Category Archives: librarians

weaving in myths and legends

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Spinning and weaving were so important in the past that these activities are a regular feature of the myths and stories that have come down to us. Think Sleeping Beauty, put to sleep by pricking her finger on a spindle.

Usually the myths put the creation of weaving at the beginning of  history. As we might expect, many of the early myths attribute the beginnings to the spider, or, in China, the silk worm. The myth of the spider-weaver was still present in the Greek myths during the Classical period. (Remember, Hera turned Ariadne into a spider for comparing her weaving to the Hera’s.)  So the archeologists say that weaving probably began somewhere in the dawn of prehistory. There was weaving before there were looms. And spinning before that. Barber, in Women’s work, the first 20,000 years, talks about cords and string that were used as netting. Sometimes the fibers were twisted together to make a stronger cord. And then plaiting strands together was invented. Who would guess that braiding would have to be discovered?

Anyway, references to spinning and weaving are all through the folktales we still know now. Besides Sleeping Beauty, there are the three fates, who determine a man’s lifespan. How many fairy tales are there where the simple but beautiful and virtuous maiden must spin straw into gold. Rumplestiltskin is probably the most well known of this theme but there are others.

Remember the Grimm story of the princess supposed to spin straw into gold. She is helped to do so but the price is to invite three deformed women to her wedding.(Rather do this than give up my first born.)  One has a swollen lip, from moistening the fiber, one a large foot from pressing the treadle on a spinning wheel and the large thumb comes from twisting the fiber into yarn. Or the 12 swans where the sister had to weave nettles into shirts by a certain time or her brothers will stay swans forever. She is unable to finish the last shirt and one brother has a swan wing the rest of his life.

These are stories we still know, although I venture to say most children in the past were up close to both spinning and weaving in the home.

ALA in Chicago

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As a lifelong librarian, I have gone to more conferences than I can count. Mostly local (Library Association of Rockland County, New York Library Association, and occasionally a national conference. I would have wanted to go to New Orleans but I’ve never made it. Not yet anyway, but I hope to one day.

This year, though, the conference was in Chicago. What an interesting city!

McCormick Conference Center

My usual plan is to take a few workshops and hit the exhibits. Always the exhibits.

In Exhibit hall

And now that I am a published author, I do writing stuff.

panel discussion

I look like I’m sleeping but I’m not. Really. I was on a panel with Charles Finch, Julia Keller,T heresa Schwegel and Tasha Alexander. All very talented writers. After the panel discussion, we signed books. I met a fan, one of the great thrills of my life.

SINC booth

I signed three and a half cartons of books at the Sisters in Crime Booth. I am seated with Libby Hellman here.

Any downsides? Well, I didn’t get to stay in Chicago as long as I would have liked. And now I plan to reread the Harry Dresdens. As I traveled around Chicago, I kept looking for a likely building that would house Harry’s apartment (destroyed in one of the newer Books – Ghost Story I think.) I also believe the McCormick Center was featured in one of the more recent works. I want to find out, now that I’ve been here.

Triangle looms

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I recently discovered what looks like an intermediate step between the backstrap looms used, for example, in Peru, and the more modern looms hand weaver use now, and have been in use since before the middle ages. These looms require a warping board, and the loom has several shed, heddles and treadles.

I am still researching the triangle looms, which one source claimed to have been in use since the 1600s. These are much simpler than the looms above. They come in square, rectangles too and can be built at home. So far, I’ve found one source that indicates the Native Americans used the single or double strand weaving method on a rectangle loom to make sashes and wampum belts. The triangle looms can be built to any size but also, the triangular pieces can be sewn together. A fichu (that piece of cloth that Colonial women wore to cover their chests, both for modesty and warmth) or a large shawl are two possibilities for this loom. Fine threads can be doubled up to make a closer weave.

So, how do these looms work? Well, the warp is put directly onto the loom. As with a backstrap loom, the weaver’s fingers lift the warp to allow the weft to be put through. No shuttles or spools. The photos of the looms employed by some of the Native American tribes string the warp between the curved ends of a stick like a bow or between a triangular piece of wood like the crotch of a tree or a giant sling shot.

