VIRGINIA BEACH
Nat Lasley stood around a crackling fire, offering passers-by - young and old - the opportunity to send a wish to the heavens.
"Would anybody like to make a wish?" Lasley asked. "We have the one and only bone fire."
But people scooted past, eager to see the henna tattoo artist and playfully joust with a friend aboard a cart decorated to look like a horse. In a nearby field, they could also try their hand at archery during Saturday's Midsummer Celebration at the historic Adam Thoroughgood House.
At Lasley's urging, a family of three paused by the rectangular fire pit. The historic interpreter handed a young girl a small piece of paper shaped like a bone.
"Four folds should do the trick," he said.
The girl held the paper - pressed into a square - against her lips, paused for a few seconds and tossed it into the flames. Smoke from the bone fire, a popular tradition in northern Europe during the Middle Ages, would send her request to the fairies, Lasley said.
Hundreds of people typically show up for the annual event, museum educator and site manager Starr Donlon said. It's a celebration of the summer solstice - the longest day of the year.
"It truly is a magical time," Donlon said.
On Saturday, visitors and volunteers who were dressed as knights, fairies and maidens milled around the Thoroughgood home, believed to date back to the late 1600s or early 1700s. Among them was 8-year-old Ryan Burchfield, a self-proclaimed history addict. He and his friends joked that they were dragon slayers.
"I really love it," Ryan said. "This is my first time being here. Still, it feels like medieval times."
Hattie Brown Garrow, (757) 222-5562, hattie.brown@pilotonline.com
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