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Folk Fabric

By: Gunnsmith

 

 Gday all,

good thoughts....

A very long time ago, our people began to spin and weave wool, and flax into cloth.. and many tribes, especially the Celts, learned how to dye the threads and weave them into recognizable "clan patterns" or tartans. In this way, a friend or foe could be easily recognizable. In Tartan cloth, some threads are dyed one color,  others another...and with a base of green or red, russet... the whole is woven into pleasant, repeating patterns, distinguishable, and unique to the tradition.

The wearing of a tartan is referred to  as "the"... as in "he was wearing "the' henderson".. or "the " stuart"..

Implying a whole set of allegiances and identification. Interestingly, many people once wore garments like the kilt.. but it was the Celts who invented trousers, or pants as we know them.

Reality is often referred to as a "fabric", or "wyrd" and we understand the three norns , Urd, Verandi and Skuld...as the weavers of "fate"...

And Wyrd, as a non-linear time concept of "that which is" containing elements of the ancestral continuum and memory, deeds, spinning, and weaving...

The strands of this weave pass through us all and we are a part of it... and just as on a loom.. the plucking of one strand causes sympathetic vibrations on many other strands...  and these strands are unbelievably tight...strung as though on a musical instrument, ..

Life itself has been referred to as a "Web" as in the "Web of life"... and this too, we understand as a part of the whole.

In Folk realization, the fabric of a Tribe, or people.. is much like that tartan cloth that I spoke about, but in this case the strands of colored thread are a living fabric of recognizable, repeating patterns of qualities, strengths, and appearance. These patterns have been made in the manner of the Folk for generations, and even millennium, and just like wyrd, or "all that is"...every thread is connected to every other thread.. an what affects the one, cannot but affect the whole. And like wyrd, this exists outside of linear time.... and all the Folk who have ever lived are a part of that fabric... just as those now living and those yet to live.

Our Folk-Fabric is ancient, very beautiful...strong, proud, and very wise..  bold and cunning-in-all-things and every form of expression,  the arts, music, all kinds of smithcraft, societal order and institutions...

We are the authors of western democratic civilization... hated by many other peoples... but they cannot wait  it seems, to leave their squalor and pestilence and live in our society's.. while damning  them all the while. Quick they are to grab the cunning-wrought..  turning then to  spit upon the smith at the forge fire.

The  knowing of this, then, is a good charm to keep.. in everything that we do, always keeping weapons close to hand and ready to strengthen the shield-wall.

The strands of wyrd lately thrum like a taut sail...

Look then to the blade and priming, ask nothing but victory in every thought, word and deed, honorable and wise.. courageous... bold in everything we do, compassionate, speaking kind words in the hall  of hearth and home...

This is the real "Folkvang".. or "field of Folk".. that the lore talks about..

"luck to he who knows.. may he benifit, who learned it" [Havamal]

Gunn