Long white hair rippling down his back, a knight in full Templar regalia stops to peruse the goods at the weaver’s stall, unmindful of the drizzle that wets the sword at his side. A lady in flowing green robe—her blond hair pulled up in a soft chignon under a gleaming tiara—glides past him, while a young boy in a green and red tunic gapes at them in a slightly undignified manner (for a page).

It is the last Sunday of the medieval fair in Pavone Canavese, and the whole village dresses up for the part. Every nook and cranny houses a craftsman carving wood, making candles or weaving wool. Stalls sell helms, swords and charms. Taverns throw open their cellars, where they serve meat cooked over an open fire (although they do give you forks, in a slight departure from period authenticity). A juggler works miracles with balls and scimitars, falconers fly their birds and a minstrel sings.

Knights milling about before the tourney


Papa gets what he deserves


Nicco assesses the wares at the market


With a falconer

But best of all—at least as far as Niccolo was concerned—is the jousting ground, where knights prove their prowess in a tournament. Two tournaments actually—the Italian historic duel championship, and the international one. Sitting on Manfredi’s shoulders, Niccolo soaked it all up, and occasionally waved his wooden sword to take part in the action (coming perilously close to chopping off his father’s ear).

Watching the tourney

I was seated a bit further back on the butcher’s bench feeding Caterina—the young blue-eyed lady offered me a place to seat when she saw me fiddling with bottle and baby—and only heard the clang of the knights’ swords, slow and measured at first, then fast and furious as the pace changed. I am happy to report that the clangor of swordplay doesn’t spoil Caterina’s appetite (after all, it is far less noisy than the building works we are forced to endure at home).

Caterina enjoys the tourney

Indeed, it was alse less noisy than Nicco’s laughter when he tried his hand at the medieval games in the games court. He was pretty good at the period equivalent of skittles, failed miserably at fish the bottle, and loved firing a mini crossbow against a knight-shaped target. But his favourite game was rolling a ball along two poles then opening the poles up in time for the ball to drop into a bowl. It was devilishly difficult, and he succeeded—which is probably why he liked it so much.

Playing skittles


My little crossbowman


A novel ball game

It was reat fun, but my favourite bit was bedtime, when Nicco, perhaps inspired by all the valiant action he saw during the day, came up with a story about a dragon.

“One upon a time there was a baby dragon. One day, some bigger dragons came. They were big and fast and hurt his family. And so the baby dragon blew out fire, and made a wall of fire and sent the bigger dragons away.”

It’s short and simple, but I love that he came up with it all by himself and told it to me at bedtime.