[TheForge] Re: old wife's tales

[Craig Schaefer]

Sewing needles were a lot bigger in olden times.

I guess.


CraigS
Gresham, OR

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Frost" <akfrosty at mtaonline.net>
To: <mspencer at tallships.ca>; "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" 
<theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: old wife's tales


>I think we should reinvent this Yarn. Wouldn't a knitting needle fit in 
>better?
>
> I'll go back to my corner now.
>
> Frosty
> -------------------------------
> If it ain't forged
> it ain't real.
> Wrought iron is.
> The FrostWorks
>
> Meadow Lakes, AK.
>
>
> From: "Mike Spencer" <mspencer at tallships.ca>
>
>
>
>>
>> There's a yarn in Botkin's 1947 Treasury of New England Folklore:
>>
>>    A strapping young seaman is spending his time ashore sparking a
>>    sweet young  seamstress.  He goes and sits by her work table and
>>    chats as she works.  But being a bit nervous in the company of the
>>    young lady, he fiddles with things and one day he breaks  a
>>    needle.
>>
>>    So he soon arrives at the blacksmith shop with the broken needle,
>>    explains his dilemma and asks if the smith can repair the
>>    needle. The smith agrees that he'll have it fixed right up by late
>>    afternoon.  When the sailor is gone, he sends the apprentice
>>    across the street to the general store for a new needle.  He puts
>>    the new needle over the fire until it blues slightly and, upon the
>>    sailor's return, presents it and charges him a cent.
>>
>> What makes this even funnier for me is that a few weeks ago I was
>> driving around the back country, finding my way down inconspicuous
>> lanes to old mills and and secluded farmsteads, looking for an engine.
>> One old farmer -- and sawyer, woodsman and betimes blacksmith -- told
>> me the *very same* yarn, save that it was a farm boy with a harness
>> needle and he omitted the bluing bit. And it was the blacksmith from
>> whom he'd learned his smithing skills to whom it happened!
>>
>> Yarns do get around.
>>
>> FWIW,
>> - Mike
>>
>> -- 
>> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
>>
>> /V\
>
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