Since there are no treadles, some of the fancier patterns look difficult to do, at best. However, the finished cloth can be made of several colors, a hood added, the ends looped up to make sleeves. I can just imagine someone sitting in a cabin weaving cloth on something like this, when the more complicated and certainly more expensive loom would not be available to her.

As my research progresses, I will continue this thread. (Pun intended).

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Although no one has actually asked me where I get my ideas, I have gotten plenty of other questions along those lines. The thing is, because writing is so individual, and so unconscious, it is pretty hard to answer any of these questions at all satisfactorily.

The ideas just pop into my head. I don’t know it it’s because of something I’ve read or what. Sometimes, the idea is fully formed. Other times, I need to massage it into something workable.

Then, because I don’t outline, I write scene by scene. Does this mean I have to go back and rework until I’m heartily sick of the entire work? Yes. But, by not outlining, I allow my characters to find their own space. Sometimes, as with Lydia, they become something different than I had intended. They take over, in effect.

Other times, the characters only become fully formed after I’ve rewritten them three or four times.

Although I think the writer who said, and I’m paraphrasing, that writing is easy; you just sit down and open a vein, was definitely overstating the case, it is true that it can be a much more difficult job than anyone would believe. I must have reread A Simple Murder at least 25 times – and that’s after I thought I’d finished it.

One definitely has to be addicted to writing to be able to continue it, especially in the face of rejection.!

Speaking

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Usually I blog about interesting facts I find in my research, facts I find fascinating and want to share. Lots of information about the textile crafts because I love them!
But today I plan to talk about something more personal; some of the tasks that go along with the craft of professional author.
Blogging and social media are certainly important parts of my new job.
But my favorite by far is speaking to groups. I am constantly surprised by how much I enjoy it. What did my readers not understand? What did they like? Were the characters appealing? I must confess that I learn as much from the back and forth, maybe more, than my audience does.
Why did I choose to make one character so strong or demented or whatever? Sometimes I honestly don’t know and I have to think about the motivations I had.
And sometimes a reader pulls out some interpretation from my story that I never thought of, not consciously anyway, but when I ponder it, it makes such sense to me I include it in my planning for the next book.
So, to all the people to whom I’ve spoken so far, I can only say thank you. You are helping make me a much better writer.

Whalemen and whales

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Conditions were rough. If the whalers were hunting in the Arctic, it was cold. But it was worse if the ship was in southern waters. The boiling down of whale blubber went on for days so a fire was burning in the brick fireplace on the deck. The combination of the warm seas and the fire meant that the temperature on board could be over 100 degrees F. Most of the crew slept below decks; it must have been unbearable. If the journey was a long one, the food began to spoil.

Whaling was not for the faint of heart, even before engaging a whale.

Six men set off in a small boat. If they succeeded in harpooning a whale, they could be dragged a good distance. One smack by the whale’s tale could shatter a small boat and many whale men were killed.

But plenty of sperm whales lost the battle, and very cruelly too. The harpoons didn’t usually kill the whale, that was the job of the lance, That had to be thrown accurately and twisted. Descriptions mention the bloody sea all around the dying whale.

Then the whale was towed back to the ship to be cut into pieces.

“Thar she Blows”

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In doing research for my fourth Will Rees mystery, I studied the whaling industry of the 1790’s. And I have to say, with all the problems associated with the oil we extract from the ground, taking the whales for their oil is a far less defensible practice.

What a dangerous and bloody job.

Although the Native Americans and early colonists whaled from shore, the right whales that were easily caught in canoes and with simple harpoons were rapidly depleted. But in the early 1700s, a new kind of whale was discovered: the sperm whale. Unlike the peaceable right whale, the sperm whale was a 55 ft hard fighting whale with teeth. But its head was filled with a pure oil called spermaceti that, when exposed to the air and hardened, was prized for candles. Sperm whales were also much faster. The harpoons were fastened to long ropes and the whale, when it ran, pulled the boat after it. In New England, this was called the Nantucket Sleigh Ride.

