After having blogged about a few original Medieval Jesters, it's time to come up to date and talk a bit about the modern day jesters. A good place to start links with my last post about Thomas Skelton. He was the jester at Muncaster Castle in the 1600's. In 2005, Muncaster Castle decided to re-instate their own jester once again. Every year since then, there has been a competition among modern day jesters to win the coveted title of Jester of Muncaster Castle. As far as I can tell, no other castle these days has a jester of it's own.
This role has been taken by jesters from around the world, with the current Jester being Mr Spin from Australia. Jesters from Great Britain, Holland, France, Germany and America have also competed for the honour. In 2007, the winner was an American performer.
The event nowadays runs for around 5 days with lots of entertainment during the period, usually featuring previous winners or entrants to the competition. Each year the competition takes place at the end of the festival and is compered by the previous year's winner. The competition is sponsored by Jennings Cumberland Ale.
For more information about it, try Googleing for "muncaster jester competition" or similar phrases.
For more information about two previous winners go to:
http://www.aurorascarnival.co.uk/AJ.htm who won in 2008,
http://www.aurorascarnival.co.uk/andywood.htm who won in 2009
http://www.aurorascarnival.co.uk/jonathan.htm who hasn't yet one, but has entered previously and is going back to enter again this year.
Pictures above of Al, Andy and Jonathan, winners and competitor of the Jester of Muncaster Castle.
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