Tam a zase spátky

Name: Tam a zase spátky
Location: Ptení castle

martina3683

Jun 22

2 min read

This weekend I attended a fantasy festival Tam a zase spátky, organised by Elaris, that took place in Czech Republic at Ptení castle. I presented there my book Cardinal vices in Middle-earth in conversation with a Czech Tolkien propagator Starý Bral.

The Ptení castle served as a nice, authentic background that helped the visitors feel like in they indeed travelled back in time as it featured some historical furniture. In one room, there was even a display of paper models of other castles.

I also discovered here many new creators who were selling their products there. For example metal crafter Lesklý věcičky, a maker of decorative potions Ozdobeno, leather products makers Dílna Mitgardu, artist Katerina Veliká, jewelry maker V lese vlk, poetry writer Martin Kuneš, and a painter and henna artist Čáry Lesa. Food and drinks were provided by a travelling inn U zeleného Draka. In the outside area, there was even a tent town featuring some dwarven and elven tribes, an archery spot and a blacksmith Kovářství Kliš.

Besides DnD and other table top games, that visitors could play in an actual dungeon pub, they could participate in a cipher game to win a festival badge.

I was only able to find about 5 actual ciphers around the castle grounds, but managed to decipher the secret message anyway.

An interesting point was the notice board with many funny messages about how (not) to behave around the grounds.

The Saturday program started with a talk by Starý Bral, who brought along an actual first edition copy of the Oxford Dictionary volume which Tolkien worked on (more on that in a later post). Here are some pictures from his session.

Afterwards, to pass time until my presentation, we just walked around a bit, exploring the different corners of the castle and taking pictures. I stopped by the photo corner and tried out some accessories. And we even stumbled across unattended Saruman’s staff.