27.2.19
26.2.19
Kasveilla värjääminen.
Vakka-Suomi 81, 27.7.1916
Värjäykseen aiotut puunkuoret kootaan keväällä, kun puut ovat mahalassa, jolloin ne helposti irtautuvat puusta. Puista, jotka jo ovat sammaltuneet, ei pidä ottaa kuorta; nuorissa oksissa kuori ei vielä sisällä värjäykseen riittävää määrää väriainetta.
Värjääminen tapahtuu parhaiten kupari- eli emaljikattilassa, rautapadassa väri ei tule puhdasta eikä kirkasta.
Puunkuoret taitetaan pieniin palasiin ja keitetään riittävässä määrässä vettä, kunnes väriaine on niistä lähtenyt. Uutos (keitevesi) siivilöidään ja lanka keitetään siinä. Ensin on lanka huolellisesti pestävä ja alunoitava.
Alunoitseminen tapahtuu siten, että lanka ½ tuntia keitetään alunaliuoksessa, joka saadaan siten, että kutakin lankakiloa kohti lasketaan 150 grammaa alunata liuotettuna 30-40 litraa vettä. Toiset värit eivät tarvitse ollenkaan alunoimista.
Harmaan (hikiäs) lepän kuorta voi käyttää sekä tuoreena että kuivattuna. Kuoria keitetään 3 à 4 tuntia. Uutos siivilöidään ja alunoitua lankaa keitetään siinä noin ½-1 tuntia. Lanka saa keltaisenharmaan värin. Panemalla uutokseen 10-15 gr. rautavihtrilliä saa värin tummanharmaaksi, jopa melkein mustaksi.
Tuomen kuorta käytetään kuten harmaan lepän kuortakin. Tuomen kuori antaa punertavan harmaan värin, jollei rautavihtriliiä käytetä, antaa se vaaleanpunaisen värin.
Koivun kuori antaa keltasenharmaan värin.
Pajahkan kuorta ei voi tuoreena käyttää värjäykseen. Vasta seuraavana vuonna sen jälkeen, kun se on korjattu, voi sitä siihen käyttää ja antaa se silloin kauniin pronssiruskean värin; jos kauvemman ajan keittää antaa se ruskean värin. Kuorta keitetään 2-3 tuntia ja siivilöidään. Lankaa ei alunoida, mutta sama määrä alunaa, kuin mitä langan aiunoimiseen käytettäisiin, pannaan yht'aikaa langan kanssa kattilaan.
Värjäyksen jälkeen ovat kaikki langat pestävät joko suopa- eli saippuavedessä.
Kasveista mainittakoon kanerva. Kun kanerva on kasvanut uusia vesoja, leikataan nämät ja kuivataan; voi niitä käyttää tuoreina. Kanervaa voi värjäämiseen käyttää, kunnes se alkaa kukkia.
3 kiloa tätä kasvia keitetään 3-4 tuntia; aiunoitu lanka keitetään siivilöidyssä uutoksessa ½—2 tuntia, riippuen siitä, tahdotaanko väri tummaksi tai vaaleaksi. Antaa villalle ja pumpuille voimakkaan keltaisen värin. Jos keittämistä uudistetaan useampi kerta samassa tai uudessa uutoksessa sekä annetaan langan joka keittämisen välillä kuivaa, saadaan kauniita pronssikeltaisia värejä. Jos kanerva keitetään rautapadassa tulee värit viheriänkeltaiseksi.
Lieko kerätään keväällä ja kuivataan. Kasvista otetaan 1 kilo ja keitetään hyvästi 3-4 päivää peräkkäin, jonka jälkeen uutos siivilöidään ja alunoimaton lanka pannaan siihen. Uutos lankoineen saa taasen seistä 3-4 päivää ja keitetään kerta päivässä. Saadaan kaunis harmaankeltainen väri. Keittämällä näin värjättyä lankaa miedossa sinipuulastu-uutoksessa saadaan kaunis tummansininen väri.
