Dragonwood Is a Blast to the Past : Festival: The 3-year-old event has similarities--and acrimony--with the older Renaissance Pleasure Faire, whose former Agoura site it now uses.

Never mind trying to explain a time warp to Junior. Put him in chains, park him in the family car and drive him 800 years into the past, as re-created in Agoura this weekend and next.

Paramount Ranch, which for 25 years (until 1988) was annually turned into 16th-Century England for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, will become 12th-Century Great Britain when the Dragonwood Faire opens its gates there Saturday.

The Dragonwood Faire--billed as an autumn festival with crafts and wares, food and drink, live weapons demonstrations and entertainment--should not be confused with the Renaissance Faire, which has moved to San Bernardino County. But the similarities, as well as the acrimony between the two, are readily apparent.

People come to both festivals, many in period costume, to eat, drink and make merry. They frequent the handmade goods booths and enjoy the almost constant entertainment.

Much of the fun of these events, participants say, lies in the outdoorsy, unconfined, theatrical exuberance they enjoy by parading around in their own back-to-the-past finery.

While the older fair has always stressed the Renaissance era as its creative palette, the younger, more free-spirited Dragonwood considers any costume, entertainment or craft from somewhere around or between the 12th to 16th centuries as fair game.

Carol Hart, an executive with the Dragonwood, said she has been working on her costume for weeks. It will be a long purple linen tunic with black and gold needlepoint that she said is reminiscent of garments worn by an Anglo-Saxon women circa 1050.

She is also creating costumes for friends and fair vendors that range from an 11th-Century tunic and tabard, a long narrow poncho, to a gown from the Elizabethan era.

According to Jon Martin, Dragonwood co-founder and president, the event attracts people ranging from hard-core fantasy freaks to local folks just looking for a bit of fun. And while the Renaissance is fairly narrow in its costuming focus, people coming to the Dragonwood are likely to look like anything from King Arthur to King Kong.

While both events promote an overall good feeling for vendors and participants, that feeling does not prevail between the festival producers themselves.

The verbal jousting and bad feelings between principals of the two events sometimes appears to be an inter-festival Punch and Judy show.

On one side, there’s the Renaissance’s Phyllis Patterson, a legendary entrepreneur. On the other side is Martin, a former police officer who said he helped organize the new festival to fill the void left by the old fair’s departure.

Patterson--the grande dame of fantasy festivals--relocate her now-29-year-old Renaissance Pleasure Faire from Agoura to San Bernardino County in 1988 because the Paramount Ranch site was due to be developed as a housing tract.

The development deal fell through and the Paramount Ranch was not bulldozed.

In the meantime, Martin’s Dragonwood group was born. Its first two festivals used other venues while building a following. Last spring, its third event was held at the Paramount Ranch.

Patterson said at the time that she was unhappy about the Dragonwood group moving in to her old location. She retaliated by sending her people to the Dragonwood Festival, where they protested in a free-speech area near the gate, telling people that the Dragonwood was not the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.

Martin said he and his group weren’t trying to deceive anyone.

“Ms. Patterson assumed that we needed to trick her fair-goers into coming to our fair by pretending to be the old Renaissance,” Martin said. “And that simply is not true.”

He said that there are plenty of people who would happily go to both fairs and that there are plenty of fair-goers to go around, in any case.

Martin said Patterson also tried to intimidate vendors from working his fair by saying that if the vendors sold their wares at the Dragonwood Faire, they would not be welcome at the Renaissance Faire.

Speaking to reporters last spring, Patterson denied threatening any vendors. But Martin continues to claim that she did and said that many vendors dropped out of his fair.

“The Renaissance Faire is much bigger and runs longer,” Martin said. “If the vendors have to choose one fair or the other, they will have to pick the longer-running, bigger fair.”

He said that last spring, when he first used Paramount Ranch and Patterson threatened his vendors, that’s exactly what happened. Patterson at the time called the charge absurd.

Several efforts this week to reach Patterson for comment were unsuccessful.

Festival-goers seem less concerned about the fair fight and more worried about finding something appropriate to wear.

The Three Musketeer look is expected to be popular this season as, of course, is the Robin Hood.

Hart, the costumer, said that in addition to many people wearing costumes, there will be several recreational historical groups that will demonstrate what life was like in their particular time era of interest.

Included are the Black Shire, an English group of medieval warriors; the Society for Creative Anachronism, whose members have an interest in Great Britain that spans the period between 700 and 1700, and Clan Glennateigh, which celebrates a medieval Irish group that mysteriously disappeared.

But, Martin said, the Dragonwood is for anyone who wants a good time in another time, even if your coat of mail is made of bicycle chain or if your costume is left over from Halloween.

The Dragonwood Faire ’91 will be held from 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, Nov. 9 and 10 at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills. To get to the ranch, take the Kanan Road off - ramp from the Ventura Freeway and go south to Cornell Road, then follow the signs. For tickets and information, call (213) 395-0063.