Life in a Small Guild
The Town Criers of St. Blaise

by Alma Jill Dizon

Katrina Wellingtonor Elizabeth Spoons as she's known on faire daysdidn't join the Guild of St. Blaise through the formal procedure of applications and auditions. A high school student, Wellington was hanging out one day with members of the parade guild of St. Cuthberts and the town crier guild of St. Blaise. When she found herself dashing about, asking random individuals what was the first vegetable they thought of. Why? She has no idea, and that's probably why she fit right in with the other Blaisers from her first day. e The Guild of St. Blaise is small, consisting of some 20 members who play town criers at the Northern CA Renaissance Pleasure Faire (at the Southern faire, the Guild of St. Blaise has been incorporated with St. Cuthbert's parade guild). As guildmaster Leland Susser, aka Cyrus Thornsqualor, explains, the town criers clear the way for the rest of the parade. To do this, they walk in formation, ringing their brass bellshence their nickname, "the Ding-a-lings." Their crowd control techniques, however, stop short of serious. After all, if people won't clear for the madcap Blaisers, they will for the very large German mercenaries following close behind.

"Exuberant" and "foolish" describe the antics of the members of St. Blaise. Sometime guildmaster Eric Griswold, aka Reginald Thornsqualor, likens the guild to a noisy Keystone Kops routine while Susser prefers to compare them with the Marx Brothers.

According to Susser, the town crier historically had a seasonal job, working mainly at country faires. At these gatherings, the town crier was an important source of information, as he was one of the few villagers who could read. Since the average person didn't travel much, the news that the town criers spread was often untrustworthy and susceptible to evolution as it moved from mouth to mouth. Colorful explanations were plentiful to "reason" away phenomena. For this reason, the members of St. Blaise often resorted to imaginative story-telling, despite their jobs as newscasters.

One such instance was their explanation for why tarps over parade grounds had 5-foot holes in them. Now, a more scientific mind might venture that the openings keep the tarps from billowing like sails and dragging the poles off. Cyrus Thornsqualor, however, postulated that an evil French farmer in Calais had bred flying cows to save on shipping costs. These cows zipped miraculously through the air over the Channel, but when they reached English skies, they suddenly lost their ability to fly and plummeted to the earth. The holes in the tarps mark where cows crashed through, and Blaisers are always on the lookout for more bovine bombers. "Cow!" a town crier will scream and run for cover often directly under a hole, for as Blaisers will tell you, the cows don't strike the same spot twice.
Many guilds participate at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire Northsome with hundreds of members. There is the Guild of St. Michael or the militia, the English members of which are the "Blue Boys" for their uniforms. There are also non-English guilds such as the Scots who compose the Guild of St. Brigid and the Irish with their Guild of St. Patrick. The Guild of St. George features the court of Queen Elizabeth sporting exquisite, high-priced costumes to match such famous names as the Earl of Leicester and Sir Francis Drake.

Less finely dressed but just as memorable are the Puritans, the sailors (known as the Sea Dogs), the Washer Women (who sing and gossip by the well), the Mongers (who might try to sell you two-week-old fish), and the jesters of the Court of Misrule. The merchants and aldermen share the Guild of St. Ives while the cart pullers band together as the Guild of St. Alban. This last guild is of particular importance to St. Blaise since the members run the tavern where the town criers dally during their free time. The Guild of St. Helena is comprised of peasants, street folk, and extras who are more interesting than you might assume. There's a family known as the Pigfarkers, and everyone in it has the first name of Will.

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire's Renaissance Academy of Performing Arts forms the 40 workshops that guildmembers and performers1,200 in total attend during the four weekends prior to opening day. There they learn the Basic Faire Accenta mix of Elizabethan English and modern usage for the sake of understandabilityand interacting with the crowd through a workshop called "Meet and Greet." Other sessions teach improv, period songs, and English country dance.

The faire itself is modeled after harvest faires of the period at which townsfolk would gather for the festivities. The queen and her court happen to be passing through, and incidentally they're speaking a more modern English sometimes referred to as "BBC" to make their class superiority stand out.

The Renaissance Academy of Performing Arts also gives out information on costumes, so that guild members will dress appropriately for their backgrounds. Obviously, no polyester is allowed while sophisticated brocades are only for the wealthy. At this particular faire, the queen wears a white dress that weighs some sixty pounds and, unlike everyone else's costume, belongs to the Centre. The Earl of Leicester wears red kid leather that makes him stand out as the favorite of the queen. The town criers supply their own costumes as best they can. No matter what they wear as individuals, all the town criers wear green sashes and caps striped with either white or pale yellow for easy identification of their guild. The three to five stripes on their caps radiate forward and out. If the point of the cap is off to one side, the wearer tends to walk in that direction.

Like the wandering in the direction of their caps, the members of St. Blaise have names that don't exactly come down in a straight line. Blaisers generally come up with their own names or else come to the guildmasters for help. When children first joined the guildsomething of a favor to a parent in another guilda rule was enacted that all boys had to be named Algernon and all girls Gwendolyn. At one point, there were two brothers, each named Algernon, but the elder moved on to another guild, simplifying matters. One teenaged girl became Wednesday Thursday since, as Susser explained, hers was a long delivery. A girl who wanted the impossible, the French name Monet, got it when Griswold decided that an English pronunciation like "Monette" could work. A member with the anachronistic nickname of Smurf became Smudgea name which the other members prefer anyway.

The town criers are about evenly composed of men and women, the men being mostly "computer geeks" in Susser's words and the women teenagers. They come from as close by as Susser's home town of San Anselmo, five minutes away from the faire grounds, to two hours away in Palo Alto where Griswold resides. A few members go so far as to commute from Crescent City, a day's drive to the north.
Wellington explains that many high school and college students go to faires to escape their parents, hang out, and make new friends. From there, joining a guild is the next logical step. Audrey Porteau, Susser's faire and real-life mother, has an additional theory that the high school girls of St. Blaise feel comfortable with the non-threatening "computer geek" members. As for the "computer geeks," the playfulness of St. Blaise is a way to break loose from their hours spent in front of a computer screen.

Susser himself exemplifies this kind of double-life. By day, he works in Silicon Valley as a computer and CD-ROM engineer. By night, he is the leader and sometime keyboard player of Lee Press-on and the Nails, which he describes as a "Jump Swing band from hell." Judging from the guildmaster's multiple interests, "computer geek" doesn't come close to describing the membershipapart from their means of making a living.

For those interested in joining a guild, be forewarned that most guilds are quite different from St. Blaise. As a small guild, St. Blaise has largely ignored the applications and auditions that many guilds rely on. Along with registration, these happen during the weekends before faires start and make the time period feel rather like rushing for a fraternity or a sorority.

Rather than selecting its members, the St. Blaise personality causes non-Blaisers to disappear fairly quickly. As for the hierarchy, the size and character of St. Blaise makes the usual divisions unnecessary.

As with most guilds, money is hardly a reason for joining. Apprentices earn nothing while more senior members may receive $15 per weekend. A guildmaster may earn up to $40 per day. For those who have to camp, however, a campsite is $10 per weekend and $40 for the season, so travelers have even less profit to show. Major figures such as the Queen and Sir Francis Drake earn real salaries during the faires, but they also do radio and television ads.

St. Blaise remains a fun-loving group with no envy of the royal garb or earnings. As new members join the town criers, they take the official oath: "We the guild of St. Blaise do earnestly swear to make millions identify with actions that make no sense and to endear ourselves to millions by displaying the most anti-social characteristics possible. Polenta."