Mi Contra Fa

Green Grow the Rushes, O

Last in the "ZOMG RUSHES" series.  (Or maybe next-to-last; see closing paragraph below.)

I found an 1891 book by one Alfred Burton titled "Rush-bearing: an account of the old custom of strewing rushes; carrying rushes to church; the rush-cart; garlands in churches; morris dancers; the wakes; the rush."  (Because why make the reader wait til the table of contents to tell them everything that's inside?)

Much like my research into maypoles, it seems that there is some evidence for rush-strewing before Elizabeth; then a whole lot of it starting in the late 1500s and into the 1600s.  There was one reference a whole lot closer to my period of interest than I'd expected to find:

William the Conqueror granted certain lands at Aylesbury to one of his followers on condition of ' Finding straw for the bed of our lord the king, and to straw his chamber, and by paying three eels to our lord the king when he should come to Aylesbury in winter. And also finding for the king, when he should come to Aylesbury in summer, straw for his bed, and, moreover, grass or rushes to strew his chamber, and also paying two green geese; and these services aforesaid he was to perform thrice a year, if the king should happen to come three times to Aylesbury, and not oftener.'

This referenced one "Blount, 'Tenures of Land, 1679."  Guess what? That's on the Web, too.  It seems to be a sort of curiosity book, listing all the odd and strange things that kings decided their landholders had to provide to them.  "Herbam ad juncandam" - yep, that's grass and rushes.  Only thing is... the footnote in the 1815 reprint of Blount, on page 12, has this as "Plac. Coron. de 14 Edw. 1"  These "Plac. Coron." notes are at the end of many of the reprinted law texts and I'm thinking that it means that the decree was issued in the 14th year of the reign of Edward 1.  So... not William the Bastard and 1066 at all.

The next citation Burton brings to bear is from 1207, much later than the Anglo-Saxon period

BUT ANYWAY for later period, he does call out many references to 'strewing the rushes' and 'green rushes' and such, and it becomes hard to imagine that mats are being referred to.  By Shakespeare's time, putting down new green rushes was a sign of hospitality for guests, and sarcastic comments indicated some folks would do this for strangers but old friends merited not a single rush.  Street-sellers hawked "green rushes, o!" and laws were passed as early as the 1400s controlling where and how punts full of rushes could unload at the London docks.  It all seems to make more sense if we are considering loose rushes, easier to harvest (and still green!) and more disposable, than rush mats which would require more work, be more expensive and would hang around.  Rushes in the summer are used interchangably with straw in the winter in some citations, further suggesting a loose toss of plant matter.

What of the Duke du Berry's book of days from yesterday?  Even if "strewn rushes" in England refers to loose plants, it doesn't preclude straw or rush mats from being used elsewhere, or by particular houses.  Especially rich ones.  Large mats, like the one shown in the picture, would take significant labor to accomplish.  The Sherington site estimated that it would take a week of sewing to make a 12' x 12' mat - on top of the time it took to braid up the rushes. 

So do I strew rushes or not?  It would seem that the custom isn't documented earlier than 1207 by what I've read so far.  I am somewhat curious to see what a rush-covered surface is like to walk on... but harvesting, transporting and then removing the rushes would be a hassle.  I'll think on it.

 

More tidbits on rushes

Here's a discussion analyzing/criticizing the article I posted yesterday.  Highlights include:

• An equestrian asserting that straw, when wetted and trampled repeatedly, will form into mats
• A tourist discussing that a traditional historic home in (Russia or the Ukraine, I forget which) used loose rushes on the ground
• A sharp-eyed person pointing out the floor displayed in this image from the Duke du Berry's book of days.  It shows a straw-colored floor composed of rows of chevrons - exactly what you'd get if you took one long braid of rushes and folded it back on itself to sew a mat.

Turns out that, next to the pampas grass and cattails, there's some common rushes growing near my house, too.  I pulled up a handful and took them home to start a 9-strand braid.

• The beginning of the braid is ugly, but then it always is.
• Some of the rushes are cracking and splitting - it is late in the season for harvesting them (they've flowered already, and some were dying back at the tips) and my technique surely leaves much to be desired.
• They are rather stiff; the internal cells can be easily squashed with the fingers to make them more pliable.  But should you?  (Some of the rushwork I've seen online does show dried rushes that seem... not twisted, but rumpled.)
• My 9-strand braid is maybe half the 3" RushMatters describes, and which also seems about right for the Duke's book's image.  Probably because my rushes are very small?  (About 3-4' long each, no more than 0.25" diameter.)  The bulrushes shown harvested on RushMatters look double that.
• The book of hours and the illustration accompanying the Sherington Historical Society's page (hey's where'd the link go? Here it is.) look more like 3-ply braids than 9-ply.  But the Sherington one looks... oddly fluffy, as if they're braiding wool.
• I entirely understand why this sells for 160 Lb-sterling a square foot.
• EDIT: Rereading the Sherington website, I see that I was supposed to let the rushes "weather" and then dry?  And then you wet them to make them workable again. Ah.

There's no way that I have the time or interest to braid enough rushes to make a large mat, nor do I have a good place to store said mat once it is complete. 

