Magic Cloths of
Power
For many years I have been asked to present lectures on
various textile topics. One of my very
favorite topics I will share with you over several months : Magic Clothes of Power.
I once had read a book by Barbara Michaels about a “bad”
quilt. It was not poorly constructed,
not green and purple and orange, it was EVIL. and very dire consequences befell
anyone who came to be associated with this textile. So I began gathering stories and information about textiles that
had intrinsic powers. Not represented
power, such as flags or military uniforms, but possessed actual , beyond the
norm, abilities.
Folklore and literature abound with these legends. However there are equally as many accounts
of peoples and cultures that, today, believe that certain textiles have been
empowered in some way either by their creator, or the fibers and materials used
in their manufacture, or by some divine intervention.
Fabric- England, Chintz, c.1835
Today, I go to literature for such an account: “Wild Swans”,
Denmark, Hans Christian Anderson.
In this story, a beautiful princess weaves shirts made from
the fibers of the stinging nettle plant for her 11 brothers. It seems that their evil stepmother had cast
a spell upon the boys, turning them into wild swans. A good witch told the princess the completed shirts, when worn by
her brothers, would turn them from swans back into young men again. These wonderfully soft shirts made of
something so unlikely could reverse magical spells and would endow their
wearers with magical powers. And so it was.
There is, usually, in the background of such stories a grain of truth. In this case, it is the fiber of the nettle
plant. Stinging nettle – Urtica dioica,
is a herbaceous perennial 1-2 meters in height, found abundantly in boggy areas
in northern Europe and Asia, less commonly found in Canada and US. The underside of the leaves are found with
slender hairs containing several toxic chemicals which are released when
brushed against causing itching and pain.
The textile fiber is a bast fiber found in the stem and is
processed like flax.into very soft , supple fabric. Nettle, which was still
used in northern, central and eastern Europe well into the 20th C,
was found in a tomb in Denmark dating to 1,000 BCE. White fibers originally believed to be flax by archeologists were
later shown to be nettle. When Germany
and Austria ran short of cotton during the war, the value of nettle was recognized
and 2 species were chosen for textiles.
It is estimated that Germany harvested over two thousand tons of wild
nettles to weave fabric for their shoulders.
Several years age, my husband and I were dining in a restaurant
in Istanbul which served us steamed nettle, apparently the toxins are
eliminated by cooking. Frankly , it
tasted much like any cooked green.
I will share more of these textile tales in upcoming blogs.
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