Steeling the Renaissance style
Published Oct. 21, 2008
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Robert Vaughn demonstrates how to throw an axe at the third annual Central Missouri Renaissance Festival on Saturday at the Boone County Fairgrounds. For a dollar a throw, attendees could toss axes, daggers and other sharp objects at a wooden target.
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Samuel Wilson IV aims an arrow with the help of his father as instructor Cole Dawson looks on at the third annual Central Missouri Renaissance Festival. The event featured Medieval-style entertainment, food, games and costumed characters.
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Cindy Shannon plays a bowed psaltery Saturday at the third annual Central Missouri Renaissance Festival. The psaltery is a harp-like instrument played with a bow.
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Dann Wunderlich/Staff Photographer Burly Rye Spring cheers with other children dressed as pirates at the third annual Central Missouri Renaissance Festival at the Boone County Fairgrounds. Spring traveled with his father, Jason, from Omaha, Neb., to attend the festival.
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Denis Yates, of Sunrise Beach, demonstrates metalworking techniques Saturday at the third annual Central Missouri Renaissance Festival at the Boone County Fairgrounds. Yates travels the Midwest doing shows and selling his handmade crafts.
Boone County got a taste of Medieval Europe this past weekend when the third annual Central Missouri Renaissance Festival rolled into the Boone County Fairgrounds. Several hundred festival-goers from Missouri and the Midwest attended the two-day event.
The festival showcased outdoor entertainment, food, games and many costumed characters. Participants put their skills to test with an archery tournament as well an ax and spear-throwing contest. Dozens gathered to watch local blacksmith Denis Yates craft steel rods into various shapes and objects over an anvil. Yates' work was available for purchase, as were many other hand-made crafts designed by artisans.
Musicians played traditional Renaissance-era instruments for crowds, and vendors supplied foods ranging from turkey legs to kettle corn. The family friendly festival had many activities that were geared toward children, including pretend combat battles. The festival organizers plan to return to the fairgrounds next year for a fourth year.
