Enchanted Orchard—featured all the different flavors made specifically for the faire. Many of these ciders developed for the event are now standard or seasonal options available throughout the year at Red Apple Farm’s Cidery. Moreover, the cider is a connecting point for our events, as it is one of the main economic exports of the Enchanted Orchard kingdom, and it was available at Wyndonshire as well as an imported drink from their neighboring kingdom.

Mt. Witchusett Witches gather outside the Brew Barn at Red Apple Farm during Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

Red Apple Farm also collaborates with a local restaurant, the Gardner Ale House, which manages the Brew Barn at Red Apple Farm. The Brew Barn is a cozy, tavernesque restaurant on the farm, which serves food and drink, and was crucial for the success of Enchanted Orchard’s second day (Sunday, May 5th, 2024) when the rain threatened to drown out the event. Because of the Brew Barn’s openness to collaborating, we were able to pivot and move many performance acts inside and out of the inclement weather. Although this required a major reworking of the schedule, we did our best to make sure each performer or group had at least one indoor show in case they were rained out during their showtime. While the rain did put a damper on some performances, the event was sustained by adding outdoor fires throughout the faire and bringing many of the performances indoors and the event was a success. Despite the weather, the turnout and experience from patrons on the second day was extremely positive and this gave us the added benefit of a learning opportunity with respect to what to plan for in the case of inclement weather in future.

May Queen (Tammy Dykstra), Knight of the Tree (Quinne Richards) and the Orchard King (Paul Taft), Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

I wrote an entirely new script for this faire, and last year’s story, “Seeds of Wonder,” was a prologue to the first act, “The Romance of the Orchard,” which will commence this year. Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire highlights sustainable farming which was the foundation of agrarian life in the medieval world. The major conflict in this faire centers on the issue of conservation versus preservation. This takes the form of a heated debate between the Enchant Orchard nobility with the May Queen (played by Tammy Dykstra and Siobhan Doherty) and Duke of Thorns (played by Dave Fournier) arguing for the protection of the Thornwood and the creatures that live there, who are part of the kingdom’s broader ecosystem. Alternatively, the Orchard King (played by Paul Taft and Gary Joiner) and Blossom Baroness (played by Jen Knight) contend that expanding the orchard would better provide for the people of the kingdom and foster economic growth for the realm while at the same time minimizing food insecurity throughout the kingdom. This tension is played out in both staged theatrical scenes and numerous immersive skits and side conversations had between members of the Enchanted Orchard nobility throughout the event.

Blueberry Princess (Melanie “Melegie” Long) and Prince of Leaves (Michael Barboza-McLean) reunite at Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

Toward this end, the Orchard King takes advantage of his royal authority to press upon the newly returned Prince of Leaves (played by Michael Barboza-McLean and Vajra Spring), advocating for the virtues of his proposed expansion of the orchard. Because the Prince of Leaves seems somewhat amenable to his ideas and influence, and seizing an opportunity to undercut the wishes of his rival, the May Queen, the Orchard King announces at the end of Enchanted Orchard’s annual Beltane Banquet, that he is betrothing his daughter, Blueberry Princess (Melanie “Melegie” Long), much to her sorrow and surprise, to his rival’s son, the Prince of Leaves, in an effort to “weave peace” in the realm and as a means to press his advantage on the young prince now enfianced to the heiress of the realm.

Knights of Lord Talbot’s Frank Walker and Cameron Hardy battle at the tournament melee in celebration of the Beltane Banquet at Enchanted Orchard, 2024.

However, because of the fast production of this faire, the script was centered primarily on the nobility, leaving many of the other characters to participate in a highly immersive and interactive character scavenger hunt, which invited patrons to find and receive specific items from cast members in order to earn a small prize. This encouraged frequent interaction between character actors and patrons, and the activity was a huge success, especially with the kinderfolk who attend. The scavenger hunt was coupled with a “knight’s quest”, which asked patrons to find a noble from each house and resulted in a knighting ceremony, conducted by the royal champions from the The Knights of Lord Talbot. Moreover, the Sheriff of Thornwood (played by Jennifer MacLean), gave out citations through the day to fairgoers for various offenses and Sir John Fastolf (Frank Walker) held a baronial court to deal out justice for crimes cited by the Sheriff, which might sometimes involve a short stay in the stockades.

Viking Jarl (Jason Sumrall) takes the Sheriff of Thornwood (Jennifer McLean) into custody at Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

As with Wyndonshire, The Green Sash marauders raided Orchard Toward, while the The Mt. Wichusett Witches made secret bargains and brewed magic potions for a number of the Enchanted Orchard nobles, ending with a flash mob dance that led patrons to the final event at the faire, the community Maypole dance which brought performers, cast members and patrons together for a final celebration of spring and the planting season.

May Pole Dance and celebration at the inaugural Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire, 2024.

Some of the theatrical performance groups were familiar from Wyndonshire: such as the The Phoenix Swords, The Harlot Queens,  The Warlock Wondershow and LaLoopna Hoops. Many musical groups were at both faires as well, namely Meraki Caravan,  The Shank Painters, XPresso and Dead Gods are the New Gods. However, there were some new faces at Enchanted Orchard as well, such as Skeleton Crew Theater [giant troll-puppets], Diva Di [Shakespeare drag artist], Massachusetts Historical Swordsmanship [HEMA] [medieval European combat] and solo fire performers such as Samantha Lynne and Luna Faun. This year we welcome some additional performing groups, including the Iconic Sproutin’ Divas [featuring Diva Di and other drag artists], Winds of Alluria [musical group], Michael OJ [magician], Finlay’s Fire Troupe [fire-spinning show], and Captain Tactless [tavern musician], Dume & Glume: Ethical Executioneers [improv comedy show], The Misfits of Avalon [musical group], Bayt Al-Asad: House of the Lion [medieval Middle Eastern combat], and Combatant’s Keep [medieval joust show].

Skeleton Crew Theater’s trolls wander through the Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire. Image by Kit Catlett (May 4th, 2024).

The Orchard King made a surprise wedding pronouncement arranging the union of his daughter, the Blueberry Princess, and the Prince of Leaves, the son of his rival, the May Queen, at the end of last year’s faire. Enchanted Orchard’s second annual event picks up where last year left off, and this year features “The Romance of the Orchard,” in which a love triangle blooms and whispers of revolution and news of “The Wyndonshire Wedding” and the fall of Wyndonshire spreads to all of high and low estate. If you came last year to experience the magic of our inaugural faire, we hope that you return for more wonders and delights. f you didn’t make it last year, and you enjoy immersive storytelling and modern medievalism, we hope you join us this year for Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire 2025—which brings together the local performing art and farming communities in North Central Massachusetts—and combines theater, music, comedy, performance art, interactive activities, family fun and an artisan vendor market.

Master of Arms (Keith Fisher) at the Knights of Lord Talbot Camp during Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire. Image by Kit Catlett, May 4th, 2024.

Fairegoers will be able to learn how to sword fight, try their skill at axe-throwing, ride a unicorn or catch a goblin hayride, watch a joust and medieval melee combat in both European and Middle Eastern traditions. This year, Enchanted Orchard will commence on the first weekend in May, so consider saving the date, and I hope to see you there—just look for the wandering wizard! 

Richard Fahey
PhD in English
Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame

Creative & Theatrical Director
FaeGuild Wonders