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Memoir of John Kay of Bury, Together With a Brief Memoir of the Author by W. Lord
Memoir of John Kay of Bury Together With a Brief Memoir of the Author by W Lord Author:John Lord General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1903 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: She seeketh wool and flax, And worketh willingly with her hands. She layeth her hands to the distaff, And her hands hold the spindle. She maketh for herself carpets [or cushions] of tapestry ; Her clothing is fine linen and purple. She maketh linen garments and selleth them; And delivereth girdles unto the merchant. She looketh well to the ways of her household, And eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up, and call her blessed." Akerman continues : " Pliny states that it was the custom to carry before the Roman bride a distaff charged with flax, and a spindle likewise furnished. " Descending to later times, we find the distaff and the spindle still more conspicuous as the distinguishing badge of the female sex. Among our own Saxon ancestors, the ' Spear half' and the ' Spindle half' expressed the male and female line; and the spear and spindle are to this day found in their graves. " The science of the moderns, has however, banished (from this country, at least) even the spinning-wheel, an improvement on the simpler process of the distaff and the spindle. " The spinning wheel is stated in the Dictionnaire des Origines to have been invented by a citizen of Brunswick in 1530. " We have good evidence that a wheel was actually used in spinning at a much earlier date than the sixteenth century. A manuscript in the British Museum, written early in the fourteenth century, contains several representations of a woman spinning with a wheel; but she stands at her work, and the wheel is moved with her right hand, while with her left she twirls the spindle. This is in fact the wheel c...« less