On this day in ...
...
2010 (today), is marked, at least in olde European tradition,
"St. Distaff's Day." There never was a saint by that name; however, in the middle of the last millennium the
distaff was central to life's day-to-day routine. It was the stick, or "staff," like that the woman at right cradles in her left hand, around which was wound the flax (in German, "
dis") to be spun into thread for weaving.
(image credit) January 7, the day after the Christian feast of the Epiphany, "was the end of the Christmas festivities and the
return to the normality of spinning whenever there was a spare moment." Nearly every woman spun, no matter what her class. That is no longer true, of course. Reflecting in 2005 on the sweatshop conditions too common in global factories (prior posts
here and
here),
Maureen James, a Britain-based folklorist,
wrote this about textile workers:
Do these people have a 'Distaff Day', do they have a break for their festivals? Writing this article made me wonder if we should bring back Distaff Day -- not as a time for us to pick up our spindles, but as a time to consider those who are doing the spinning now…
(Prior January 7 posts are here and here.)
... 2010 (today), is marked, at least in olde European tradition, "St. Distaff's Day." There never was a saint by that name; however, in the middle of the last millennium the distaff was central to life's day-to-day routine. It was the stick, or "staff," like that the woman at right cradles in her left hand, around which was wound the flax (in German, "dis") to be spun into thread for weaving. (image credit) January 7, the day after the Christian feast of the Epiphany, "was the end of the Christmas festivities and the return to the normality of spinning whenever there was a spare moment." Nearly every woman spun, no matter what her class. That is no longer true, of course. Reflecting in 2005 on the sweatshop conditions too common in global factories (prior posts here and here), Maureen James, a Britain-based folklorist, wrote this about textile workers:
