This past weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to meet a man whose reputation truly precedes him. Gaffer Applewright is a fixture of the West Coast renaissance faire circuit. He came to Shrewsbury this year to present not only his trademark 'apple trick' (a story he tells as he cuts an apple in a way that makes it come apart like a puzzle) but also a speech he called "Cabbages & Kings" which was a summation of Elizabethan history. He's a fascinating man with a wise and gimlet eye, a quick wit and a penetrating mind. So it was that I felt greatly honored and somewhat taken aback when one of my companions pointed to him and said "that's going to be you in thirty-odd years!" I can only hope so.
After his speech we had some time to discuss the politics and oddities of renaissance culture, from the search for a cure for scurvy to the nuance of Elizabeth's reign. It was the pinnacle of my time at Shrewsbury Faire.
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