Suolaheinä. Lehdet ja varsi käytetään tuoreina ennen kukkimista. Rautapata täytetään suolaheinillä ja annetaan kiehua tunti. Siivilöidyssä uutoksessa keitetään aiunoimaton lanka yksi tunti ja saa se silloin harmaanvihreän värin. Kun se keitetään vahvassa sinipuulastu-uutoksessa, saa lanka kauniin ja pysyväisen mustan värin.
Ahomataran juuria kootaan ennen kukkimista, puhdistetaan ja kuivataan. Juuret leikataan hienoksi ja keitetään yhdessä langan kanssa, jota on alunoitava joko yksinomaan alunalla tai 200 gr:ssa alunata ja 75 gr:ssa viinikiveä. Saadaan kaunis, punainen väri. Jos väri tahdotaan tummaksi, on käytettävä sama paino juuria ja lankaa.
Kivisammal (kiventiera). Jäkälä ja lanka pannaan kerroksittain kattilaan tai pataan; vettä kaadetaan siihen sen verran että se hyvin peittää jäkälän, sekä keitetään hiljaa 4—5 tuntia ja annetaan olla uutoksessa, kunnes se on jähtynyt. Jos keittämistä uudistetaan upeamman kerran, saa lanka hyvin tumman värin. Jos keittäminen tapahtuu kattilassa, tulee väri keltasenruskeaksi, mutta rautapadassa punaisenruskeaksi.
Nythän väriaineet ovat kalliita jos lainkaan saa. Kehoitamme siksi nämä ohjeet ottamaan talteen tarpeen varalta.
Värjäykseen aiotut puunkuoret kootaan keväällä, kun puut ovat mahalassa, jolloin ne helposti irtautuvat puusta. Puista, jotka jo ovat sammaltuneet, ei pidä ottaa kuorta; nuorissa oksissa kuori ei vielä sisällä värjäykseen riittävää määrää väriainetta.
Värjääminen tapahtuu parhaiten kupari- eli emaljikattilassa, rautapadassa väri ei tule puhdasta eikä kirkasta.
Puunkuoret taitetaan pieniin palasiin ja keitetään riittävässä määrässä vettä, kunnes väriaine on niistä lähtenyt. Uutos (keitevesi) siivilöidään ja lanka keitetään siinä. Ensin on lanka huolellisesti pestävä ja alunoitava.
Alunoitseminen tapahtuu siten, että lanka ½ tuntia keitetään alunaliuoksessa, joka saadaan siten, että kutakin lankakiloa kohti lasketaan 150 grammaa alunata liuotettuna 30-40 litraa vettä. Toiset värit eivät tarvitse ollenkaan alunoimista.
Harmaan (hikiäs) lepän kuorta voi käyttää sekä tuoreena että kuivattuna. Kuoria keitetään 3 à 4 tuntia. Uutos siivilöidään ja alunoitua lankaa keitetään siinä noin ½-1 tuntia. Lanka saa keltaisenharmaan värin. Panemalla uutokseen 10-15 gr. rautavihtrilliä saa värin tummanharmaaksi, jopa melkein mustaksi.
Tuomen kuorta käytetään kuten harmaan lepän kuortakin. Tuomen kuori antaa punertavan harmaan värin, jollei rautavihtriliiä käytetä, antaa se vaaleanpunaisen värin.
Koivun kuori antaa keltasenharmaan värin.
Pajahkan kuorta ei voi tuoreena käyttää värjäykseen. Vasta seuraavana vuonna sen jälkeen, kun se on korjattu, voi sitä siihen käyttää ja antaa se silloin kauniin pronssiruskean värin; jos kauvemman ajan keittää antaa se ruskean värin. Kuorta keitetään 2-3 tuntia ja siivilöidään. Lankaa ei alunoida, mutta sama määrä alunaa, kuin mitä langan aiunoimiseen käytettäisiin, pannaan yht'aikaa langan kanssa kattilaan.
Värjäyksen jälkeen ovat kaikki langat pestävät joko suopa- eli saippuavedessä.
