In the summer of 2012, I had one of the first of a series of strange vivid dreams that involved Loki:
In this particular dream, I found myself searching through a building of many rooms, and while I didn’t know what or who I was looking for, I knew I was looking for something…or someone.
Most of the rooms were spacious but empty – white walls, sparsely furnished, lit by buzzing fluorescent ceiling panels. Like an abandoned office building, which I sensed may or may not be underground.
And then I was surprised to come upon what appeared to be a middle-aged man with dark auburn hair in one of the rooms. As I’d mentioned, though most of the rooms were nothing more that white empty walls, the room this man was in was full of brightly colored yarn. Skeins of various colors and in various states of unravel lay scattered all over the floor. While a few seemed no more than tangled handfuls of yarn, others were neatly wound and stacked in piles of three or four bundles, sorted by color.
Meanwhile the biggest jumble of knots lay closest to the man’s right foot. I could also see that he was barefoot…. and he wasn’t exactly sitting in the chair.
This man was sprawled in an elaborately carved wooden chair large enough to easily be mistaken for some sort of throne. I say sprawled because though I came upon him sitting upon this odd throne from behind and at somewhat of an angle, I immediately realized that this man was quite gangly; one of his legs casually dangled over one of the arm rests, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d miraculously found a way to fold the length of the rest of his body comfortably within the confines of the seat.
I don’t think he noticed me at first, as his head was bent in concentration upon his hands and the tangled mess of colored yarn in his lap.
However, when he did finally look up at me
He grinned….and casually asked me
if I knew
who he was.
Loki.
And Loki appeared to be knitting.
But not with needles, mind you; He seemed to be knitting with His fingers.
(from my notebook, 17 July 2012)
~~~
But I learned something interesting today.
It occurs to me that Loki may not have been knitting.
He may have been nålbinding (“needle-binding”), an ancient technique which may pre-date knitting and crocheting by 1500 years, where a single length of thread or yarn is passed through loops by use of a single needle, and the resulting fabric is sturdily connected by interlocking these loops of yarn or thread with one another. Nålebinding is also called ‘knotless netting.’
I came across this information today – though honestly I was researching something else that had nothing at all to do with Norse clothing -but a reference to socks caught my eye and I found my way to Hurstwic.org:
“However, Norse socks were not knitted (which apparently was unknown to the Norse). Instead, they were made using an ancient technique called nálbinding (needle-binding). Using a single large, thick needle, it was a method of knotting the yarn. Although time consuming, this approach resulted in a nearly indestructible garment. If the thread were to break or wear out, the garment would still be intact, since the thread was everywhere knotted to neighboring threads. Mittens and caps were also made using this technique. The sketch to the left shows the steps involved in making an article of clothing using the nálbinding technique. Note that the fabric grows in a spiral pattern. Once the spiral is large enough, it is knotted back on itself to create the shape of the finished article.”
(Photos: l-r: spiral nal-binding_sketch; Sock found in York; from Hurstwic.org.)
~~~
How does this personally relate to me in regards to Loki?
Loki has been referring me to knots and knotwork for many years now, and as it is with His method, I hadn’t any idea as to why He was always referring to such things, either literally or metaphorically. But I’m starting to connect some things about knots and knotwork today.
But, barring that, it does give His references to ‘creating sockpuppets’ a whole new meaning, eh?
