DECATUR - There aren't many events where you can turn up as a Knight Templar in full body chain mail and not feel overdressed.

But the good sir knight, alias Lynn Terry from Decatur, fitted right in Sunday afternoon at the Lincolnshire Renaissance Faire which, despite its title, also pays homage to the Dark Ages with its chivalric guys and damsels, distressed and otherwise.

There were legions of both wandering around a grassy area where the fair was encamped in the spacious grounds of ye olde Decatur Conference Center and Hotel. There was also real life jousting on horseback, bellydancers, Shakespearian comedy actors, an escape artist (hard to place his historic period) madrigal singing, dancing and music.

Various venders offered plentiful meat and dainty vittles with one stall bearing the encouraging message "Plague-Free Food." Most of the costumed characters, medieval and renaissance, belonged to the faire, but Terry was a genuine visitor who relishes any excuse to slip into his chain mail and revisit the days when life was nasty, brutish and short.

A materials specialist at Caterpillar when he isn't indulging in his hobby, Terry, 54, longs for the time when real men wore steel: "We all grew up with stories of knights in armor and all that; castles, damsels in distress," he said. "It just strikes a chord."

This was the second year for the faire's caravan to roll into Decatur, and the organizers, Iowa-based Festivals International, were hoping for about 1,000 visitors as Sunday's temperatures climbed into the 80s. Producer/director Gregory Schmidt said he used to stage big outdoor musical productions and then got into festivals and fairs in the 1990s after video killed audience numbers for a lot of live theater.

But theatrical entertainment mixed up in a heady costume cocktail of medieval and renaissance can still pull a decent crowd, he says. The trick, however, is to focus on English history.

"There are a couple of renaissance fairs around the country that try to go French or Italian, and they just don't get as big a turnout," said Schmidt, 57. "It's hard to relate to the history of France and Italy, but English-speaking people tend to remember everything about the Royals and Robin Hood."

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