Mittlealtermarkt auf Schloss Lenzburg

By now you've heard more about Schloss Lenzburg than most people would ever care to. We can't stay away: the kids love the children's exhibits, and I don't blame them.

I know I said before that we were making our last trip to the castle, but, true to form, I couldn't resist squeezing in one more visit before it closes for the season in the end of October. The castle had mailed me several fliers about a Middle Ages market that they were planning. I really respect what they do at the museum--I think their exhibits are incredibly clever--so I wanted to see what kind of a festival they might produce.

A popular one. Apparently I wasn't the only recipient of the advertising blitz for the festival. We left early to get to the castle because we were nervous about how full the buses going to the castle would be, as they only leave from the train station twice per hour.  It turned out that the city doubled the number of buses going to the castle, but they were still crowded, and more than one person boarding the bus was wearing a helm or chain mail or a quiver of arrows. (Weapons on the bus!) Why not, I guess...where else were they going to wear those things?

I got the impression that, to set up a stall at this event, the merchants were obliged to have a free activity or craft or demonstration for the kids or grown-ups.  Everyone had something: there was a fletcher who had set up a target, so that you could practice shooting arrows; a miller had brought some different small, hand-operated millstones for the kids to manipulate; a felter had set up a free station for the kids to make little flowers; a vendor of sealing wax and fountain pens had set up a station where the kids could try calligraphy and make their own seals; and on and on.

Sampling honey wine

A honey merchant brought his bees

A woman, selling chain mail ren-fest wear, helped Ella
make a chain-link bracelet.

There were a couple that were extra-impressive: a smith was there, helping kids make miniature horseshoes, having them pound on iron rods hot  from the fire, and there was an artist there who made beads, and she helped the kids make little beads of their own, using a blowtorch and a glass rod.

When we first arrived, the courtyard was quite empty, and we didn't guess that it could possibly get so crowded: by the time we were ready to let the kids do crafts, most of the lines were too long and the atmosphere too hectic. Unfortunate.

One of the jugglers impressed me to no end when he played
the double flute.

Instead, we spent our the quiet first hour at the market, watching some musicians and a very silly pair of jugglers.  The latter a wonderful fairy tale as they did their show, a story about a king who made them juggle horse apples (the juggling balls) and then a tale about how they trapped a little fairy (a diablo).  I'm always tickled (and a little relieved) when the kids show evidence of actually learning some German, and so it made me really happy when Ella talked about the story, which she apparently followed quite well.

We also had our lunch early, passing by this tasty treat...

Hot mush and fire-boiled carrots, yours for about $15 per bowl.

in favor of the dining hall, which we visited before the rush. The food they served there was approximately middle-aged fare as well, roasted chicken and sausages and vegetable soup. But our favorite part was the apple juice, which they sold in little pottery mugs.  To have your juice, you had to put down a seven-franc deposit on the cups.  But there was something about drinking it out of that cup: we were all convinced that we were drinking fresh-pressed apple juice, and we were raving about how delicious and fresh it tasted...until Dennis noticed that they were filling the earthenware jugs of juice from a box of süssmost. It was nothing fancier than generic grocery store juice.

Ella with her juice cup: presentation is everything.

Alex and I finished our food early, and, with his wiggling, he convinced me it would be best to take him outside.  We drifted over to a potter who was selling little bird-call whistles.  It seemed half the children in the festival had one around their necks, and so, two notes above the din of the courtyard, there was the was an ever-present chirping. I gave in to Alex's longing stare, and we brought home a chicken-shaped whistle and, in the meanwhile, added to the ambient noise of the festival.

And then Alex led me over to a craft table, where some women were helping kids make scented sachets.  Alex was ridiculously eager to make one, and so we stood in line to put together our little bag, and then to grind some soap to go inside, and then, finally, Alex got to solemnly sniff at all the scented oils on offer before choosing the "süsse Träume" one: sweet dreams.

Only after we walked away from the booth, across the way to the tanner's station, did Alex's reasoning for wanting to do that craft reveal itself.  I recoiled from the stench of whatever it was that the tanner was using to strip and treat the leather, almost gagging.  And then I noticed, next to me, Alex, smugly burying his nose in his little sachet.  "See, Momma? That's why I made this." Well, aren't you clever.

This guy was walking around all day with a barrel full of weapons, gathering
children to him and then pitting the kids against each other, coaching
them in weapon usage. I tried to talk the kids into fighting, but, for the
first time in their lives, they had no interest.

A brewer, straining his hot mash

And the brewer's kids, serving the alcohol. Ah, Europe.

The herald, calling out the
start of each show from the
top of the castle.

 Amidst the stalls, there was always a show of some sort going on: they had storytellers, and some actors from a theater troupe, and musicians, and the jugglers did a couple of shows.  But most of these acts were too German-intensive to hold Alex's and Joey's interest for long. So instead we took a little break from the ever-growing crush of the courtyard and took the kids up to the castle playroom, where they got all dressed up and enjoyed all the now-familiar toys.

Dennis turned around and went back outside almost immediately when we realized the falconer show was about to start: of everything on offer, he was most interested in that, and he said it was pretty impressive, watching the enormous bird catch and retrieve a lure.

But after that we finally gave in and let the crowds chase us home. We did stop and play in the the little wooden playhouses one last time on our way out, and Ella found a stash of buckeyes that another kid had gathered and abandoned.  Like a good little squirrel, she piled them into the basket of our stroller.  Being from Ohio, I have a certain fondness for buckeyes, and now we have a big bowl of them in the middle of our kitchen table.

That, along with the headache I have from Alex's bird whistle, and the heavily-perfumed scent that is drifting from Alex's boudoir, er, bedroom--well, they all make for appropriate souvenirs from a hectically fun day.