Kasveista mainittakoon kanerva. Kun kanerva on kasvanut uusia vesoja, leikataan nämät ja kuivataan; voi niitä käyttää tuoreina. Kanervaa voi värjäämiseen käyttää, kunnes se alkaa kukkia.
3 kiloa tätä kasvia keitetään 3-4 tuntia; aiunoitu lanka keitetään siivilöidyssä uutoksessa ½—2 tuntia, riippuen siitä, tahdotaanko väri tummaksi tai vaaleaksi. Antaa villalle ja pumpuille voimakkaan keltaisen värin. Jos keittämistä uudistetaan useampi kerta samassa tai uudessa uutoksessa sekä annetaan langan joka keittämisen välillä kuivaa, saadaan kauniita pronssikeltaisia värejä. Jos kanerva keitetään rautapadassa tulee värit viheriänkeltaiseksi.
Lieko kerätään keväällä ja kuivataan. Kasvista otetaan 1 kilo ja keitetään hyvästi 3-4 päivää peräkkäin, jonka jälkeen uutos siivilöidään ja alunoimaton lanka pannaan siihen. Uutos lankoineen saa taasen seistä 3-4 päivää ja keitetään kerta päivässä. Saadaan kaunis harmaankeltainen väri. Keittämällä näin värjättyä lankaa miedossa sinipuulastu-uutoksessa saadaan kaunis tummansininen väri.
Suolaheinä. Lehdet ja varsi käytetään tuoreina ennen kukkimista. Rautapata täytetään suolaheinillä ja annetaan kiehua tunti. Siivilöidyssä uutoksessa keitetään aiunoimaton lanka yksi tunti ja saa se silloin harmaanvihreän värin. Kun se keitetään vahvassa sinipuulastu-uutoksessa, saa lanka kauniin ja pysyväisen mustan värin.
Ahomataran juuria kootaan ennen kukkimista, puhdistetaan ja kuivataan. Juuret leikataan hienoksi ja keitetään yhdessä langan kanssa, jota on alunoitava joko yksinomaan alunalla tai 200 gr:ssa alunata ja 75 gr:ssa viinikiveä. Saadaan kaunis, punainen väri. Jos väri tahdotaan tummaksi, on käytettävä sama paino juuria ja lankaa.
Kivisammal (kiventiera). Jäkälä ja lanka pannaan kerroksittain kattilaan tai pataan; vettä kaadetaan siihen sen verran että se hyvin peittää jäkälän, sekä keitetään hiljaa 4—5 tuntia ja annetaan olla uutoksessa, kunnes se on jähtynyt. Jos keittämistä uudistetaan upeamman kerran, saa lanka hyvin tumman värin. Jos keittäminen tapahtuu kattilassa, tulee väri keltasenruskeaksi, mutta rautapadassa punaisenruskeaksi.
Nythän väriaineet ovat kalliita jos lainkaan saa. Kehoitamme siksi nämä ohjeet ottamaan talteen tarpeen varalta.
25.2.19
Uutisia. Sodan vaikutuksia kirjapainoalalla.
Kirjapainotaito 9, 1917
Saksalainen ammattilehdistö esittää seuraavat tiedot hintojen kohoamisesta sodan vuoksi erinäisten kirjapainotarpeitten suhteen:
Paperi on noussut 100—300 pros., käyttövoima ja valo 150—200 pros., metalliaineet, kirjakkeiden valaminen, stereotypeeraus ja galvanoplastiikka yli 300 pros., telahyty yli 200 pros., värit 100—250 pros., värittäminen 500 pros., konerasva 400—500 pros., liima 300—400 pros., lanka, niderihma ym. 100- 300 pros. ja muut tarvikkeet keskimäärin 200 —500 pros. Saksan kirjaltajaliittolaisia on sodassa tähän saakka kaatunut 9,7 pros. liiton sodassa olevista jäsenistä.
