Locals and medieval enthusiasts left the 21st century behind at Dragonstone Springs during the Arkansas Renaissance Festival’s opening weekend from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.

Guests got to dress up and engage in Middle Age activities ranging from archery to ax throwing, witness live demonstrations of blacksmithing, glass blowing, leather working and rope making, as well as compete in a royal archery tournament and costume contest.

Founder Patrick Taft worked at H&R Block for almost two decades before becoming the owner of Dragonstone Springs, a permanent 15th-century village spanning 80 acres, in September last year.

His daughter Tanis Taft said, “He went from working behind a desk to running a tractor.” 

She said she got her father into Renaissance festivals after she took him to the Muskogee Renaissance Festival in Oklahoma. 

“We went out there, and he just loved it,” Tanis said. “What really brought it for him is he was sitting down, getting ready to eat. He was looking around and he saw something that he’d never seen before, and that was a furry, and he didn’t know what it was, but he was like, ‘Man, these people are here doing what they love, and they’re happy.’”

She said her dad saw families of hobbits with children pushing a wagon and passing out potatoes.

“Right after that he saw another guy that was dressed up, and he had these ladies, and he was confident strolling in,” she said. “He thought anywhere else, this guy would be a nerd and an outsider and an outcast. When he comes to the Renaissance festival, he is the man. He is in.”

She said her father “loved having seen all these different people that came in so many different forms, just getting to do what they love.”

“He wanted to create that here in Arkansas as well. He actually just got three grandchildren in two years,” Tanis said. “He was retiring, and he said, ‘I want to create something for my grandchildren and where they can come and they can be themselves, and they can enjoy just the whole different world and variety that the Renaissance festival brings.’

“My favorite memory today would be the fact that I got called over to maypole, and I thought it was for work, and it was because my dad wanted to do maypole dancing,” she said.

She said maypole dancing is “almost like the Renaissance version of line dancing,” where people dance around a pole decorated with ribbons and flowers.

Tanis works at the Guild Hall and is responsible for answering questions, handling the lost and found and selling souvenirs.

Kelly Chrisbacher said she and her husband Martin are “weekend Renaissance freaks.”

She said, “We’ve always been into fairies and dragons and medieval — romanticizing that period. Not that we’d actually want to live in that period, but we can fantasize about it.”

She said they once attended a Renaissance festival in Arizona that went on for three months.

“We had a Greyhound, and so we would go to the festival with our Greyhound and work in the booths,” Kelly said. “We would take walks and strolls, and people would take our pictures. We loved being in character and the culture and the people that are behind the scenes are so genuine and so real. We love it.”

Martin said what he likes the most about going to the festivals is that “she goes with me.”

He handmade most of their costumes or found the materials at Goodwill, such as the pair of women’s boots he wore. 

Kelly said, “And I just picked this [a stick] up off the ground.”

Martin said walking in was “a little skeptical” at first.

“But once we saw the layout, it was like, ‘This is going to be fantastic,’” he said.

Kelly said, “I think we can see the future because we’ve been to other Renaissance festivals, and we will be coming back year after year to see the progression. It’s got a long way to go, but we’re so proud of what they’ve done in such a short period of time.”

Noel Cleyvn, who helped build the stadium for the jousting arena, provided ribbon bracelets to young Renaissance participants.

“I just ask them if they would like a bracelet and call them a princess, and they smile,” she said.

“I’m making those core memories for those little girls to grow up and enjoy this environment.”

She said she was a patron of the Highland Games at Dragonstone Springs back in May.

“It was like the really soft opening when they first had the land, and they had Scottish throwing logs and they had a couple of the stages open, and we wandered about for several hours on the same property,” she said.

Cleyvn said reading fantasy books like “Lord of the Rings” got her into Renaissance festivals.

“All of those movies came out as I was growing up. I just enjoyed all of the fantasy things I can get my hands on,” she said.

Shawn Eymard, an archery booth worker, said archery has been his long passion.

He said his landscaping boss ran the archery booth for some Renaissance faires and brought him along “to pull arrows and make sure that people don’t get hurt.”

He said, “It’s been actually great. A lot of people came up to shoot arrows, and the best part, I’d have to say, is seeing the faces when they shoot over the targets.”

“A lot of video games these days, they have swords, archery and all that,” he said. “I just find that archery is one of my favorite forms of combat because you’re not having to be in the enemy’s face, and you can kind of hide off in the trees. It’s best for stealth missions.”

Cat Bumpers, a UCA alum who entered the royal archery competition, said, “You know that scene in Disney’s animated ‘Robin Hood’ where he goes undercover to enter the archery contest? Felt like that. Except I didn’t win, but I had fun.”

Emma Lederman-Rambo, the costume contest winner, said this was her first Renaissance Faire.

She based her costume on Daenerys Targaryen from “Games of Thrones,” which she put together herself. 

“I built the dragon scales by hand,” she said.

She said winning felt amazing because she loves to cosplay, usually as Pokemon Eeveelutions, and that she plans to dress up as a fairy next.

James Graham, the adult male costume competition winner, said he won by default because he was the only one who entered.

He said his wife, Summer, usually sews all of his costumes.

“This is actually one of the only ones I bought,” he said.

Summer said, “I really enjoy cosplay. We started with smaller outfits, and Ren Faire is just our scene.”

She said the Society for Creative Anachronism usually practices traditional sewing, but she prefers what she calls “chaos sewing.”

The festival featured a jousting tournament with the Kings of Mayhem, a team of knights that do a heavy armor style of jousting and had their own show on National Geographic. 

Founder Charlie “the Angel of Death” Andrews, a 14-time world champion and current reigning world champion in full-contact jousting, defeated champion jouster Patrick Lambke. 

“I don’t know if you know this, but I am God’s second favorite son,” Andrews said to the crowd. “He loves two things in life — idiots and jousters. You’re about to see both.”

The Arkansas Renaissance Festival will feature themed weekends until the end of September.

The upcoming themes are pirate and fairy weekend on Sept. 7-8, Viking and Celtic invasion Sept. 14-15, high fantasy weekend Sept. 21-22 and Scottish weekend Sept. 28-29.