• I could harvest some more rushes, take them to the event and strew them, just to see how it goes. (And then pick them all up and remove them from the site...)
• I could also get some of the cheap grass mats to put down.  Pro: Right scent, right color, similar material.  Con: Wrong construction, obviously modern, ethical issues involved in buying cheap Chinese goods, possibly made with underpaid or forced labor, just for funsies.
• I can just use the ground cloth that I have.

 

Fools Rush In

I live next to a man-made drainage pond/puddle that hosts cattails and pampas grass.  So naturally, I start thinking about "strewing rushes" for my little 10x10 mead hall.

My first thought was, "How does that even work, anyway?"  And lo, I am not the first person to wonder how those medieval ladies in their trailing gowns managed to step through a pile of loose "strewn" rushes.  The article above makes a reasonable case for "rushes" to be "rush mats." 

Some quick poking (what exactly is a rush, anyway?) led me to a bunch of English sites selling, you guessed it, woven rush goods, including mats.  English Bulrush is apparently the rush in question.  RushMatters offers weekend courses for just 180 Pounds! ...and airfare.  Curse that airfare.  The Sherington Historical Society describes rushwork done in more recent (but 'traditional') times, and it tallies closely with what RushMatters described on their floor matting page (9-strand flat braid, sewn to others of its kind to make a mat).  RushMatters sells bulrush bundles and a sewing tool - hmmmm...

Google Books is also pointing me to Laura Valentine's 1867 "The Home Book of Pleasure and Instruction," which has instructions on making a rush basket.  I'll check it out later, maybe.

More modernly: Cane, Rush and Willow: Weaving with Natural Materials.  For $4 used, maybe I'll pick it up...

It's a Book! (Or is it?)

Welp.  That went faster than expected.

Used a leather punch to put holes in the bookboards, only punching about, um, five mistake ones.  That works better when you dig the little punched-out bits out of the puncher, FYI.  Used a leather awl to transfer holes to my quires (which only had two sheets - I wanted a bit of practice sewing?)

I had waxed linen thread and an S-curved needle (plain curved would have been better) and got to it. I think I understand the difference between herringbone and link stitch now - link stitch is a herringbone that goes up to the next quire, at the end of the line.  Or I did it wrong.  (Also, hm, that may not make sense in context of that Carolingian book page... eh.)

I started with the back cover, on the theory that I would get better as I went and so the front cover would be neatest.  Not so much.  It turns out the final cover is rather harder than the first cover, and... well.

Things I Learned: 

• It's probably better to switch direction on the herringbone stitch depending on which way you're working.  I liked it when the stitch going into the quire gets pulled tight in the direction of the next hole to sew.
• The link stitches at the end could probably be made really consistent if I always hooked in from the free end of the book.
• Paper tears if you pull your thread too tight.

Right on Page One, I managed a little rip that makes opening the book a little off.  The thread is now a few millimeters off of the crease so things are just... kind of wonky  Oh well.

But it's done!  No cover on it.  It doesn't have to have one - unlike the modern craft-style booklet I put together back in 2009, which was literally held together with glue.  (Flypages glued to covers, book cover glued to boards.)  I've got flypages, which right now look faintly stupid (just being blank and not glued to anything) but I could always draw something on them, I suppose.  I do have a very, very thin bit of garment leather that was an impulse purchase and probably isn't suitable for the impulse (a Swallowcliffe Down-style reinforced belt pouch) that I could use... 

Hey, I could bring this to Battle on the Bay for the A&S display!  Need to do some documentation in that case... 

 

Keeping to Scope

I've got my Mark One Bard Book all printed out. I briefly considered buying a bone folder, then remembered that this was supposed to be a quick and dirty project, and used a small bone trinket box I have to press the folds into the quires instead. Project Creep similarly keeps threatening the binding. In addition to the tutorials/articles I linked to last time, I found Jaysen Ollerenshaw's project page for a Carolingian-style book.  It assumes some basic familiarity with bookbinding - I find myself puzzled at what you're supposed to do for the 'endbands' (I think they're lines of stitching rather than sewn-on fabric bands?) and the difference between a link stitch and a herringbone...

And then I remember it's a quick and dirty project.  It doesn't matter if I sew the quires to cords, like Jaysen, or sew the covers to quires, like EvilCuteBunny.  If I use cords, I'm not going to have 1/2" thick boards to drill edge-on holes into - I have book boards sliced off of an old hardback.  ("The Templars' Secret Treasure" - trust me, it's better this way...)

Looking around the Internet just a little bit more, Coptic stitching looks like the way to go (and hey, Wikipedia even says it's how the St Cuthbert gospel is sewn up) - simple, looks good, connects book boards to quires.  That's all I need.  I need to resist the urge to make this more than it needs to be - there is no sense in going gonzo for the binding when the interior is standard copy paper.

I feel like I ought to photodocument, to get into the habit if for no other reason... but I have no idea where the camera is...

SQUIRREL

I am easily distracted by shiny objects, sometimes.

