Gansey Nation

According to the Anglo-Saxons, March comes in “adorned with rime, passing through middle-earth with hail-showers”—rime here meaning frosty, not that everyone went around reciting poetry for thirty-one days. They also called it hlyd-monath or hraed-monath, stormy month or rugged month, which seems about right. Not this week just past, though: it’s been lovely, (mostly) blue skies (when it’s not been cloudy) with warm, gentle breezes (except when blown in off the freezing cold ocean). It actually feels like spring, which just goes to show that God likes a joke as well as the rest of us, given the forecast for this coming week is adorned with rime, passing through middle-earth with sleet- and snow-showers.

Creels & lighthouse

One of my favourite Old English terms is bóc-cræftig, “book-crafty”, or learned. They didn’t have a word for archivist, though, or archive, which doubtless explains why they were conquered so easily by the Normans in 1066. Interestingly, they had to borrow their word for history, stær, from Latin and it meant, not historical events as such, but the telling of those events, the story. (Other than history, stær could also refer to both a starling and a stare; possibly the cause of much confusion if a taxidermist ever gave you a “hard stær“.)

Cuff detail

The Old English for yarn was, of course, gearn (pronounced the same way). But the Anglo-Saxons didn’t have ganseys, nor did the Vikings, which may be why dragon-head motifs feature so seldom in the old photographs. I’ve finished the first sleeve of my own gansey, including the cuff, which is another Wick stunner. It uses 4-stitch cables cabled every fourth row, alternating with plain stitches bordered by purl stitches; and while it may not be as ornate as the lace cuffs in the Wick trees-and-diamonds pattern, or as functional as standard knit 2/ purl 2 ribbing, it still draws the cuffs in to the wrist every bit as successfully. It’s a very elegant solution which also crops up in other Wick photographs.

Teal

April was known as Ēaster-mōnath for obvious reasons, but only presumably because the Anglo-Saxons didn’t have a word for wheelie bin. It makes you wonder what Beowulf did with his grass clippings, and how often Hearot District Council came round and emptied the bins (“Hey, there’s an arm in here!” “Oh yes, sorry, that’s Grendel’s mother; we got into a bit of a barney last night.” “Look, mate, don’t you read the leaflets? Organic waste goes in the brown bin”). Hana Videen, in her fascinating book on Old English The Wordhord, points out that not only was there a word for weather—weder—which has come down to us more or less unchanged, but also for “un-weather”—un-weder; something which, after a decade of living in the far north of Scotland, I’d very much like to try one day…

The wind’s been wild this week, gusting almost every day between 45-55 mph—March doing quite a lot of coming-in-lioning, and no sign yet of any willingness to go out lambing. It’s lucky we got the roof fixed when we did, and possibly luckier that the scaffolding’s still in place, just in case any more slates decide they want to go off and see the world. Speaking of wind, I was delighted the other day to come across the concept of the Japanese Wind Weasel, or Kamaitachi—a Yokai, or spirit, also known as the Sickle Weasel because it rides the wind and has long claws like sickles. In Japanese folklore they are responsible for the deep cuts people sometimes get when out walking in strong winds. They usually hunt in threes: one to knock you over, another to make the cuts, and the third to apply a salve to stop the cuts bleeding.

Waves near the Trinkie

Now, while I’m always happy to blame a malevolent spirit for any bad thing that happens to me—for instance, I assume there’s a capybara Yokai that nudges my elbow occasionally and causes me to poke myself in the eye with a knitting needle, and a Hospital Parking Stoat that arranges for the last space in the hospital car park to be taken just before I get there—I can’t recall ever having been sliced and diced on a windy ramble. Maybe they only operate in Japan. When I’m out walking in Caithness I’m more likely to be afflicted by the Runny Eye Hamster, which makes my eyes water in a stiff breeze, or the Damp Socks Duck.

. . . and waves on South Head

On the plus side, given we live in a mechanistic universe which is governed by cause and effect (and malevolent spirits), the wind has kept me indoors and I’ve filled my time knitting. This is why I’ve made so much progress this week: I’ve finished the back and joined the shoulders, and have picked up the stitches around the neck for the collar. As I said last week, this gansey is for show, not to be worn, so I’ve stuck to the traditional collar without any shaping (and which also means the centre yoke pattern isn’t truncated on either side). It’s an amazing pattern, and I  should probably retire after knitting it—this feels like it’s about as good as it gets.

Seat with a View

There are of course hundreds of Yokai in Japanese folklore. For instance, it’s believed that inanimate objects come to life and develop into spirits after a hundred years, such as the Kasa-obake, which is an animated parasol. (I’d like to think these creatures get together for jolly musical evenings, like the singing utensils in Beauty and the Beast.) Others are one-trick tricksters: Makura-gaeshi is a spirit that rearranges your pillows while you’re asleep, while creaking floorboards are caused by small demons called Yanari, which, let’s face it, explains a lot. My favourite is probably Teratsutsuki, which is where lingering resentment is transformed into a woodpecker, which would certainly liven up trips to the psychiatrist. I’m less convinced, though, by the Nekomata, which are cat-demons responsible for unexplained poltergeist activity (objects being moved, things disappearing), since in my experience that’s what’s properly called “owning a cat…”

April is the cruelest month, according to TS Eliot. He was of course wrong: it’s February. January goes on forever but you get through it, wrapped in a hazy leftover glow from Christmas, and then you think, Well, at least February’s short, and then it’s practically spring, how bad can it be? And every year the answer is: pretty bad. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, gales, hurricanes, tornadoes, and in the immortal words of Dr Peter Venkman, “Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!” In short, February sucks. I bet Eliot originally had February down as the cruelest month, except it didn’t scan.

We lost quite a few tiles off the roof over the winter, so last week the builder put up scaffolding so he can go up and replace them (though having grown up on too many westerns every time I hear the words “they’re building a scaffold” I get a sudden urge to skip town). It’s a huge construct of poles and planks, so that the side of our house now resembles a pocket medieval cathedral—though, with a rather pleasing touch of irony, they’ve not been able to actually start work yet because of all the ongoing gales and snow. I remember back when we lived in Northampton we lost a roof tile in a gale which landed smack on our car, parked in the street a little way away, doing a considerable amount of damage. It was just like one of the severer trials of Job, if Job had owned a natty red Nissan Micra, and had it wrecked by a roof tile which had blown off the top of his tent.

In parish notices I’m delighted to highlight another splendid gansey by Judit, this time in a very fetching shade of green. It’s the classic “Vicar of Morwenstow” pattern, one of my favourites, which uses simple light and shade to create distinctive blocks of colour, like looking at an aerial photograph of alternately ploughed fields, or, of course, a chess board. We ran out of superlatives long ago for Judit and her many ganseys, so this time I’ll just say many congratulations again to her, and many thanks for sharing it with us.

Surely it must be Spring?

My own gansey project is growing steadily. I’m pacing myself. (I nearly wrote, “because ‘measure twice cut once’ is my watchword”; but since it’s obvious by now that my watchwords are “close enough for jazz” and “will this do?”, on reflection I’d better not push my luck.) It’s a complicated pattern that requires concentration, so I’m taking it slowly. But the natural yarn shows it up a treat, a real Sunday best gansey in every sense.

And now, and with one eye on the events unfolding in Eastern Europe, I’m going to end with a classic Chinese poem from the Tang Dynasty, by the poet Li Qiao (lived 644-713). It’s called Wind, and—spoiler alert—it’s not just about the weather:

In autumn, leaves blown from trees,
In spring, flowers opened in blossom;
Passing over the river, a thousand-foot wave,
Passing through the bamboo forest, ten thousand poles are bent.