At Scarborough: fiery fool.....x

Under the medieval and decaying skeleton of Scarborough Castle, a twinkling sound could be heard. Possibly the same twinkling sound that may have befallen the castles keep hundreds of years ago, where the 'fool by appointment' was performing.

Court jesters or fools were responsible for bringing a smile to the face of a monarch who was feeling angry or who was feeling unwell. The court jesters of the renaissance period can be compared to the circus clowns of today. The first court jesters wore a hat depicting the ears of an ass - the asses tail was added to his costume. The clothes worn by the court jester moved on to gaudy, brightly colored and humerous attire.

Today's medieval reenactment 'fool' or jester, PeterKin carefully lay out his humble rope stage. Possibly not dissimilar from his authentic counterpart. He held a vocabulary full of beautiful shakespearian language which fell off his tongue in a way that made even a passer by sit down and want to be involved in his performance. Peet Cooper's (Peterkin) explained that the traditional cloth hat with 3 points was evolved from the 2 pointed hat that he wore. The evolvement from ass ears to 2 pointed to 3 pointed hat was that the 2 points was also similar to the horns of lucifer, which for a while made jesters fall out of favour.

Peet Cooper now in his 25th year of fooling around. He began his career as a circus clown, but is now employed by English Heritage for his wonderful medieval performance. Apart from fire eating, stilt walking, juggling, Peet is genuinely skilled at having fun, and making laughter. Ancient art cleverly bought back to life! X