Dark Lair

		Medieval Feasts The preparations for a special feast started early. By noon the display shelves of the cup board winked and glittered with gold and pewter, the best damask cloths lav smoothly over the high table with the sanap (overlay protecting the tablecloth) on top and the matching towels for the servers ready folded. Ewers, bowls and assay tools were burnished brilliantly and so was the best ceremonial salt cellar.
Behind and above the lord's chair, his Cloth of Estate glowed with embroidery. Minstrels announced the meal, and the usual preliminaries were followed by the ceremonies of the assay: with ritual etiquette, every dish or drink the lord consumed was touched or tasted first by a servant in case it was poisoned. The proceeding was of ceremonial rather than real value, but it gave the servers time to sort out the seating plan to fit in both visitors and members of the household. We have since 2003, feasted this way once a year. Guests shows up in costumes, mead is served and games are played. Read more

How to create a Pinhead costume
2 months of work resulted in a true copy, of the Pinhead costume inspired from the movie Hellraiser. Read more

Instruments of Torture The factor, that our bodies are so vulnerable to pain, was of course of positive benefit to the dedicated torture-instrument designers of the medieval times. Human flesh, soft and sensitive? Well, let's apply heat to it, cut it, pierce it with needles
and spikes, lash it with whips. Limbs were only meant to bend one way? Such vulnerability thereby brought about suffering and disablement, mutilation and amputation, some countries inventing their own devices or adopting those of other countries, all designed to bring pain and punishment. The pages within, shows many variations of instruments and methods used in the medieval times. Read more