I suppose, if you've read more than two or three of these blog entries, that you could justifiably assume that I camp out at the Nevada City Fairgrounds and wait for the next fun event to come along and suck me in. I do spend more time at home than it might seem.But, what am I to do when the annual Celtic Festival comes to town hot on the heels of the Draft Horse Classic? I've loved Celtic music before I could even identify it as such. And the misty moisty lands from which it comes (so far as I know, since I've yet to visit). And the stories. And the mystical history. And the aesthetic (green!). I just love the whole package. There's more than a bit of Irish and English in my heritage, so I'm told. We missed the festival last year because of our trip to Germany, so I was very much looking forward to this one, for sure (for the record, Tom did intend to go, but was under the weather, as they say, this weekend--poor baby!).
To my eye, the Celtic Festivals, of which there are many in the US these days, look very much like the old Renaissance Faires, of which there aren't quite as many anymore, or so it seems. For one thing, "Celtic" in this case often seems to refer to "medieval Celtic", as far as the costumes, decor and handicrafts are concerned. I kept running into (literally) elaborate processions and fancy tent villages full of folks that I'm guessing would have fooled the real Mary, Queen of Scots (that would be her avatar in attendance under the red umbrella), engaging in all sorts of bell-clanging, sword play and banner-waving. Seriously, on a very warm day like yesterday, these folks were wearing 40 pounds each of fabric and fur. I suggest moving the festival to December.
Besides the large number of officially-costumed fair folk, I was surprised by the big percentage of festival-goers who were decked out in complete Celtic garb of one sort or another.
Tightly-laced bodices (complete, as you might predict, with many near-levee overflows, so to speak), flowing capes, fairy wings, peasant shirts, veils and tams. Kilts of the tartan sort were ubiquitous, but there were also quite a few of the more contemporary khaki man-skirt style worn with t-shirts. Locally, this is an item of clothing we've noticed more often as casual male attire than we saw in Southern California, certainly. Don't know what that means.There were enormous Irish Wolfhounds, generally acknowledged to be the world's tallest breed (though Guinness actually recognizes a harlequin Great Dane, Gibson, as the world's tallest individual dog--who lives in Grass Valley, as it happens. Perhaps he struts his stuff at the Danish Festival). These are very impressive animals, especially in a group.
There was dancing, carving, sheep-herding, caber-tossing, massaging (lots of massaging, for some reason), and eating (I had a veggie Cornish pastie-short "a"-and more lovely Lazy Dog ice cream). But the raison-d'etre for the festival is the music. Music everywhere! I was hopelessly overwhelmed by the 7 stages. Favorites were bands like "Enter the Haggis", "Molly's Revenge", "Solas" and a sweet 15-year-old Celtic harpist and her flautist mom who played and sang delicate duets. Not so much the Celtic rap band. Fabulous fiddles, crazy bagpipes, pipes and pennywhistles, drums, accordions, banjos, guitars...such a happy girl, was I!
No need to go into too many of the details, but Nevada County in general, and the Fairgrounds, in particular, are trying to be as "green" as possible. For these events, trash and recyclables are weighed and sorted, and the goals for lessening the impact on landfills keep escalating. Besides encouraging folks to bring their own shopping bags and beverage containers to refill for free at cold water stations, there were new features for this event. Food vendors keep their leftovers for composting and all food/drink containers are either recyclable or compostable. In fact, there are newer products made from corn or wheat which are washable (several uses) and also compost in 60-90 days. Some restaurants in the towns and food vendors at the events already use them.
At this festival, there is a trial program to "rent" them, get your food, then return them to the vendor for composting. No idea how that went over. I got my pastie in a little paper envelope and ate the waffle cone that held my peppermint ice cream. Oh, and I had brought my own cloth napkin into which they put my naan for me to eat on my way home. I think I left almost no trace (as we try to do on our backpacking trips--except John).I stayed all day and into the night. Tom snoozed at home. I think we were both getting the best use of our time. So, hmm. I think I won't be back to the fairgrounds until, um, all the way to this Saturday, for the weekly farmers market.
