At Bristol Renaissance Faire on Saturday, J. and I came upon these two combatants. The objective is to be the first to pop the balloon on the helmet of your opponent. The smaller of this pairing appeared to be two to four inches shorter than the larger, who, we thought, would win in short order (so to speak).

To our surprise, the tiny knight not only was the victor in both duels we watched, but he won them relatively quickly by taking an active, aggressive approach to the bigger but more defensive knight, whose strategy seemed to be to hold his sword up as much as possible to protect the balloon — unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

The match over, they removed their borrowed armor and gear — which is when we realized, to our great surprise and bemusement, the wee winner was a little girl, and the defeated enemy apparently her older brother. Now that I see the photo I notice the girlish white flip flops. Neither the boy nor the girl spoke, but he seemed ready to move on to the next amusement, while the girl couldn’t wipe the ear-to-ear smirk off her face. Truly a Kodak moment I hope she remembers forever.