...spin....
Today only in English - sorry! Vandaag alleen in het Engels, sorry! I dag kun på engelsk, undskyld!
The second post on items from Inger, my mother in law is on a spindle. She has not been using it much, probably she bought it just to try. The thread on it is made by me. I never have tried before, I used a book and the internet to find out how and I think it is hard (but fun). I'll probably not do a lot of spinning because I do not have fiber to spin, and I have inherited this tremendous stash of yarn - so what's the point of producing MORE yarn?
The languages English, Dutch and Danish are all germanic languages and the verb to spin in the sense of twining fibers together to form yarn is similar in these languages (Du spinnen, Da spinde). They can be related to Old English, Old High German spinnan and Old Nordic, Old Frisian spinna (languages spoken before 1500). They again are thought to stem from a common German language, talked about as Proto-Germanic, in which the word presumably was spenwannan.
Related to this word is the word for spider. In Dutch, and German and Danish, the relation of spider to spin is much clearer:
Du & Ge: Spin - spinnen while in Danish, the word for cobweb is 'Spindelvæv'. The most commonly used word for spider in Danish is edderkop. This word, again, relates to Old English attorcoppa, litterarly meaning poisonhead. And guess what. There's a dutch word again related to this namely spinnekop (spider), and the English word cobweb.
You see, all of this connects, it's almost like a complot. It makes my head spin. And now I put it all together on the world wide web. (where you can find these informations to start with: http://www.etymonline.com)
Tingletangle wrote this at 6/14/2006 12:06:00 PM
4 Comments:
Fascinating! And I haven't picked up spinning for some of the same reasons you mentioned. And I would rather spend my time doing the actual knitting.
Then in German, a "Spinner" is a nut job, although they can also be someone who spins fiber. I wonder if this is merely coincidence ;)
Thanks for sharing that site. I love etymology!
The kind of spindle you show needs very thin and easy to spin wool. I learned through the years that the weight of the spindle,the balance of it, the length of the spinning "stick" ,the diameter of the round top or bottom piece and last but not least the way you spin: top down or bottom up; all are crucial when spinning on the spindle. I learned spinning on a spindle that was made a-specially for me in 1974 by the hippie-group ("krakerscollectief")I was a member of. I learned to spin on a wheel years later, but I sold the wheel due to the my absolute preferring spindle - spinning. I have a collection of spindles now, varying in weight, balance and so on, but still the best of them all is that first spindle....
In Holland a lot of the fleece of fresh shaven sheep are given away this year because of the the ridiculous low prices of raw wool (the fleece of one sheep is worth 3 eurocents in the commercial wooltrade...) so it's very temptuous to gain free wool on Marktplaats or EBay....
I liked the darning mushrooms, and I love the spindle. Can't wait for the next treasure shown by you out of the heritage of Inger!
Takk for besøk og hyggelig kommentar på bloggen min :-) Jeg tror som deg at fingerheklingen kan brukes til å lage gryteunderlag. Hvis datteren din/du lager det, får du sende meg en link :-) Posten din om ordet spinne var interessant. Jeg kommer nok tilbake på besøk til bloggen din :-)
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