LIFE ON THE FARM, WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

Trøndelag (Mid-Norway) is particularly suitable for growing plant fiber. Explained in Kristine's own words: a lot of rain and wind means that the plants have strong fibers and “straight spines”. But even though flax was the starting point for her textile interest, nettle automatically came along. For the processing of flax, hemp and nettle have a lot in common, albeit with minor variations. The method, tools and cultural context were connected to local traditions and access to resources. I will write about some of the processing methods during the different seasons of the work.

What is common to all of them is that work tasks and processes have influenced both the culture, words, expressions and place names. The podcast “Behind the food with Caroline" has a fun feature about hemp with Øyvind Ørbeck Sørheim that refers to place names and expressions related to the processing of the hemp plant. Nettle has even influenced words and language internationally. Many of the proverbs have now been diluted, but in the early 90s, there were several people who knew both them and the cultural context of nettle fiber.

To get the best possible fiber, a pregnant woman would walk around the field. Now I don't know if there was any requirement for belly size, but in any case she would lift her feet high when she walked to indicate tall fiber plants.

A number of the tasks related to plant fiber were men's work. In August and September, the men harvested the nettles with a scythe or sickle and gathered them into bundles, as big as their wrists. Each bundle was held together by several fresh nettle stems, “bennild”, which were tied around to prevent the stems from bending or curling. The bundles were then hung to dry before winter storage in the barn. It was important to get the bundles as dry as possible, and a long drying time gave better results. The work also had to be connected to the annual cycle on the farm and all the other ongoing tasks there.

After the spring heat was over and the year turned again into June and July, it was time to ret the dried nettles. There are a number of different methods for this, but common to all is that a controlled process of decay is initiated. In Steinkjer, the bundles were placed on the edge of a bog with good bacterial flora in the water. These bacteria attacked the liniment, the “green skin or glue” in the stem, which surrounds the fibers. But Kristine could also make the nettle dew by leaving it on the ground under snow or on grass.

The nettle must have been better cared for than a freshly bathed baby, because after the retting it was dried until the spring frosts of the following year! Then the nettles were taken to the stove and placed on a baking sheet or in a kjone, a two-story bread oven. It was important to make sure that the nettles did not catch fire, so they had to be turned and turned.

Then things got tougher, because now the nettles had to be beaten with a club. In short, the dry stems are beaten with a wooden stick so that the wood breaks into pieces and then in a breaker. The cut wood, the pieces that came loose, were used as bedding for the animals. This was heavy manpower work.

Photo Marte Kramer Riseng: A breake belonging to the University Museum in Bergen and has the following description:

«X 13854 Wooden tool, (linbråka?), allegedly for crushing flax and nettles. Consists of a 64 cm long stick with a rectangular section, the middle part of which is pierced with two longitudinal slits; the upper side is carved with notches or teeth. A long fork-shaped shaft with two tines, which are provided with teeth on the underside, is placed so that the tines fit in the slits; the tip of the tines is hinged to the main stick with the help of a wooden plug so that the shaft can be moved up and down. The other end of the shaft extends slightly beyond the stick.»

The fibers were then scutched with a looked wooden saber where the fiber was beaten free of wood pieces. A clamp was a smaller version of the break.  It looked like a wolf's jaw that chewed over the fibers as you pulled them so that even more wood fell off. The flax break had iron fittings in its jaws, while the nettle breaker had wooden teeth. Breaking was women's work that was to be done on a sunny day in spring while the air was warm, preferably with a little wind so that the dust blew away. (I'm waiting for a picture).

"When the women met for the fiber workshops, the old woman's mouth would go in time with the tools and it was as much a gossip session as a work session! Then the men would go away, - so far away that they couldn't see a white horse on the farm. This was so that they wouldn't hear all the ugly gossip.

My oh my! Kristine explains the phenomenon: Without Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, the fiber workshops took on a major social role as a news update in society. Women from the area would come to the farm bringing their children's jokes, laughter and gossip. The workshop took turns on the farms, and the hostess of the day would provide food for young and old. The news update could clearly be a hard task when you see what colorful words and expressions the Norwegian language still has today associated with this fiber workshops. What wouldn't you do to get a nice thread!

When the fibers were shaken, it was time for hekle, a huge brush that evokes associations with medieval torture instruments. Then the women would spin a bundle of fibers around their fingers and pull it through the heckle hook. This was done in several rounds, with increasingly fine heckles with thinner and denser tines. Finally, one was left with a narrow bundle of long fibers. 

Both the buckskin, staples and hekle work were done outdoors because it was very dusty. The weather had to be stable without rain, preferably in the middle of the moon phase. In damp weather, the fibers were worn and destroyed. The smaller pieces, cut off or ironed, that fell to the ground were swept up, carded and spun into coarser thread or mixed with other fibers and wool. The iron was also used as stuffing in horse harness and furniture. 

Although the priest H. Strøm wrote in 1762 about the inhabitants of the neighboring county of Nord-Fiord who made coarse canvas nests of nettles that they sold in Sunnmøre, nettle soup was probably mostly produced for private use. Then, as now, one had to save or put aside to make ends meet.

An alternative to a savings account, robbery or bank loan could therefore be to make yourself a – DOCKE!

With fiber from two branches, you made docke, and the dock’s were put together to make a crown (wreath) hung on the wall. Such a crown was a status symbol of the time. You could save the spinning fiber or exchange it for food, goods or money. It was both Tesla and bitcoin.

[1] Hjalmar Falck og Alf Torp: Etymologisk ordbog over det norske og danske sprog, Bjørn Ringstrøms antikvariat 1991, side 374 [2] https://www.synonymordboka.no/no/?q=klammeri [1] Weisæth Gunnar. Brennesle som nyttevekst. Våre Nyttevekster 1992; nr. 2: 35–47