by Marele Day
‘Cards,’ said the tall one, holding up what looked like two square wire brushes. She placed them on the table then went over to a grazing sheep.
‘Wool,’ she said, touching its back. ‘Shearing, sorting, washing, carding, combing, spinning.’ She mimed the actions.
He watched them grab chunks of fleece and set to work.
‘Cards,’ said the tall one once again, holding up the brushes. Having shown him the tools, she sat down. He was being initiated into the secrets of the tribe. It was like one of those morning television shows where they show children how to make things out of egg cartons and other kitchen litter. ‘One card on lap, wires pointing up. One card in hand, wires pointed down,’ she demonstrated. ‘Place fleece on card.’ She did so. ‘Brush the free card,’ she said indicating the one in her hand, ‘from top to handle, top to handle.’ She repeated the words as she repeated the gesture, brushing the one against the other, teasing the fleece till the fibres lay straight. ‘Teasing.’ From the basket of knick-knacks she held up a dull purple ball covered in stiff, hooked spines. ‘Fuller’s teasel flower, used by the spinsters of old.’ She replaced it and went back to her wire brushes.
Ignatius listened intently. There might be an exam, to see how much he had learnt. He tried to memorise her actions, like memorising a catechism.
‘Brush deeply.’ She did so, transferring the fleece from one brush to the other. ‘And again.’ Transferred it back to the original brush. ‘Sheep fleece,’ she said as if it wasn’t obvious what was on the brushes. She took a hank of textured grey and placed it on the brushes with the fleece. ‘Our fleece.’ She repeated the brushing and transferring process several times.
All the while the others were in the background spinning, one at the wheel, the other twisting, spinning the yarn around the stick in a steady regular rhythm, providing a background to the speaking part.
‘Rolag,’ she announced with a flourish. She held the fleece on her lap card with one hand then used the wooden edge of the other brush to tuck up the loose ends of the fleece under her thumb. Next, she placed the wires of the upper brush on top of the folded fleece and rolled it off the brush. It looked like a sausage. She handed this to the young one who started to work it into her thread.
Ignatius assumed that in handing it over, she was handing over the microphone, so to speak, but in fact she went on. She walked over to the one at the spinning wheel.
‘Leonardo da Vinci,’ announced Iphigenia. ‘Leonardo da Vinci designed a wheel that twisted fibres and wound yarn onto a spool. But this wheel was not produced till 1530.’ Then she sat down and the fat one took over.
‘Flywheel,’ Margarita pointed to it. ‘Spindle, bobbin, spindle shaft, pulley, treadle.’ Then she started up again, her foot rhythmically on the treadle, feeding the fleece through. The fleece, like a hank of fairy floss, being transformed into spun yarn.
That was it. She didn’t finish with a flourish, she simply stopped speaking. Her foot continued working the treadle, her hand feeding fibre into the twist. She had spoken her part and withdrew into the background of the tableau.
That left only one.
He looked away, not wanting to catch her eye. He could hear the whirr of the spinning wheel, the soft chomp of the wire brushes. She remained silent. Perhaps she was waiting for him, the way teachers at school waited till they had the full and undivided attention of the whole class. In this school, Ignatius was the class. He felt compelled to look.
If she’d been waiting for him to pay attention, it wasn’t obvious. Her eyes were focused entirely on the short distance, not on him at all. Holding the sausage of fleece up, fanning the fibres out then twisting them with the lower hand into yarn. Ignatius followed the line of the thread down to where it was gathering on the rotating spindle.
‘“What manner of thing is that, twisting and twirling so giddily?” asked Briar Rose, for indeed it was a drop spindle the woman in the tiny room was working.’ She kept on fanning, kept on twisting, one hand feeding the material into the other.
Carla stopped, remembering how on the first night he’d got cross with their version of Briar Rose. She hadn’t meant to frighten him last night but a terrible wind had come out of his mouth and smitten her.
‘But this is not the story I have for you today. Today we will hear the story of the first spinners. Look at the picture.’ Perhaps this would please him, a story with pictures.
He looked around expectantly.
‘It is a place of softly curving walls, dark and grained. Perhaps the hollow of a great tree trunk or a cave in the earth or under the sea.’
Oh no, she was going to resume her story of the night before. This was all sport. Only it was worse now, she was going to humiliate him in front of the others.
‘There are rocks and pools, and in the background is a tiny doorway open to the light of the world. The walls are etched in darkness but the light shines brightly on the thread the spinsters hold between them. From time to time they touch the spindle to keep it twirling. Some say they are the trinity, not separate but three faces of the one. Lachesis who sings the past, Clotho the present, and Atropos the future. One holds the distaff, one the spindle and one the scissors. And one is young, and one is old, and one is between.’
She kept her distance, seemed entirely occupied with the spinning of the fleece. He relaxed a little, lulled by her rhythms.
‘Souls between one life and another come before the spinsters to be given the measure of their lot. The soul about to enter a new body is greeted thus, “Ye may each choose your own lot but the choice is irrevocable. Choose carefully.” Then the soul enters the anteroom where every condition of life is present: rich and poor, animals, ferns, princes and paupers, happiness and bereavement. Some are guided by memories of their former life so that musicians choose to become birds with the sweetest of song. Some men become beasts.’
He felt it like a little arrow aimed directly at him, but her face was placid, absorbed. It was as if he no longer existed.
‘Some eagerly choose the riches of greatest sovereignty, not looking closely enough at this lot to discover they might be destined to devour their own children. The wise soul reflects and remembers. Ulysses, heartsick from his wanderings, chose a quiet simple life of contemplation in a place visited by few.’
Mesmerised by the twisting and turning of thread, he did not at first realise that she had stopped. He wanted more.
The story had stopped but the rhythm of work went on. He could hear the wheel, the brush of the cards.
‘Then,’ she took up the story again. Not the end, merely an interval. Waiting for the next piece of the story to come down the thread, feeling her way along. ‘Once the lot is chosen, the soul passes into the chamber of the Fates who spin the lot into a cocoon around the soul. Lachesis gives fibre so that the soul’s destiny can be fulfilled. Clotho turns the spindle to confirm the choice, and Atropos twists the thread to make it unbreakable. When the allocated portion of life has been spun, the thread is snipped off.’
Again she paused, but still it was not the end. ‘Then the soul wades into water, lies down and sleeps in the Sea of Forgetfulness. By and by a disturbance will part the waters, a great ship foundering or even a disturbance as small as a fish jumping. And through the gap in the sea the souls will come. And the water will send up a shower of stars and the souls will rise on them and be scattered upon the face of the earth. Then they will awake from their long sleep and will find themselves in the place and the tight cocoon they have slept in will begin to unwind.’
She was at the end of her story, at the end of her roll of fleece. Yet she continued twisting. Ignatius sat very still, as if he had been spun into a cocoon as well. She gathered the finished wool and pulled it off the spindle. The whirring of the wheel wound down and came to a halt. They started to pack up.
He was released from their thrall. What should he do, clap?
They took the finished work, the baskets and the paraphernalia, all the props o
f performance, inside and came out again with lunch. Bread, chutney and green leaves. Ploughman’s lunch, he thought wryly. He had no idea what the leaves were, some sort of weed, no doubt. Yet his mouth watered at the sight of it all.
He bowed his head in grace and then he ate with them, shovelling the food in, spilling it down his front, snuffling and snorting and slurping with as much gusto as his companions.
They had brought him in. To a smaller room than the one from which he had escaped. There was a high window with a slit of evening light but no extra security. With legs in plaster and hands tied it was no longer necessary.