Saksalainen ammattilehdistö esittää seuraavat tiedot hintojen kohoamisesta sodan vuoksi erinäisten kirjapainotarpeitten suhteen:
Paperi on noussut 100—300 pros., käyttövoima ja valo 150—200 pros., metalliaineet, kirjakkeiden valaminen, stereotypeeraus ja galvanoplastiikka yli 300 pros., telahyty yli 200 pros., värit 100—250 pros., värittäminen 500 pros., konerasva 400—500 pros., liima 300—400 pros., lanka, niderihma ym. 100- 300 pros. ja muut tarvikkeet keskimäärin 200 —500 pros. Saksan kirjaltajaliittolaisia on sodassa tähän saakka kaatunut 9,7 pros. liiton sodassa olevista jäsenistä.
24.2.19
Edward J. Lowell: The Bayeux Tapestry.
Scribner's magazine 3, 1887
Among the curiosities that are scattered through the collections and galleries of Europe, there is no single one, perhaps, so interesting to all persons who care for the past as that long piece of embroidery which is known as the "Bayeux tapestry." It will, I think, be easiest to appreciate its importance by means of a comparison. Let us suppose, then, that in the course of time the inhabitants of this continent should lose almost all the records of the late civil war; that almost every contemporary account of that great struggle should be destroyed; that a few meagre chronicles, in prose or rhyme, some of them written long after the events had occurred, and far from the scene where they happened, should be the most trustworthy sources of information concerning a contest so important to our country. And let us then suppose that in some old church library a scrapbook should be discovered, containing the pictures published by one of our weekly newspapers during the
course of the war; without other letterpress, it is true, than the title of each picture, but complete from the election of Lincoln to the battles about Petersburg; from sketches drawn perhaps by an eyewitness of some of the scenes represented, and certainly by a contemporary. With what care would such pictures be studied by all who were interested in the history of their country.
A little more than eight hundred years ago a series of events took place which have influenced the condition of all men living in Great Britain and Ireland, and of all their descendants from that day to this. If William of Normandy had not conquered England, we who live in America should today speak a different language from that which we now speak, and be governed by different laws and customs from those which we now observe. And, moreover, there are probably few readers of this magazine some of whose direct ancestors did not fight on one side or the other in the great battle near Hastings. Of that battle, and of the events which preceded it, the Bayeux tapestry is the most interesting record, for it tells not only those great events which historians and chroniclers think worthy of their trouble, but a multitude of details concerning the daily life of the two nations whose mixed descendants are Englishmen and Americans.
The term "Bayeux tapestry," although universally adopted, is not strictly correct.The object we are considering is an embroidery on linen cloth. The strip on which it is worked is two hundred and thirty feet, nine and onethird inches long, and nineteen and twothird inches wide. The linen was probably unbleached, and time and dust have brought it to the shade of brown Holland. It is divided by horizontal lines into a centre and two borders, the centre being a little more than thirteen inches wide. It is in this central part that the action of the piece takes place, overrunning at times into the borders. Over the greater part of the tapestry these last are merely ornamental, being cut by diagonal lines into sections only a few inches in length, which are filled with beasts, birds, and fishes, centaurs and dragons. At times, however, little pictures from life are given, or illustrations of Æsop's fables. Men are seen ploughing and harrowing, the fowler uses his sling, the fox flatters the crow who drops her cheese into his mouth. In general the border would seem to be more uneven in merit, both as to imagination and as to execution, than the central part of the tapestry:
In the whole composition are represented more than six hundred and twenty persons, one hundred and eighty horses, and five hundred and fifty other animals, besides ships, boats, buildings, trees, weapons, tools, and other objects. These figures are drawn and colored flat, without any attempt at shading, and in their spirited uncouthness remind us of the work of a clever child. The faces, hands, and legs of the human figures, when bare, are merely indicated by a line of stitches. Yet it is an instance of the durability of frail things that these faces and hands have, in many cases, retained for eight hundred years a decided expression. In the colored portions of the embroidery, where the linen ground is covered with long worsted stitches, little attempt is made to imitate the hues of nature. There is nothing improbable, it is true, in the colors of the clothing, but those of the animals are not such as are found in the common varieties. In the absence of shading and perspective, an attempt is made to supply their place by varying the color arbitrarily on the different parts of the same animal. Thus a lightblue horse may have his two legs which are farthest from the spectator colored red, his ears green, and his mane yellow. The hoofs on his blue legs may be red, and those on his red legs green. In spite of this grotesqueness, the general effect is good; and time, which will usually bring colors which lie near each other into harmony, however discordant they may have been at first, has mellowed and softened the whole.
