Making Rushlights

Thankfully, the powers that be have abolished the dreadful candle tax and candles have become a little more affordable but a good portion of most women's housekeeping is still spent on providing a little light after dusk.
Now, the nobility have beeswax candles, which burn with a good, clean light but since they must be individually dipped and poured, they are far too costly for the likes of you and me.  There’s an even more costly candle now, too; spermaceti, which offers the whitest and brightest of light but being made from fat from the head of the sperm whale – or so I’m told – is beyond even most of the gentry to afford.
So if we’re fortunate and the coins stretch that far, we ordinary folk are left with tallow candles, which as everyone knows, are made from beef or mutton fat that smells and smokes and gutters and burns with a very poor light.  But at least they are cheap.
But what can you do if even tallow candles are beyond your means?  When I was little, such occasions were numerous and I remember how Ma used to fashion rushlightsfor us to burn.  During the summer, she would gather the stalks of the tallest rushes, from which she would strip the outer greenery to leave just a thin strip on the central pith. This was to give the length of rush some strength.   Then she would lay them out to dry.  Next, she would steep them in mutton fat, which she would have accumulated for just such use.  She favoured mutton over other fats, maintaining that it was easier to work with and dried to hold a firmer shape.  Then her strips of rush would be left to harden until needed.  She even had a curious, little holder fashioned from tin that held the lighted rush somewhere between upright and flat.  That, she said, gave the perfect balance between a good light and a lasting one. Mind you, we would be fortunate indeed if even one of her longer rushes burned for more than an hour and there could never be any knowing from one to the next just how clearly or usefully they would last.
I’m glad to say that I’ve not yet had to resort to making rushlights for Keeper’s Cottage but at least thanks to watching Ma, I believe I could make a fair job of it if ever I have to.

Mary