LIGHTENING UP THE DARK AGES

Suddenly the executioner is thwarted by the Black Knight, portrayed by Ashley Yetman, to the relief of the sorceress, played by Ashley Raines.

Matt Johnston entertained at the Medieval Fair as the court jester.

A maypole dance ended the Medieval Fair.

SCOTT CITY -- Several students have queued up behind Scott City School to have their fortunes told.

One girl at last has advanced to the front of the line on this exceedingly hot day. The fortune teller, Sorceress Ashley, looks into the girl's eyes and pauses, honing her clairvoyant energies.

"I see you will get very hot today," Sorceress Ashley prophesies.

How could Sorceress Ashley presage the girl's perspiration on this 95-degree day? From what unearthly entity do her prescient powers come?

After the students have left contemplating Sorceress Ashley's uncanny ability, a visitor asks her: How do you do it?

"I just make it all up," she reveals, shocking her questioner. Then she points to the bottom of the sign attached to the front of the table where she is seated.

"For entertainment only," reads the fine print.

Although Sarah Reinecke's summer enrichment class for 8th- and 9th-graders -- a new nongraded, voluntary, four-week program -- wasn't for entertainment only, it concluded Wednesday with a medieval fair that thoroughly charmed the other Scott City students, teachers and parents who attended.

In addition to 14-year-old Ashley Raines' fortune telling, other stations in the fair included a medieval clothing display, a puppet show, a court jester and acrobat, a bow-and-arrow presentation and a weapons and shields exhibit. Inside the school, students displayed castles, faux stained glass and other medieval fare.

Matt Johnston, 14, was the court jester. Wearing overalls and with his face painted red, Matt attracted the largest crowd. He was skillful with a whoopee cushion (the younger students observing the station wouldn't realize the cushions didn't exist in the 15th century), and his attempts at cartwheels in imitation of the acrobat were less than graceful.

"Act stupid -- that's what I do," Matt declared. "You just walk around and make people laugh. Do magic tricks and stuff like that. You get a little wet and a little dirty."

Christopher Bradshaw, 13, manned the weapons and shields station.

"All of these are made from cardboard, and we spray painted them," he said. One shield's coat-of-arms declared, "Go Rams!"

Chris noted the preponderance of red on the swords, scimitars, axes, daggers and mace. "Some of them got a little infatuated with blood," he observed.

At the clothing station, Kristin Schaefer, 13, outfitted in a period dress, described how in the Middle Ages people's sartorial leanings corresponded with their social class. And she liked the handkerchiefs.

"You think it would be boring if you just hear about the Middle Ages," she said. "But actually it was pretty neat how the queens would have their special knights that they would give handkerchiefs to. And they would tie it around their arms to show that they were fighting for the queen."

After all had viewed the displays, the exhibits were cleared away for the performance of a medieval play the class' 19 students wrote. It featured an all-star cast including "Queen Guinevere of Scott City," Sir Lancelot, Sir Darquine, Princess Leigha and First Knight.

After the black knight rescued the evil sorceress from the executioner's blade the instant he lifted it above the chopping block and the play ended, the fair concluded with the braiding of pink, green, red and turquoise ribbons in a maypole dance.

The students covered the period from about 476 A.D. to 1450 -- the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the invasions of the barbarians, Charlemagne, the triumph of Christianity, feudalism, the Crusades, imperialism, Gothic art, scholasticism, the famines, the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War -- in preparation for the fair, Reinecke said. She taught the class.

"Every thing you can think of, I think we covered it," she said.

The first-year teacher said she got the idea for the fair from her student teaching in Oran. From that experience she culled the best teaching techniques, she said.

"I wanted them to see that school can be fun," she said. "If it's not hands-on, who cares. And I'm glad that they had a chance to show off today. I think every student needs to show off what they can do."