Attention please; I need to harness geek powers for a favor.

[Azhrei]

Basically, on April 16th I have an SCA event called Night of Fools. It's a primarily melee scenario event, but it does have a silly jester themed single elimination tournament. Some of the prizes are for best fool's parrying device-- so something a court jester might have had.

I am calling upon to combined might of TMD and worldly search engines to help me find documentation of at least one jester juggling loaded pistols prior to A.D. 1600. If I can produce this kind of documentation, I can gun people down in the tournament.

Please help!

[Matt]

You should use a bladder-on-a-stick.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Infinite Google skillz turned this up in about a minute:

http://www.silcom.com/~vikman/isles/scriptorium/firearm/firearm.html

[Magi]

You should look for any documentation on whether any Jesters used Kung-Fu. A Kung-Fu jester would school almost anyone, save for MAYBE a Ninja-Pirate-Robot-Bear.


So does this mean you'll be able to use ANY pistol on this tournament, or do you have to use an old school one that the Jesters used back in the day?

[Azhrei]

I have several sources regarding period jester gear, but I'm looking for an instance where a court jester did something for entertainment purposes involving a firearm.

I own three rubber band guns (they fire surgical tubing) for SCA use, so if I can find a source that shows that a jester used a gun to entertain somehow... well, it would be reeeeally funny.

[Jacob Orlove]

A quick search shows that there's a few promising books in the brandeis university library. I'll see if I have time to look them up tomorrow.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Further Googling has produced no jester-connected evidence, but I have learned the Shakespeare text "The Merry Wives of Windsor" contains the word "jester" in Act II. And no, excluding "shakespeare" results from the search didn't find anything better.