Until very recently I did not know that a wrist distaff was something that I had always needed. I had seen pictures of spinners with a wooden distaff which appeared to be a ‘stick’ wound with fleece or flax which looked like candyfloss.
One day I was wandering around online and came across pictures of beaded wrist distaffs. I was intrigued as when I read on this sounded like something that could be really useful. For the weaving enthusiasts among us, there are some fascinating videos on Vimeo by Allan Brown showing how to extract fibres from nettles and then the results of weaving with them.
Thanks to Audrey for finding these. This is the story of the Spinner from Deba. I happened across this story at a viewpoint on the way to Deba in Northern Spain. It actually has very little to do with spinning, but does involve a spinner and shows some pictures of her spinning. The ancient Basque culture is rich in traditions, myths and legends. One of the most popular legends is that of ‘The Spinner’ a beautiful and dramatic story of love. Possibly somewhere between reality and fiction.
The story takes place in Deba around the year 1500, and gets its name from the excessive affection for the old craft of spinning of one of the lead characters, Andra Madalen, lady of the historic Zubelzu house. They say that the kind lady lived with her daughter Katalintxu. Her husband and the majority of the males of the house had died in the bloody and prolonged war that the sailors of the Basque ports waged against the French. I have been listening to a podcast on the history of the English language and one of the more recent episodes has been about clothing and the cloth industry. I have summarised below some of the main points from this episode. If you want to listen to more you can download the podcast from the usual places or you can visit the website www.HistoryofEnglishPodcast.com
Shirt, Shoe, Belt and Hat are the only 4 words used by the Anglo-Saxons that we still use today. The words ‘shirt’ and ‘skirt’ come from the same basic root. ‘Shirt’ is an old English word and ‘Skirt’ was the Norse word for ‘shirt’ used by Vikings and then over time they came to mean two different things and ‘skirt’ didn’t come to the English language until the early 1300s. The words ‘sock’ and ‘cap’ are found in old English documents but are loan words from Latin. The words ‘shorts’,’ sweater’, ‘slacks’ and ‘stockings’ are based on the old English root words ‘short’, ‘sweat’, ‘slack’ and ‘stock’ respectively, but ‘stockings’ itself didn’t appear until the late 1500s and the others did not appear until the 1800s. This is mainly because these items of clothing did not exist during the Anglo-Saxon period. Most of the clothing was draped over the body before medieval as there was no easy way to secure and there was relatively little difference between male and female clothing. Tunics, which were often worn, were a loose square of material with a hole for the head and a belt was used to fasten it to the body. Tunics were worn by both men and women with cloth tied round the legs as a form of stocking or leg wrap. Trousers as we know them today did not exist. If it was cold they would wear a cape sometimes secured with a brooch. |
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