These folk were not noble by birth, nor holy by vow, nor scholarly by ink and quill. They were tradesfolk and crafters, brewers and barkeeps, dancers and sharp-tongued tale-spinners—born with calloused hands and quick wit, ever ready with a jest or a jab, a toast or a dare. Some went off to sea in search of a better life and better pay, but they always came home eventually.
They had little in the way of gold, but their laughter was loud, their friendships fierce, and their stubborn joy unyielding.
It is said that during the old wars—when the Abbey of the Gate was still a working cloister and knights rode out in armor to keep the king’s peace—the folk of Cockspur Hill refused to flee their homes, even as armies clashed nearby. Instead, they flung open their doors to the wounded and the weary, offering ale, songs, and sarcasm in equal measure.
One tale tells of a knight who, felled in battle and thought lost, staggered into the Old Well tavern and was so well treated—fed, mended, and plied with such outrageous humor—that he swore an oath to defend the hill and all its mad inhabitants to his dying breath. That knight’s shield, bearing a rooster rampant, hangs now above the main gate of the Cockspur camp each festival season.
As the years passed and the wars faded, the Cockspur folk remained. They grew no more polite, no less irreverent, and certainly no quieter. Their hill became known as a place of rowdy welcome, of bawdy songs and midnight feasts, where disputes were settled with a drinking game or a dance-off, and where no soul need ever feel alone—unless they couldn’t take a joke.
When the Festival at the Friars’ Gate was first dreamed into being, it was the Cockspur folk who insisted it must be more than pomp and piety.
“Let there be revels!” they cried. “Let there be food and folly and footraces! Let there be games for the young and wine for the old, and songs for all in between!”
And so, the Council of Elders decreed that a place must be kept for the Cockspur Clan, that their joyful defiance and rowdy revelry might anchor the spirit of the fair.
Their banner is crimson and turquiose, bearing the image of the proud hill-rooster, wings raised, spurs gleaming.
Their motto—“Raise a Ruckus, Stand Your Ground”—is spoken in jest and meant in earnest.
Their contribution to the Festival is to manage food and drink and they feel honor-bound to try every offering.
Even now, should you visit their encampment during festival days, you’ll hear the clatter of tankards and the roar of laughter long past sundown. And if you stay long enough, you might just be welcomed as one of their own. But beware—should you arrive too proud, too grim, or too high-born for their humor, you may find yourself chasing a greased pig through their camp with a chamber pot for a helmet.
Such is the way of the Cockspur Clan. Long may their laughter echo.