* An excellent series of colored engravings of the tapestry was published by the Society of Antiquaries, of London, in their Vetusta Monumenta, vol. vi., in 1823; a complete series of photographs, with valuable notes, by Frank Rede Fowke (London, Arundel Society, 1875). In these photographs the reproduction is between four and a half and five inches wide. A set of colored lithographs, reduced from the Vetusta Monumenta, and rather roughly executed, elucidated by Rev. John Collingwood Bruce, LL.D., F.S.A., was published in 1856. They are about two inches wide. (London, John Russell Smith.) Articles on the tapestry are printed in the 17th and 19th volumes of the Archæologia of the Society of Antiquaries of London; a treatise "on the Banners of the Bayeux Tapestry, and some of the earliest heraldic charges, by Gilbert J. French," was reprinted from the Journal of the Archæological Association of Great Britain and Ireland, for July, 1857. (London, T. Richards.) Edward A. Freeman has an appendix on the tapestry in the third volume of his "History of the Norman Conquest," and there are many references to it in the history itself. The Roman de Rou, written by Robert Wace, about a century after the battle, has been much used in the preparation of this article. It was very carefully published by Dr. Hugo Andresen, Heilbronn, 1817. Many works on arms and armor have been consulted, and especially the fifth voltime of the Dictionnaire raisonné du Mobilier Fran¸ais, by Viollet le Doc. Paris, 1874.There has been some controversy as to the maker of the tapestry, and as to its exact date. It is attributed by popular tradition to Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, who is supposed to have worked it, with her ladies, to commemorate the glories of her husband. Some writers suppose it to have been made at a somewhat later date than that of her lifetime. Mr. Freeman, however, probably the best authority on the subject, assigns the work to a period little after that of the conquest, but does not attribute its manufacture to the queen. The tapestry was worked, as he thinks, for Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother to William on the mother's side. There are some reasons to suppose that English workmen were employed. Odo appears at least four timer in the tapestry, and several of his vassals, otherwise almost unknown men, are represented. The tapestry itself was exhibited in the cathedral of Bayeux down to the time of the French Revolution, being stretched round the nave on certain feast days. During the eight centuries which have elapsed since its completion it has escaped many dangers. The church was burned in 1106. It was pillaged by the Calvinists in 1562. In 1792 the tapestry narrowly escaped being cut up into coverings for carts for the French Revolutionary army. In 1803 it was carried to Paris and exhibited in the Musee Napoleon, to fire the French heart for a new conquest of England. On being returned to Bayeux the tapestry was wound on two cylinders or windlasses in the townhall, and rolled from one to the other for the inspection of the curious. By this process it became somewhat frayed, especially near the ends. It was not until 1842 that the priceless relic was displayed to students and the public, under glass, in a special museum of its own. Thence it was again removed, in 1871, on the approach of the Prussian invaders. It was soon brought back, however, and stretched again in its museum, where it has been carefully copied several times.*
The design of the central portion of the tapestry is divided into scenes or compartments, the separation between them being usually made by trees or buildings. But one scene sometimes runs into another in a way to make any count uncertain. A Latin inscription, placed generally near the top of each division, tells its story in a few words. Thus the tapestry is a history of the conquest, told from the Norman side. But more valuable than the record it bears of important events is its testimony concerning the little affairs of daily life — the clothing, armor, and weapons, the food, manners, and fashions — of our ancestors.
