North_Ranger
Staff member
Well, I can only speak for the Medieval Market of Turku. Other places, like Hämeenlinna for the Middle Ages and some Satakunta and Åland archipelago communities for Iron Age, organize their own faires as well, but I haven't visited them. To my knowledge, Hämeenlinna's is pretty authentic.
As for Turku, the crew and cast actually take pride in historical veracity. Bishop Hemming, mayor Visthus and lieutenant castellan Knutsson were all real people, and when possible the writers try to incorporate as much of their personalities into the Market play as possible. Also, if there's something interesting going on at the date they've picked up for the Market play, that gets involved as well. This year alone we had:
- mentions of the Novgorodian raiders pillaging and burning Turku in 1315
- Jöns Knutsson getting arrested for dipping into the tax coffers
- men getting drafted to the king's army for the ultimately disastrous crusade of 1351
- rumors of "the black death", or the plague which was at its height at the time in Sweden and Novgorod. Strangely, Finland (or Österland as it was called at the time) seems to have gotten scott-free when it came to the plague.
- the castellan being out of town as part of trade negotiations
Generally speaking the actors themselves take pride in being historically correct: using the correct expressions (hailing "Market peace" or "Mary protect" instead of "afternoon") and gestures (making the sign of the cross, in blessing of oneself or another; greetings, sealing the deal and so forth), using period jewelry and ornaments, such as drinking horns, amulets and such, and generally trying to avoid anachronisms such as mentioning cities or towns that were not founded for a century or two. We try to make the experience as immersive as possible.
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