Just wanted to say hello! I am a Co-Founder of a medieval puppet troupe just getting started in southern Texas. My partner is a more practiced puppeteer working with animal puppets she makes herself. I have begun to dabble in more human puppets. I recently got the Glorified Sock Puppet, but found the original patter is too small for my hand (making the thing out of linen did not help). Since my partner is also a master seamstress, she will help me enlarge the pattern to fit my needs. The first project will be an over-the-hill fairy named Granny Fae. I will post the progress once we get the pattern to where it will fit my hands.

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff................... Once you enlarge the project puppet pattern you will find that it will fit much better. It is a pretty easy pattern to modify to suit your needs.

Hello ThreeDucks! Medieval puppets? That sounds more than interesting! What exactly do you mean by that?
Seem's "The pond is coming"...

I am a member of the medieval re-enactment group the Society for Creative Anachronism or SCA. SCA members often take on projects crafts that were between the time periods of about 300 BC until around 1600 AD. As you can imagine the range of things to do is immense, but the one thing missing is puppetry. To that end a rag tag band of nutty individuals decided to get together and form a wandering puppet troupe. We named ourselves "Three Ducks in Motley". The plan is to put on random "shows" that you would have seen in medieval times. We will begin with puppets, but we plan to expand to marionettes, shadows puppets, even Japanese Bunraku. I know that the latter is not quite medieval, but who would not want to see that type of puppetry.
To further advance puppetry in our group we are holding monthly puppetry meetings where we educate on a type of puppet or puppet involved story telling. Our first meeting was about the origin of the marionette. Future meetings will be workshops where we encourage members to make their own puppets.

Hey welcome to the club!

Well, 1684 is not all too much out of your range, is it? So Bunraku should be okay.
SCA sounds very interesting. There are medieval market around here, but quite a bit of it would be anachronistic, it is more of a show than anything. But I guess this way you'll have more of an audience. Being truly realistic including rats and fleas would not be so interesting.

Funny you should mention that. We recently planned an event called "Bring out your dead! A Venetian Celebration of the End of the Black Plague. It celebrated the plague that struck Europe from 1348-1351.

Well, I think it would be more than appropriate for Halloween. Do you know "Oh Du lieber Augustin"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_du_lieber_Augustin
That would be a story to be enacted with puppets (Augustin was a ballad- monger in Vienna. Once, so the legend tells us, favourited Augustin drank very heavy and droped in the street. He was picked up by the gravediggers who thought he was a victem of the plague. They carred him of to the massgraves outside the city. There he woke in the Morning and made a giant racket with his voice and bagpipe, until he was saved. He made a song out of this experience and lived fairly well after that). The Wiki article gives the lyrics and an English translation.