Mi Contra Fa

Sheep and Wool 2017

I went in with a list, and actually managed to keep to it pretty well!

Fiber arts are a wonderfully rich field.  Each fiber has its own properties, and you can prepare it in various way to accentuate other properties, then spin them in different ways to - guess what? - achieve yet more properties, and finally, you can knit/weave/nalbind/whatever using different techniques to get different results.  As a beginner, it's kind of dizzying.

I went in with the goal of getting some Viking wool combs and an Icelandic fleece to use with them.  There are probably other breeds that are suitable from a re-enactment/heritage point of view, but Icelandics are the ones everyone talks about. Also, they are one of the dual-coated breeds, and I am very interested in trying to separate out the tog (long hairy fiber) from the thel (short fluffy soft fiber) to do weaving with singles.  (The tog supposedly makes good strong warps that stand up to abrasion.)

I found Indigo Hound, who seems to be the main supplier of Viking wool combs to the world.  Got a pair of double-row combs, a nostepinne from Mistress Brienne, and a plastic diz for pulling the combed roving through.  Score one.

The Mid-Atlantic Icelandic Sheep people were there.  Not knowing how fleece was sold, and having previously bought roving by the ounce, I looked over the fleeces and chose the one that looked prettiest - a soft grey thel undercoat and a red-brown tog overcoat.  The tog looked very long and the color difference meant it would be easier for me to see it to pull it out.  Well, turns out you buy entire fleeces. And that's how I ended up with four pounds of ram fleece to take home.  I shall call him Stinky.  The vendor said that "Healthy sheep have a healthy smell," but Stinky the Ram seemed to have a much stronger odor than the ewe fleece that was there.  Not surprising - even a polled male is probably smellier than a female. I feel somewhat like a n00b, buying mostly for color rather than hand feel - but I don't even know what I'm looking for there yet. So - score two.

I got some more roving - grey Romney, since the Romney I got from Sabina was so much fun to spin, and some dark brown/black Icelandic mixed tog/thel, because impulse buy.  Score three and four!

When I got home, I pulled off a little piece of Stinky to see how it was to comb and spin.  Initial results seem promising!  The thel handled like any other roving and should spin up fine.  The tog was trickier to manage, like the long-staple flax was.  I am hoping once I put it on a distaff, it'll be easier?  But there'll probably be a learning curve.  It certainly makes a strong, cord-like yarn!  Very much not the fluffy sort of yarn you'd want to knit a sweater with.

Next steps are assembling the few pieces of equipment I need to wash and dry Stinky...

I also stopped in at the competition displays. There was some amazing artistry there!  Felted gowns, knits, wovens, an amazing sheep skull made out of felt, hooked rugs... I feel like I could possibly make a legitimate entry into the skeins competition.  Might try for next year!

The dance weaves under the firethorn

Crown Tourney has a Tempore Cultura Atlantia trifecta going on - French, Norse, 16th cen.

Here is a list of 16th century Danish ballads.  (Norse, 16th cen)

Here is a "Medieval Scandinavian Encyclopedia" saying that ballads are derived from medieval French verse forms. (French, if you squint.)

Here is an Old Danish/modern Danish translation of one of the 16th cen ballads.

Here ("Elvir Hill," 2/3 the way down) and here (page 225, "Elfer Hill") are English or Scots-dialect translation of said ballad. In summary: young man pauses to rest on a elf-hill. Two elven maidens come out, sing and dance, promise him knowledge and prowess if he will dance with them. He stays silent, they threaten to kill him, but the cock crows and he is saved by the dawn.

And here is most of Sir Bela of Eastmarch's (Poul Anderson's) poem from his short story, "The Queen of Air and Darkness." Like the translations above, it leaves off the ballad's refrain (which is found handily in the post title).  And do you know, if you took out the references to alien plants and animals, it's more or less the same story.

Observation: Sir Bela's poem is much more... poetic.  He uses lots of very original and vivid imagery, whereas ballads tend to be formulaic.  "With starlight in her glance" is not a phrase you will ever see in a traditional ballad.

If I were going to Crown, I would looooove to perform this as an entry (if I could find the music).  It's by a Scadian - one of the Founders, in fact! - and it adheres very closely to a period source as far as narrative and even structure go.  (The Danish ballads evidently nearly always have refrains, while the English ones do sometimes, but it's hardly expected.)  

But I'm not going to Crown, so I'd have to write an original poem and send a non-performing art along.  I'm poking at the idea, looking for an angle that's more than a rehash of Elfer Hill, and also not a ripoff of Sir Bela.