Leaving Mundania by Lizzie Stark Page A

gifts by seven mythic gods. A small boy explained the significance of the gifts in poetry composed for the occasion.
    Then the entertainments really got serious, with fireworks, hunting, bear baiting, acrobats, fake jousts, and plays, with figures from folklore and myth periodically popping out of the shrubbery to praise the queen. On July 10, for example, the queen encountered a folkloric Savage Man on her way back from hunting. The Savage Man was played by poet George Gascoigne, who was responsible for much of the verse recited during the entertainment. He arrived “with an oken plant pluct up by the roots in hiz hande, him self forgrone all in moss and Ivy,” according to a letter about the event that the merchant-adventurer Robert Laneham wrote. 10 The Savage Man was talking to Echo, the figure from Greek mythology, about the events at the castle since the queen had come to visit. Eventually, the figures recognized the queen’s presence, knelt, and humbly praised her.
    It got even larpier. The following Monday, as the queen returned again from hunting, she encountered the sea-god Triton as she passed over the pool that lined one side of the castle. He swam up to her in a merman costume and explained, in verse composed for the occasion, of course, that the Lady of the Lake had been imprisoned in the lake by Sir Bruce, who was trying to rape her in order to avenge his cousin Merlin, whom the Lady of the Lake encased in rock in punishment for his inordinate lust. According to Triton:
    Yea, oracle and prophecy,
say sure she cannot stand,
    Except a worthier maid than she
her cause do take in hand.
    Lo, here therefore a worthy work
most fit for you alone;
    Her to defend and set at large
(but you, O Queen) can none:
    And gods decree and
Neptune
sues
this grant, O peerless Prince
    Your presence only shall suffice
her enemies to convince. 11
    Luckily for the Lady of the Lake, the queen was a “worthier maid,” whose presence scared off Sir Bruce. The lady glided over the water on her moveable island to thank the queen again. As the queen walked farther over the bridge, the mythical musician Arion appeared out of a twenty-four-foot-long mechanical dolphin with a six-piece band hidden inside it, a boat made up so that its oars appeared to be its fins. The Greek god Proteus sang to Elizabeth to thank her for saving the Lady of the Lake. While George Gascoigne and Laneham thought the scene was delightful, another report says that the man playing Arion was hoarse and tore off his disguise to tell the queen that he wasn’t Arion but “honest Harry Goldingham,” here to welcome Her Majesty to Kenilworth. 12
    In royal pageantry, as in a larp, not everything goes according to plan. Gascoigne writes that the scene was supposed to be introduced by a naval battle between Sir Bruce and the Lady of the Lake’s forces that never came to fruition. Likewise, Gascoigne wrote a play about a nymph and had the actors all ready to perform. A Savage Man was supposed to introduce the play in the forest by pleading with the queen to help remove his blindness. The play never went off, most likely because it rained for several days and the opportunity never arose. 13
    Sixteen years later, in 1591, the Earl of Hertford at Elvetham put on a similar entertainment for Elizabeth, albeit a shorter one, during which mythical figures also met her at the gate. The entertainment featured a crescent-shaped artificial lake, dug for the occasion, complete with a “Ship Isle,” a fort, and a “Snail Mount”—whatever that is—from which mythical ocean gods offered her gifts and which served as the backdrop for a battle between the sea gods and wood gods. 14
    Such Tudor pageants are similar to larp in terms of structure and presentation. The action isn’t presented for an audience locked behind the fourth wall; it’s dispersed, presented dynamically, with costumed actors appearing in the woods, on a pond,