Feast of Fools

“The marketing was all the happy stuff and ‘Come to the Feast of Fools; it’s a party!’ with talking gargoyles, confetti and pies in the face.

Dressed in flowing red-and-black monk’s robes, Collister Fahie took a break from practicing his swordplay on the sidelines and said he had driven more than 300 miles from Akron, Ohio, to “get a chance to swing the stick” during the Feast of Fools.

The game creates a sense of community that is palpable — at an event such as the Feast of Fools, where hundreds gather, and at the smaller gatherings of Rising Sun Station, which meets in Jones Point Park in Alexandria every Sunday afternoon.

People enjoyed carnival culture, the feast of fools, as a way to take a whack at the status quo.

In the Feast of Fools, rowdy young clerics in medieval France would mock sacred ceremonies, play dice at the altar, caper about dressed as women or minstrels and stink up the church with the smoke of burning shoes.