Interpretation and Those Pesky Historical Errors
Closet taxes? Sleep tight in a rope bed? Pop goes the weasel? It is amazing how many incorrect ideas pop up when we look back at how our ancestors lived. Some sound correct, some are outlandish. Sleep tight seems to apply very well to a rope bed where the ropes had to be tightened regularly to take up the sag. But that weasel thing never made much sense to me. Most machines used to make cloth have animal names, a jenny, a billy, a swift so why not a weasel? A clock reel, or weasel, is a device for winging newly spun yarn into skeins. The fortieth revolution of the reel causes a wooden lever to drop into place, hence the pop. Now listen to the nursery rhyme:
All around the cobblers bench
The monkey chased the weasel
And
A penny for a spool of thread a penny for a needle
That’s the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel.
Not a word about spinning yarn. Turns out “pop” is slang for pawning. So the cobbler pawns his weasel to buy thread and needle. What’s a weasel? Not a clue.
People didn’t write about the things that were so ordinary that everyone knew them. They did write about things that were not ordinary or that they needed to pass on to others with whom they had no face to face contact. A mother might send a knitting pattern or a "receipt" to her daughter far away.
Am I correct in my period garb? I can't know for sure. I just do the best I can and keep going.
All around the cobblers bench
The monkey chased the weasel
And
A penny for a spool of thread a penny for a needle
That’s the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel.
Not a word about spinning yarn. Turns out “pop” is slang for pawning. So the cobbler pawns his weasel to buy thread and needle. What’s a weasel? Not a clue.
People didn’t write about the things that were so ordinary that everyone knew them. They did write about things that were not ordinary or that they needed to pass on to others with whom they had no face to face contact. A mother might send a knitting pattern or a "receipt" to her daughter far away.
Am I correct in my period garb? I can't know for sure. I just do the best I can and keep going.
Published on November 01, 2010 07:45
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Tags:
historical-fiction, historical-interpretation, history
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The Shepherd's Notes
Combining Living History and writing historical mysteries.
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