I am hoping to make Battle on the Bay, which has a Viking theme this year. Awesome! I suddenly want to transform my 10'x10' popup into a mead hall. *facepalm* And it can't just be by throwing up some old linen curtains that have been in a box forever, oh no. Those linen curtains need to be painted into faux embroidered tapestries.

Lacking all artistic talent, and with the deadline too close to attempt to develop any real skill, I am looking at (entire culturally appropriate) interlace designs, because they are geometric and you can make them using graph paper.  How does one find graph paper large enough to sketch out a decorated panel some 6' long and 4' wide?

One tries Amazon.com, and finds a graph paper tablecloth complete with fabric markers.  My plan is to ink the design onto the tablecloth, transfer to the linen with pencil or marker, and then I paint the linen. 

I am at once excited and frustrated with myself.  This is a distraction.  But man, it'll be really cool!

 

Bard Book Mark One: Formatting and Sizing

So, after reading many how-to sites for printing folded pamphlets using Open Office, and printing several very deformed pamphlets, I discovered that my Canon printer actually has a "booklet" setting.  It takes a document - a normal portrait-oriented document on 8.5"x11" paper - and prints it out as a double-sided, folded over pamphlet.  All by itself.  No paper flipping or page counting or anything. 

It's awesome.

Apparently, I should put 4-7 pages in each quire.  Each quire will have to be its own document, but that's not a big deal.  I'll grab some papers, fold them in half, and see when it feels like it's too bulky to manage.

Then: Time to format my stuff!  That'll likely take a few days of work.

Edit: Some useful links for future reference:

• CuteEvilBunny's bookbinding class notes
• List of bookbinding links
• Volcano Arts bookbinding hints
• Medieval Manuscript Manual's section on bookbinding

Serendipity

Remember when I was looking for a bard book?

A box of books in the basement caught my eye yesterday. I thought all the boxes were my husband's, but no - I recognized some of my own stuff.  Poking through it, I found - a leather-bound blank journal!  It's not this one, but it's fairly close - same 'single sheet of leather' binding, no boards, the pages glued right to the leather.  Italian, embossed with some (totally appropriate, actually) acanthus leaves and some other geometric motif.

It is lined, which will be convenient, but also anachronistic.  However, as a 'starter' project upon which to practice and learn lessons, it's not bad - and it's free.  Better, it will make use of some 'ooo shiny' junk that's evidently been sitting around the house for a half-decade or so.  That's a plus.

 And my friend of the photography lighting says his lights are just cluttering up his house, so I can have them!  Hurrah!

Inspiration Strikes!

Our baronial seneschal, Lady Devin, has just announced that their Majesties have chosen the gentles who will "fill the vast shoes being vacated by the inestimable Baron William le Younger and Baroness Sorcha Crowe."

As the possessor of Size 10 Wide feet, the image of 'vast shoes' greatly amuses me, and I believe may serve as a jumping-off point for my now-traditional going-away poem.  (Storvik's Sea Captain, Endings and Beginnings, and Grey Goose Flies are the others I've done.)

"Vast shoes" remind me of "vast and trunkless legs of stone" in Shelley's "Ozymandias."  The moral of that poem is that power is fleeting, mortal accomplishments perish.  The obvious spin on the theme, especially suitable considering that our Excellencies built no halls, leveled no roads, and conquered no nations, is that what will endure is the way in which they touched the hearts of their people.

Shelley looks to be writing in pentameter.  It ain't iambic; I'm not sure if it's regular or not.  I'm counting 4 stresses in some lines and 5 in others.  Rhyme scheme is loosely ABABA CDCED EFEF if you allow for some near rhymes (stone/frown, appear/despair).  I am sure if I look, I will be able to find analysis of it.

All my other poems have been in alliterative verse; I have to consider whether or not I want to continue that, and allude to Shelley just through content, or if I want to try and ape his style as well.

Goal-Oriented Discouragements

I got the lamp assembled! It doesn't work!

Two apparent problems: the peg-in-hole that's supposed to mate to hold the light to the stand... doesn't.  And the thing just doesn't plain make light - it seems the bulb is blown before I've even used it!  Checking the online reviews for the product (Utilitech 500 W light with stand) tells me... now... that I am far from the only one with this problem. 

Sigh.

This shouldn't be a big deal. It was a $24 light.  But it feels like a big deal, because running simple errands (to the hardware store) aren't simple with the kids.  I feel stupid, because why did I buy (one of only a few available models of) a light without researching it online first?  (Answer: Because it's a lamp! How hard is that to get right?!) I feel guilty, because I'm trying to buy less crap and create less garbage, and here I am about to toss a brand-new $24 hunk of junk out.  I feel frustrated, because I'm trying to take this 'baby steps' approach to actually getting things done, instead of waiting for magical free afternoons to appear, so having the light not work represents nearly a week of time wasted. 

If feels like a big deal because, when you are strongly goal-oriented, failing to achieve any goal - even one as trivial as "set up a lamp" - is failing.  Failing!  FAILING!!!!

It's not rational.

Rather than rush out to duplicate this comedy of errors, I think I'll contact my friend who first told me about using high-power lights to set up a mini-studio in his home.  Maybe 500 W was too much, or too little, or something, anyway.  Research!