Becoming a Renaissance Faire Lady

"We portray; we don't pretend," says Carro, stressing the difference between the kind of dork I'm supposed to be as Whiskey Grimes and the kind of dork who wants to wear chain mail while chugging a Bud Light in his Ray-Bans. With a full court, including King Henry and Queen Anne Boleyn (played for the last 20 years by Allen Hopps' wife, Shannon, who has ruled at Scarborough for far longer than the real, ill-fated Queen Anne sat on England's throne) as well as ladies-in-waiting, guards and foreign dignitaries, Scarborough Faire is one of the best-respected Renaissance fairs in the country. The players are experienced actors and, most important, grown-ups.

"You know you're in trouble when King Henry is 17 years old," jokes Hopps, who started by performing all over the country at fairs as an experienced stilt-walker. Up to 12,000 visitors a day trudge over the 35-acre fairgrounds, open weekends through Memorial Day. Scarborough is now in its 28th year and getting bigger with each spring. And it's a family business—the same two families have owned and operated the fair since its inception.

Mid-afternoon on a Saturday, Sir Daniel and I are making fairgrounds rounds, stopping women who treat Faire like Halloween. That is, they use it as an excuse to dress like a slut or, in Faire parlance, a tart. They favor fairy wings and corsets and must have their "papers" to avoid being arrested or fined by Sir Daniel, who does not allow troublesome fairies to gad about without proving their innocuousness. (Fairies are cute but hardly good-natured, a fact that comes as a surprise to most monster museum-goers who tend to forget that Tinker Bell was a selfish bitch.) They can pick up registration cards at the museum, and many Faire fairies carry the cards with them in pouches, should they be stopped by Raptus or Krane.

Standing near one of the Faire kitchens, Sir Daniel and I are picking out patron targets when we spot Sir and Lady Furry, a couple clad exclusively in animal fur, with white fuzzy bra and miniskirt for the woman and a fur kilt for the gentleman. They have gone all out...except for the elaborate plastic stroller pushed by Lady Furry. Their baby babbles happily, enjoying all the modern conveniences of bottles and diaper bags, unaware that his parents had time to fashion form-fitting fur swimsuits but couldn't be bothered to throw even a fuzzy blanket over the pram. Anyone missing a new human, circa 2008? There's a kidnapping cave couple on the lam.

I'm taking it all in on my first tour as Whiskey Grimes, Magnificently Mediocre Monster Hunter in Training, and the prospect of running up to patrons and asking them if they've had their children tested to see if they're goblins, a favorite monster hunter bit, is decidedly scary. Not because I fear rejection from unbelievers intent on mowing me down in their hunt for a turkey leg, but because I'm afraid of getting the lore wrong and disappointing Sir Daniel. We spent months planning costume and character, and to really be magnificently mediocre would break my dorky little heart.

My journey into extreme nerdery began with a routine trip to Scarborough last May, a place I was sure would be full of easy targets for a surly journalist looking for a story. But fate brought me to the Mythical Monster Museum and Sir Daniel, who steadfastly refused to break character as I attempted to interview him. What did he do during the week? Vanquish ghosts. Where did he live? Nocturne Keep, the castle inside Scarborough Renaissance Festival, home to the monster museum. Why did he dress all in black? Because ghosts see in the negative, thereby making him glow with threatening light-power. Also, it's slimming.

A year and several hours-long phone conversations on the art of character-building later, I stood in the attic of Nocturne Keep, holding still while Raptus and Krane tossed axes, mallets and belts my way, fastening me up with several pounds of monster-hunting accoutrements and placing a black beret on my head. Costume in place, I was ready to transform. But into whom?

I have never been particularly fond of my surname, but ever since I came home from the pharmacy with a bottle of medicine for my cat that read "Whiskey Grimes," I knew I was on to nomenclature of greatness. Whiskey Grimes: wizened gold prospector or world-weary bluegrass banjoist? When Dan Carro heard the animal's name, he immediately suggested it for my character. After all, Indiana Jones was named after the family dog.

As for my personality, we decided I would be a kind of medieval Trinity à la The Matrix, using my innate talent to conduct thorough monster ass-kickings in an attempt to avenge the death of my family, killed years before by the zombie virus. One of my first tests would be to tame the monster museum's "live" troll—a gangly guy in a big-eared, long-nosed mask constructed by Hopps.