Fiber Folklore: Flaxen Hair

Heroines in fairy tales were often referred to as “flaxen haired”, because a freshly prepared strick (bundle) of flax resembles long, pale blond hair. And in those same tales, the fiber that the maiden spun was usually flax. Here is a typical story:

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful flaxen haired young girl who [...]

Fiber Folklore: The Three Fates

“Predestination was doomed from the start….” (source unknown)

In ancient Greek mythology, the Moirai were three goddesses, daughters of Zeus, who determined the fate of every human being, the personification of destiny. Often they were depicted as aged women, lame to suggest the slow march of fate. Klotho was the spinner, the one who [...]

Fiber Folklore – Sun, Moon, and Talia

It’s a shame that many kids today aren’t familiar with the famous, classic fairy tales. Now that I’ve lived a good many years, I often recognize connections and underlying meanings in the stories I learned as a little girl. Many of them involve spinning, flax, and wool, in one way or another. Here is an [...]

Fiber Folklore – Hateful Flax Spinning

Here’s a little known story about flax from The Brothers Grimms’ first edition of Kinder und Hausmärchen [Household Stories] (1812).
Hateful Flax Spinning
In former times there lived a king who liked nothing better in all the world than having flax spun. The queen and his daughters had to spend the entire day spinning, and he was [...]

Textile Terms – “Mad as a Hatter”

In medieval times, people who made and dyed hats were called hatters. Most dyes require mordanting agents, made from heavy metals such as aluminum and tin. Hatters often came into contact with these solutions, which are known to cause serious mental problems. (We still hear about lead and arsenic poisoning today.) Gradually, other sanity challenged [...]

Needlework in Folk Magic

I’ve come to dislike those women’s novels that revolve around the characters’ involvement in a knitting circle or quilting group or the like. They tend to be a bit too emotional for my taste, long on sentiment and short on good writing. Recently, however, I completed 2 historical novels in which knitting or [...]