In the first compartment King Edward the Confessor is seen, seated on a cushioned throne. His crown is on his head, his sceptre in his hand. He wears the full beard, which was then going out of fashion both in England and France. His long white hands, mentioned by William of Malmesbury, are clearly shown, as he raises a finger in admonition. Beside him stand two figures in short tunics and long hose, with mantles (a distinction of nobility) draped about them. The young men wear moustaches only, as was usual among Englishmen, the Normans being cleanshaven. These men are probably Earl Harold and a companion, taking leave of the king before their journey to France. In the next scene they ride to the seacoast. Harold goes first, with his hawk on his hand and his dogs running before him. Although these dogs are colored blue and green, they are drawn with much life and spirit. Before sailing, Harold goes into a church, and afterward partakes of a banquet. The latter is enjoyed in a hall supported by round arches and covered by a tiled roof. Some of the guests drink from round cups, some from carved oxhorns.
When the meal is over they come down a flight of steps to the water, and, having taken off their long hose, wade out to the ship, carrying their dogs under their arms. They then step their mast and push off from the shore. The action of the men shoving with poles is well given.
The ships are long galleys, propelled by sails and by oars. The bows and sterns are high, and in many instances capped with a carved head. The sails hang from a long yard, which keeps a horizontal position, not holding one end much higher than the other, as do the lateen sails of the Lake of Geneva, or the Nile. Along the gunwale of each galley the shields of the warriors are displayed, lapping over each other to form a bulwark.
Soon land is seen from the masthead, and presently the ship is run on a beach and an anchor set out to keep her firm. Here Harold is seized by Wido, or Guy, Count of Ponthieu, and taken off as a prisoner to Beaurain le Château, whence he is finally ransomed by William, Duke of Normandy. The whole incident is characteristic of the manners of the time. Whether it was by mistake or by stress of weather that Harold landed in the count's dominions we do not know. But in either case he became the lawful spoil of the lord of the land. The claim is undisputed, and William, although he is Count Guy's overlord, does not think of demanding the prisoner without ransom. The adventure has its value, moreover, in the story of the conquest of England. Harold, ransomed by William for a great price, is put under a heavy obligation to him.
The Duke of Normandy takes the English earl to Rouen, where he gives him solemn audience in a great hall surmounted by an arcade of seventeen Romanesque arches. Harold, the only Englishman present, seems to expostulate with William. The story at this point presents a mystery. The scene immediately following the interview between the duke and the earl at Rouen represents a woman, against whose face a tonsured man is laying his hand. The inscription, apparently mutilated, or intentionally left incomplete (for there are no stitchmarks), reads, in Latin, " where a clerk and Aelgyva." Mr. Fowke, in his excellent notes accompanying the photograph of the tapestry, has made a guess at the meaning of this picture, which, although incapable of proof, seems to bring it into the general course and story of the work. He surmises that Aelgyva was a noble English lady (as, indeed, is shown by her name); that she was possibly even the sister of Harold; that this lady was insulted or outraged by a member of the clergy; that this may have taken place at the Breton town of Dol; and that Harold entreated William to assist him in obtaining revenge. Thereupon we see, in the next compartment, the expedition into Brittany; the flight of the culprit, who lets himself down from the walls of Dol by a rope and escapes to Dinan; the siege and capitulation of that place. This theory, however, is contradicted by the fact, mentioned by William of Poitiers, that William's expedition to Dol was made for the purpose of raising the siege of the town, which was attacked by Conan, Duke of Brittany. Indeed, the flight of Conan from before the walls of Dol is shown in the tapestry; it is he that surrenders Dinan; and if Aelgyva's clerical lover were of the party, his affair had been lost sight of by the artist. The scandal is eight centuries old, after all, and no one but an archaeologist can be expected to care much about it.
Some incidents of the Breton expedition, however, deserve notice. Passing by Mont St. Michel, the army crossed the great sandy beach which surrounds that picturesque fortress. Here the river Couesnon flows into the sea, through dangerous quicksands. Caught among these we see the Norman army. The men carry their shields above their heads to keep them from the salt water; a horse and his rider are floundering. Harold, by his personal strength, is saving two Normans from the sands. One he carries pickapack, and the other he pulls by the wrist. Below, in the border, are eels and fishes devouring those who have been lost.
