I was the Royal jester to King Henry II and my job was to come up with a Christmas Spectacular every year to compete with the Jugglers, fire-eaters, storytellers and acrobats and i tried the usual jokes such as 'Hey Eleanor of Aquitaine, am I pleased to see you or did I just put a canoe in my pocket' but one year i really took it up a level by making use of the large thing between the King's ears, his nose.
I had many talents but as you can guess by my stage name, i am most well known for one of them but you see i was a farter by trade, or Flatulist to give me my proper title, and my artistic manipulation of flatulence included impressions, blowing smoke rings, extinguishing candles, and playing tunes all performed with my arse but for the Royal Court i designed an act which ended with what i called a jump, a whistle and a fart which is exactly as it sounds, all three executed simultaneously.
Passing wind in the Middle Ages was a more complicated act than it is today and a good flatulist could earn a decent living, the king paid me 30 acres of land and a manor and when was the last time your boss gave you a house?
You see fart humor hinges on the unexpectedness of the fart but not just anyone could be a flatulist, it's a skill to be able to trump on cue and also to not produce too much of a stink and to not be so enthusiastic that you follow through and need to change your trousers afterwards, not pleasant.
Unfortunately, you don't see a lot of performance farting anymore, and that's a shame because it was a very underrated art form and there was no cameras to capture me in my pomp which is a shame but as it was all happening in 12th Century, the video would be like my party piece which was silent...but deadly. See, i still got it.
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