Sometimes the whale pulled the boat so far away from the mother ship, they could not find it again. Sometimes the whale, in pain, used it’s tail to flip and smash the boat and the sailors were killed.

Even whale hunting in the Atlantic might take several months. The ships were small and most of the crew slept in narrow bunks stacked in threes. If the trip was long enough, the food spoiled and even the water went bad. There were long periods of inactivity in which the crew carved whale bone – scrimshaw or made elaborate rope forms.

But these trips were, of course, much worse for any whale spotted and pursued.

Santa Claus

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Santa Claus has a far lengthier history than we realize. Saint Nicholas was Nicholas of Patara, a Bishop of Myra, during the Fourth Century. His Feast Day is celebrated on Dec 6, the day of his death. This Saint Nicholas appears in paintings from the 1400s on.

Another strand in the creation of the modern Santa, which explains how he became the patron saint of children, rests on a story about an innkeeper who murdered three boys, dismembered them, and put them in a vat to pickle. Saint Nicholas found them, reunited the pieces and restored them to life.

A pagan Father Christmas was a folk figure in Europe, but a much less sweet and ‘jolly old elf’ than the Santa we know.

Dutch settlers brought our Santa Claus to New York in the seventeenth century. By then, many of the familiar parts of the legend had already been established. Good children received gifts, bad children did not and he was already in red robes and white beard.

No discussion of Santa Claus would be complete with  mentions of Clement C. Moore, the author of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and Thomas Nast. Until the nineteenth century, St. Nick had traveled by horse, donkey, or in a chariot pulled by horses that flew through the sky.  The reindeer were certainly an American invention but by whom no one is sure. Moore’s St. Nick was an elfish figure. Nast, a political cartoonist, began a series of Christmas cartoons in which the appearance of St. Nick became the Santa we know today.

Christmas Customs – Early Days

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Early Days

I’d intended to write this post before and during the holidays but was far too busy. So even if this is a little dated, I will do it now. Bear with me, eventually I will reach Christmas customs for the Shakers.

From its early days, Christianity celebrated the Nativity. The giving of presents, the decoration of the houses with evergreens, the suspension of enmity and the proclamation of peace were all features of the festival from the beginning.

Some of the early customs aren’t so familiar to us now. The Lord of Misrule? The switching of masters and servants ? Likewise, some of our most treasured rituals were not invented yet. The Tree, for example, although known in England before Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, did not achieve its popularity until the Queen adopted it. Like so many British customs, this one crossed the Atlantic.

Inheritance: the good old days were terrible!

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Most people I think are aware that for more than the first hundred years of our existence, only white men could vote. And white men who owned property besides.

Inheritance of property was another perk restricted to and for men. Like the English system, after which this country’s early laws followed, a woman lost all rights to her property upon marriage. Her dowry, if she had one (not so common in the early US), any property such as horses, even her clothing now belonged to her husband. If he gambled away the family assets, oh well.

If she divorced, which was not so common, and wanted to remarry, the clothing she wore belonged to her soon-to-be ex. In one of the examples I read, a woman had to be married in her nightgown, her new husband standing by with new clothing. As soon as she was officially wed, she changed into ‘his’ clothing.

A married woman, since she owned nothing, could not leave a will. Only a widow could prepare a will leaving her possessions, and that was dependent upon the will of her deceased husband. If she were not mentioned in his will, she became the responsibility of her eldest son. If her husband specifically left his wife goods in his will, however, she owned them and could leave them to someone in her turn.

Such restrictions upon a woman make the appeal of the Shakers easy to understand. Although one would own nothing, one also owned a piece of everything. All the members of the community were treated alike and expected to be obedient. A woman might aspire to a role governing the Family as an Deaconess or Eldress. And the Shakers cared for the elderly members until they ‘went home to Mother’.