After chasing Conan from before Dol the Normans lay siege to Dinan. We see them on horseback and in armor advance toward the outer defences of the place. Javelins are thrown from both sides. Meanwhile two knights on foot, leaving their pennoned lances stuck in the ground, and their shields leaning against them, advance boldly to the palisade and set fire to it with torches. On the other side of the picture, Conan gives over the keys of the town. He reaches them, on a lance, from the walls to an officer (probably Duke William), who receives them in the same manner.
Immediately after the surrender of Dinan we have a scene with the inscription, "Here William gave arms to Harold." It is probable, however, that something more than a present of the spoils of Dinan is intended. Both warriors are clad in armor. Harold holds a lance with a pennon in his left hand. William's left hand rests on Harold's helmet; his right is raised, as in earnest speech. The scene is perhaps that of conferring knighthood, a ceremony which took place, according to Wace, between the duke and the earl at Avranches. There are difficulties, however, in so considering it. Knighthood was conferred among the Normans by a ceremony on horseback. Among the Saxons it was conferred by a priest and according to a religious ritual. Here it is a layman who gives the honor, and both he and the recipient are on foot.
The campaign was now ended, and the Normans returned to Bayeux. It was here that, before sending Harold back to England, William exacted from him an oath. The nature and extent of the promise is not absolutely certain, but there is nothing positively to contradict the story told by a Norman poet a century later. Harold, he says, first propcIsed to give over the kingdom of England to William on King Edward's death, and to take to wife Ele, William's daughter. This Harold offered to swear to, and William assembled a great council showed Harold what was within and on at Bayeux to hear the oath. The duke what relics he had sworn. Harold was then got together all the relics he could indeed aghast at what he saw. find — the bodies of the saints — and filled a tub with them. Over the tub was thrown a silken cloth, so that Harold neither knew nor saw what it contained. On the cloth was laid a reliquary, the best that could be had and the most precious; it was called the ox-eye. When Harold stretched his hand over it, his hand trembled and his flesh crept. Then he swore and pledged himself, as was dictated to him, to marry Ele, the duke's daughter, and to give up England to the duke, to the best of his power, after Edward's death, if he himself should be alive, so help him God, and the holy relics that were there. And several of those present said, "God grant it!" When Harold had kissed the relics and had risen to his feet, the duke led him to the tub and took off the silken cloth which had covered it, and showed Harold what was within and on what relics he had sworn. Harold was indeed aghast at what he saw.
This story, with its curious primitive notion of cheating your prisoner and taking liberties with the saints, and enlisting the powers of heaven against your enemy by tempting him to offer them an unintended insult, is neither conclusively affirmed nor denied by the evidence of the tapestry. Harold stands between two altars, one apparently permanent and the other movable. The front of each is concealed by drapery, and on each stands an ornamental box, or reliquary, of elaborate architectural design, such as the bones of saints are kept in to this day. On top of one of these boxes is a projection, terminating in a ball or knob, which may well be the "ox-eye" mentioned by the old poet. Toward. each Harold extends a hand. It is clearly the intention of the artist to show that the English earl swore on many relics; else why the two reliquaries. If the story of the pious fraud be true, it may not have suited the bishop, or his patron, to publish it, but rather to intimate that Harold swore with full knowledge of what he was doing. On the other hand, if the story were notorious, the draped altars would suggest the hidden tub. The objection afterward raised to this oath by Harold was not fraud, but duress; he said that he was William's prisoner when he took it. Moreover, the exact nature of the oath taken is as doubtful as the story of the tubful of relics. That some solemn promise was actually made, or some solemn act of fealty performed, there can be little doubt.
After taking the oath Harold returns to England. We see his boat on the channel, which may here well be called "the narrow seas," for while her stern almost overhangs the coast of France her bow is within half a lance's length of England. From the terrace of a castle a watchman, shading his eyes with his hand, looks for the coming sail. Harold and a companion ride to London, and present themselves before King Edward.
