By Alexandra Pecci
Correspondent

The crowd gathered at the Queen’s Stage shouts “Hazzah!” as a magician performs his tricks and banters with the audience. Jesters juggle for the queen, knights in full armor prepare for battle, and “Lady Visa” is an accepted form of payment at a tent selling bodices.

This is the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire, a two-weekend extravaganza of performers, merchants, music, and lots of fun costumes. The event transforms the present-day Three Maples Arts & Nature Camp in Kingston into the Shire of the Three Maples, where the year is 1588.

Although Renaissance fairs can often get a bit bawdy, the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire is appropriate for all ages. Kids dressed as fairies and pirates skip around the Shire, and parents navigate strollers between the knights and wenches.

“I gear it toward families,” said the faire’s founder, a Farmington resident who goes by the name “Gypsy-Rose.” “We want families to come and feel comfortable.”

There’s a lot going on across the roughly 40-acre site, where wooded paths lined with banners connect the different areas of the faire to each other.

There’s Spanish guitar, belly dancing, a blacksmith demonstration, magic and minstrel shows, and stories and music on two stages.

In the Adventure Glen, local groups perform, demonstrate and teach their period-specific skills. The Neville Companye, a Maine-based medieval reenactment group, performs live steel combat with clothing, weapons and techniques that are faithful to the 15th century. New Hampshire-based privateers from the Black Rose II perform their Black Powder Demo, during which they demonstrate and give the history behind flintlocks and fire a cannon that’s based on one from the U.S.S. Constitution. There’s also a

“Wench & Strapping Young Lad” auction, kids’ area and food court.
But perhaps the most fun part of the faire is the costumes. Gypsy-Rose says the faire is “fantasy friendly,” inviting people to dress up in costumes ranging from fairies to Pan.

The faire’s “Water Wench,” Tracy Phillips of Concord, who wears a bodice, chemise, and flowing skirts, says she loves seeing what people are wearing.

“It’s just fun to be able to come play, pretend,” she said. “I love the creativity of the outfits.”

Phillips carries several water skins over her shoulder and a basket on her arm that contains the queen’s water goblet to fulfill her duty of keeping the queen properly hydrated.

“You can’t miss her when she’s out,” Phillips said of the queen, and she’s right. Queen Catherine (complete with a lady in waiting shading her with a parasol from the midday sun) is greeted with calls of “God save the Queen!” and is immediately entertained by Baldrick, played by Gary White of Farmington, who’s trying to become a jester by juggling devil sticks.

Everyone — from Baldrick, to Queen Catherine, to the performers and dancers — volunteer their time to the nonprofit event, which donates a percentage of ticket sales to the New Hampshire Food Bank.

All money raised by the auction, which includes items donated by local businesses, will go to Toys for Tots. In addition, co-ed scouting group

Venture Crew 188 is helping to coordinate parking for the faire and collecting canned goods at the gate.

So if you’re contemplating your costume for the faire, pack a couple of cans of food in your leather belt pouch and consider this: Although chain mail might be a little hot for the mid-May sunshine, there’s an advantage to some of the Renaissance garb.

“The cool thing about a hoop skirt,” said the Water Wench, “is there’s a nice breeze.”

If you go:
What: New Hampshire Renaissance Faire
Where: Three Maples Arts & Nature Camp, Kingston, NH
When: Saturday, May 22 and Sunday, May 23 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Cost: $10 for adults; $8 for seniors; $5 for children 5-12; free for children 4 and under
Learn more: www.nhrenfaire.com