He has been called Superman, but never before has Tim Tebow been called a knight. And yet, to the people of Hoggetowne, that is exactly what he is.
He is a great knight, great of stature and great among men, said David Reed, a horn herald for Hoggetowne's king and queen.
The nation of Hoggetowne wants to be on good terms with Tebow and The Gator Nation, he said.
The two nations mingled Saturday and Sunday at the 23rd annual Hoggetowne Medieval Faire, sponsored by the City of Gainesville.
The Faire will resume this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The Gator Nation should know that the members of the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire are a bit, well, different.
Instead of capturing children and selling them as slaves, as a dishonorable Hoggetowne gypsy would do, Erinn Rose Koch Riker, also known as Lady Gypsy Rose, said she dances and sells jewelry and handkerchiefs.
Being a gypsy has a mystique to it, said Lady Gypsy Rose.
"I use that to my advantage," she said.
But Vladimir, also a Hoggetowne gypsy, said there are a lot of misconceptions about gypsies.
"They're actually very honorable people, but their conception of society is different from everyone else's," he said.
Artisans and royalty also grace Hoggetowne.
There's Chelsea Burke, who owns the Gypsy Tails booth and sells hair extensions in braided shades of bubble gum pink, red, blue and brown.
There's John Hoke, or Sir John the Rosedipper, who sells waxed roses that last forever. There's even a King William and a Queen Caroline, who have attended a Gator game. Linda Piper, the Faire's coordinator, said about 12,000 people attended on Saturday and 9,000 on Sunday.
The merchants come from as far as California, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and each year the Faire allows them to reunite, Piper said. Chris Hernandez, 23, a Gainesville medic, said the Faire is a fun, wholesome event.
"I guess it's just a simple excuse for people to unify over a simple cause," he said.
People watched jousting by the New Riders of the Golden Age and saw Kitty Tolson Carroll's Birds of the Gauntlet program.
In a living chess match, players dressed as chess pieces acted out a game. Jen Shumilak, who plays the mandolin and the concertina for the dancers, said Morris dancing renewed national pride in England.
Whether it serves the same purpose in Hoggetowne is unclear, but one thing is certain, "Everything old is new again, right," Shumilak said. "Everything that started then comes back around."
