Here where I now live in CA they have a Renaissance Fair each year. They sit up a camp and dress and act the part of their character, a real person of King Arthur's day. They are very serious about this. They also have jousting and sward fighting. And you know what? One of their favorite past times is story telling. Can you believe that? Now wonder where all these good people on this list for the past few days got their desire to tell so many stories? Strolling amongst these characters in their fancy or peasant dress and witness the bad guys being put on public display in the stocks while listening to the dialect of the time. It is easy to identify it all with our early hill folks back in SW VA, TN, and KY and see where they were coming from. And their songs are not unlike the ballads we have been discussing. Near San Francisco they had the Blackwood Forest and a permanent village where these characters had their festivals all summer long. Their serious research and accurate reenactment of the times can easily put me back to Old Frederick Towne and Baltimore, MD where my ancestors first lived in this country before moving on to Montgomery County and then migrating to Wythe, Smyth, Washington and Russell Counties. Robert Crabtree