This past Saturday, I went to the Alafia River Rendezvous. This is a two-week-long gathering of 19th-century "buckskinner" reenactors, but on the last weekend, they open their doors to the public, at which time it turns into something like a Renaissance Faire, only later. And just like a Renaissance Faire, a segment of the public shows up wearing their interpretation of the clothing of the time. (Said interpretations mostly involving (a) no shirt, (b) no pants, (c) an animal head worn as a hat, or (d) all of the above.)

I went primarily for supplies. There are quite a number of merchants there who sell things appropriate for 18th-century reenactment, so I went and stocked up on things I needed: knee-high stockings, an 18th-century-style pocketknife, a sewing kit (at least one button pops off every time I spend a weekend at Fort Matanzas), replica 18th-century coins, a book on tailoring, half-fingered gloves, a pot scrubber, and some other things which I don't remember at the moment. All in all, a successful haul.

Sunday, I went to the library and spent even more money in the photocopier and microfiche printer. I copied about 200 pages out of the first three volumes of Naval Documents of the American Revolution, all about the HMS Falcon (which the group I'm in reenacts), then I printed out two books from the 1580s: De pronuntiatione Linguæ Gallicæ, a treatise on the pronunciation of French in several dialects; and Familiar Dialogues, a book written to teach Frenchmen how to pronounce English. The latter book is written in three columns throughout: the first has English text, the second has the French equivalent, and the third has the English words spelled as though they were French. So, for example, "You deserve to be beaten" is written "You desêrf tou by béétin."

These latter two books will be extremely helpful in my research into English pronunciation, I hope. Yeah, I'm a geek. No kidding.