Why so serious?

[Riverkilt]

Most curious. I wonder if there are actual cases on record of a knife/sword fight breaking out at Ren Faires or Highland Games? I wonder if there are cases on record of visitors to Ren Faires or Highland Games actually accidently cutting themselves, or someone else, with a knife or sword they brought or bought.

Don't recall any legal eagle's or hawks or lions or pigs running fishing ads on television shouting, "Have you been injured by a blade at a Ren Faire or Highland Games?? Call our legal team at ....."

[Panache]

Ron and all,

The tie down policy is simply common sense.

98% of the attendees know better than to wave blades about in a crowd.

But 2% don't and so this rule is to prevent this minority from hurting someone.

Renaissance Faires have insurance fees to pay for and a responsibility to take care of the families that attend. It seems a fair compromise that the cast members can draw blades as part of the event but attendees can only carry them.

In the unlikely event I should find myself at a Renaissance Faire and find myself under attack from Orcs, I think that my little leatherman mini tool will free my sword in time for me to cry "and out swords and to work withal" and have at

Cheers

Jamie :ootd:

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Most curious. I wonder if there are actual cases on record of a knife/sword fight breaking out at Ren Faires or Highland Games? I wonder if there are cases on record of visitors to Ren Faires or Highland Games actually accidently cutting themselves, or someone else, with a knife or sword they brought or bought.

I can't speak to people getting cut, but I do recall a person being shot at the LA RenFaire back about 1978 or thereabouts. A group called "The Night Watch" used to fire a musket salute from a hill top as "good Queen Bess" would pass through the village. All went well until one of them forgot to remove the ramrod from his matchlock. A woman, about 300 yards away, ended up with the ramrod thru her arm, and it was lights out for "The Night Watch" as far as the Patterson's (producers of the RenFaire) were concerned.

Maybe that's why the guy's with the big swords look so serious. Maybe they're worried about having brought a sword to a gun fight.

[Jack Daw]

Most curious. I wonder if there are actual cases on record of a knife/sword fight breaking out at Ren Faires or Highland Games? I wonder if there are cases on record of visitors to Ren Faires or Highland Games actually accidently cutting themselves, or someone else, with a knife or sword they brought or bought.

In a way. Ironically, it was with a pocketknife....

from May 18 2006 Navasota paper report:

Man gets 55 years in Renfest slaying

By APRIL AVISON
Eagle Staff Writer

ANDERSON - A Montgomery man was sentenced to 55 years in prison Wednesday after a Grimes County jury heard a tearful plea from a mother whose son was stabbed to death at the Texas Renaissance Festival two years ago.

Brent William Noland, 21, was found guilty Tuesday (Eagle, May 17) of murdering U.S. Navy seaman Brandon Smith, 23. Noland also was ordered to pay the maximum fine of $10,000 for the first degree felony. He will be eligible for parole consideration in 27 1/2 years.

The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for more than three hours Wednesday as they considered a maximum sentence of life in prison or giving Noland probation.

Grimes County District Attorney Tuck McLain said he was pleased with the outcome.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the fact that he was 19 years old [when the crime occurred] played a role in the sentence," he said. "There's no doubt the jury struggled with that."

Defense attorney Terry Yates of Houston asked the jury to find that the offense was a crime of passion, which would have allowed a sentence of between two and 20 years, but the jury didn't reach that conclusion. Instead they considered a punishment range of between five years to life in prison, McLain said.

Yates, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening, also asked that Noland be placed on probation.

Noland and Smith met in October 2004 at the Texas Renaissance Festival near Plantersville, according to testimony presented during the two-week trial. Prosecutors say Noland became separated from his friends and asked Smith if he could borrow a cell phone. At the end of the day, Noland and Smith met up again, and Noland's friends began arguing with Smith's sister Kristin, according to prosecutors.

Smith stepped in and was stabbed 19 times in the chest and back, according to testimony. The force of the thrusts caused the tip of the 5-inch pocketknife to break off in one of Smith's ribs, McLain has said.

Yates argued that Noland was acting in self-defense and pointed to a stab wound in his thigh as evidence of such. Prosecuting attorneys argued that the wound may have been self-inflicted. Only one weapon - the one used to stab Smith - was found at the crime scene.

Two pastors and Noland's mother, Sue, testified on the defendant's behalf at the Grimes County Courthouse.

Smith's mother, Janet Folsom, took the stand and spoke about the losses she's suffered. Brandon Smith was the third of her four children to die an early, tragic death. Her first son, Jason, drowned in a swimming pool in 1980, and her youngest child, Jeremy, died in March 2003 in a four-wheeler accident in Madisonville.

Her husband died of a heart attack when Brandon Smith was 6 years old, Folsom said, as tears filled her eyes.

She said she attended the Renaissance Festival on the day Smith was stabbed. She left the event separate from her children, Brandon and Kristin, and recalled seeing ambulances and police cars driving past as she was on her way home.

"I just had a gut feeling," she said. "I said, 'I feel like something's happened to the kids.'"

Her neighbors were waiting outside for her when she got home and they took her to the hospital, Folsom said.

"I knew the lady at the [emergency room] window," Folsom said. "She started crying, just shaking her head."

Folsom later saw her son lying on a gurney with a sheet over his body.

"Kristin is not the same person anymore," she said after being asked about how Brandon's death has impacted her family. "She's just lost. She doesn't know how to be an only child."

Kristin Smith testified that she's been diagnosed with post-traumatic shock disorder, anxiety, depression and insomnia.

Noland doesn't have a prior felony record, but Magnolia police officers testified during the sentencing hearing that he was arrested in December 2004 and again in January 2005 for possession of marijuana. Prosecutors have said Noland had been drinking and smoking marijuana at the festival on the day Smith was stabbed.

Another man, Noland's friend Jonathan Damuth, also has been charged with murder in the case, but a trial date has not been set, McLain said Wednesday. Authorities say Damuth kicked Smith in the head while Noland stabbed him.

[Zardoz]

To be clear, the 2004 Texas Renaissance Festival incident that Jack Daw mentioned actually happened in the parking lot after the faire closed.