On the wall was a huge drawing the size of a blanket. A bucolic scene in the middle—three shepherds surrounded by a tight flock of sheep. Apple trees, a couple of white birds interrupting the flow of blue sky. There were rough tangled strokes at the edge like brambles, and inside that, a border of individual scenes too small for him to make out. As they laid him on the bed, bringing him closer to it, he saw that the whole was crisscrossed with fine vertical and horizontal lines like graph paper. Thousands of tiny squares and in each one a tiny cross. It was a knitting pattern, each cross in the grid representing a stitch.
The tall one placed herself in front of it. ‘The knitted piece tells a story, a fabric stitched from the thread of language, an artefact bright with meaning. It holds the memory of learnt stitches, the inventiveness of imagination, and the cables and ribs of the knitters’ own lives. Islands, sheep, religion are only some of the themes running through it.’
Compared to this morning’s demonstration of carding, it sounded somewhat stilted, as if lifted straight out of an encyclopaedia. Carding. A new word. Ignatius smiled to himself. What a lot of new things he was learning.
‘Although the exact origins of the craft are still to be unearthed, early fragments of interlocked fabric have been discovered in Arabia. It would be reasonable to assume that knitting originated in fishing communities, knitting being so similar to knotting and the meshing of nets. By the thirteenth century, wool, the growing, processing and trading in it, had become such a profitable industry that British ships travelled in convoys to guard against piracy. Knitting was such a highly regarded craft in the Elizabethan Age that the apprentice was required to spend six years travelling to learn the techniques. For his final examination he had to knit a cap, a shirt, a pair of stockings and a carpet. When machines took over in the world, hand-knitting was relegated to an interesting and therapeutic hobby.’
Ah yes, performing much better now. More confident, more fluency. Seven out of ten at least.
‘But on the islands and outposts the craft stayed alive. Though the basic shape of the gansey, traditional garment of island fisherfolk, is the same everywhere, stitches and patterns vary from island to island. It is said that when a fisherman drowns the island he comes from can be identified by the pattern of his gansey. This notion may have little basis in fact because fisherfolk visit many places in their travels, learn new stitches. A certain amount of borrowing goes on. Nevertheless, distinctive patterns and stitches came to be associated with particular islands. The cable knitting characteristic of the Aran Isles is thought to have been inspired by Celtic crosses. Cables and ribbing also provide thickness and warmth against the biting winds.’
She paused again, as if waiting for the next bit to tick its way into her memory.
‘Knitting is not limited to the functional. In the long cold Shetland Island nights lace knitting developed. So fine and beautiful is the work that a shawl the size of a table can be passed through a wedding ring.’ As if to demonstrate, she made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and pulled air through it.
The fat one added a little more detail. ‘Shetland sheep aren’t sheared, they’re plucked. When new fleece grows, old wool comes out easily. Plucked wool has a lovely long staple.’
The tall one took up again. ‘The shawls are knitted on needles thin as wires, employing stitches such as shell, print o’ the wave, fern. A most ethereal and rarefied example of the craft, producing a gossamer with the delicacy and strength of spider web.’ At this, the young one sat up abruptly. The tall one gave her a look. ‘In former times it was nuns who knitted or embroidered the sacerdotal vestments of bishops and priests. The lambs which provided the wool for these vestments were ceremonially blessed on the feast day of St Agnes.’
That was it. A hesitant beginning but when she hit her stride quite authoritative. Ignatius smiled benignly, the way his uncles smiled when Ignatius and his sister had to do recitations for them after Sunday dinner.
It looked like the lecture was to be followed by a demonstration. The nuns had their needles with them and the baskets of spun wool. Everything was there on the small table—needles, wool and scissors—laid out with the precision of surgical instruments.
They placed their hands together, lowered their eyes and began to chant. Automatically Ignatius also bowed his head and lowered his eyes. His hands were already together. Bound.
He listened carefully, assuming that now they had included him, he was expected to join in their prayers. It took him a while to realise that these were not holy words they were chanting. He caught the odd word here and there. Arachne, Athena. It was not a prayer he was familiar with.
The chant ended and they picked up their knitting. Again he scanned the baskets for his own hair, but didn’t see it. Had they already knitted it up or were they saving it? He wondered if when they started looping and poking needles through, he would feel it.
They fell silent, the needles poised in their hands.
‘Story,’ they instructed.
Ah, good. Something for him to do. But what to tell, what would the ladies like tonight? He remembered the last time he had lain on the bed and told the little company a story. How clever he had felt then. Now he had to win back cleverness, a long strong thread of it to carry him out of here.
The nuns waited impatiently, as if he was stopping them from getting on with their work. Carla idly rolled a ball of yellow wool across the table, watched it unravel, then rolled it back up again. And this gave him the idea.
‘Once there was a king who lost his way in the forest. It was near nightfall and he had begun to despair, when he came upon an old woman. She promised to show him the way out if he would marry her daughter. The daughter was comely and the king thought he had struck a good bargain indeed. But, ah, once out of the forest she turned into a witch. Now the king had thirteen children—twelve sons and a beautiful daughter—from a previous marriage. Fearing they may come to some harm from their witch mother, he told his servant to hide them away in the forest. A different forest,’ Ignatius added.
‘One day the new queen, suspicious of her husband’s frequent absences, went through his things and found a ball of magic wool. She let the wool unravel and followed where it led—straight to the children. Thinking that the wool announced a visit from their father, the boys ran out to greet him. But alas. The witch mother pulled white shirts over their heads and they turned into swans. They looked at their snowy pouting breasts, the yellow webs of their feet, lifted their great wings and flew into the sky. The thirteenth child, the daughter, was saved this fate because she was in the little cabin preparing supper.
‘When it was ready she called them. But they didn’t come. She called again. Where were they? She searched and searched all through the forest but they had vanished into thin air.
‘As the third day reddened into night, twelve beautiful swans flapped down to earth beside the princess. When they landed, their webs became feet again, their wings folded down into arms and she recognised her brothers.
‘“Haste,” they greeted her, “we are but men for these few minutes of the day. Our stepmother has cast a spell on us.”
‘The princess wrung her hands. “Tell me, oh tell me, what I must do to break the spell.”
‘The brothers cooed among themselves, looking everywhere but at their sister.
‘“Tell me what I must do!” she implore
d.
‘Then the eldest brother spoke. “It is too much to ask.”
‘The sun was barely visible above the horizon, the princess even more urgent, aware of how short a time they had to speak and willing to do anything. “Nothing is too much. Tell me. Speak.”
‘“That is just it,” demurred the eldest brother. “You must not speak. You must weave twelve shirts of nettles, one for each of us. And you must not speak till all twelve are completed and we are restored to men.” Even as he spoke the other brothers were turning into swans.
‘“I will do it,” she whispered up to the sky as they flew away.’
Ignatius continued with the story of ‘The Twelve Swans’ and of the sister who for years toiled in silence. ‘Even when she in turn married a king, and her mother-in-law accused her of witchcraft and put a drop of blood on the girl’s dress to trick the king into believing she had murdered her own child she kept silent, sewing and sewing her secret shirts. “She shall be burnt at the stake,” the king pronounced sadly, all the while imploring his beloved queen to speak and save her life. But the queen did not.
‘As she was led to the fire there was the beating of wings and twelve swans swooped down to free their sister. When they descended she threw the shirts over them and instantly twelve princes stood guard around her, including the youngest prince who, because the girl did not have time to complete the last shirt, had a wing in place of an arm.
‘Freed from her vow, the queen could now speak. She told the king about the spell and how she was innocent of the dreadful deeds of which his mother accused her. Instead of his wife, it was his mother who was put to the fire. Then the king, the queen and all her brothers lived happily ever after.’
Ignatius stopped, surprised that he had come to the end of the tale. Surprised too that he had filled it with such detail. After a while it seemed to flow off his tongue. It had been a long time since he had heard the story and he did not realise that he remembered it so well. Perhaps he had invented some of it, not remembered it at all.