* The saddle, helmet, and shield used by Henry V., at the battle of Agincourt, hang in the chapel of King Edward the Confessor.As the best authorities are quite uncertain as to the exact date of the incidents hitherto narrated, it is impossible to say how long an interval of time should be supposed to have elapsed between the scene last mentioned and that which occurs next in the tapestry. We see Westminster Abbey, whose building had been the principal interest of King Edward the Confessor's later years, and whose completion he survived but a few days. The church was consecrated three days after Christmas, 1065, although Edward was too ill to be present, and on the 6th of January, 1066, the king died. He was buried the next day, in his own abbey church, the most interesting spot on English soil. The building has since his time been almost entirely renewed and rebuilt; but in its choir, in the place corresponding to that where the high altar of most cathedrals stands, is the wooden tomb of Edward, the work of a later age; while around this cluster the monuments of kings and heroes, and above hangs the armor of an English monarch who won on French soil a battle as brilliant, if not as important, as that of Hastings.* The original building, in which the body of the Confessor was first laid, was neither small nor mean. A long nave of round arches, a central tower or lantern, an apse, and transepts (the last perhaps unfinished) are shown in the tapestry. On the roof a workman is setting up a weathercock — the cock that crowed to Peter on Saint Peter's Church.
Toward this stately edifice Edward's funeral is advancing. The bier is borne by eight laymen, and a party of the clergy follows it. One carries a bishop's crook; others have books. Beside the bier two boys are carrying bells, one in each hand. The body is seen wrapped in a shroud and shaded by a canopy.
The artist goes back a step and shows us the last scene in Edward's life. A contemporary chronicler has preserved the names of the group of stiffly drawn but expressive figures that cluster round the bed of the dying man. The cushion that supports his head and shoulders is in the hands of Wymarc, one of the great officers of his household. On the further side of the couch stands Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, easily recognized by his embroidered robe and his tonsure. At the king's feet sits his queen, Eadgyth, and wipes her eyes. Nearest the spectator is a kneeling figure in the cloak of a nobleman. To him the dying man appears to speak, even in this tapestry made for a Norman bishop. For this is Harold, the hero of the great tragedy, the man destined to be the last English king of England until the nation shall have conquered and absorbed its conquerors. Bing Edward named him as his successor, but the nomination was preceded by a prophecy of woe. Two holy monks, known to him in his youth, said the dying monarch, had lately appeared to him in a vision. The great men of the kingdom, they had told him, were not what they seemed. Earls, bishops, abbots, and men in holy orders — they were ministers of the fiend. Within a year and a day the whole land would be a prey to devils. Thus with prophecy and injunction the old king passed away.
The great council of the nation was at that time assembled at Westminster. Without delay it elected Harold to the royal office. In the tapestry two noblemen are seen offering him the crown. Edward had died childless, and there was no male descendant of the royal house living and grown to manhood.
The crown, moreover, was elective; although it was usual to choose a member of the royal family, if an available member were forthcoming. Harold accepted the crown in spite of his oath to William. The considerations — that it had been taken under duress, and that he had had no right in any case to dispose of the crown of England — were reasons strong enough for his ambition. Yet the oath itself, and the tubful of relics, may well have weighed on his conscience.
In the tapestry the funeral of King Edward and the coronation of King Harold are separated by the compartments representing the death of the former king. But in reality one ceremony followed closely on the other. On the morning of the day following that of his death the body of the Confessor was laid in the tomb, in his new church; and on the same day, and perhaps in the same building, Harold was crowned king in his stead. In times like those, it would not have been safe to run the risks of an interregnum. We see Harold on his throne, with a crown on his head, a sceptre in his right hand, and an orb in his left. On one side of him are two nobles, one of whom carries the sword of state. On the other is Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is some doubt whether Stigand really officiated at the coronation. His position in the church was not unquestioned, and an office performed by him might not have been considered valid. We consequently find Norman accounts, including this one, asserting that it was he who crowned Harold. The English writers, on the other hand, say that the ceremony was performed by Ealdred, the Archbishop of York. The crowd, placed in an adjoin' g compartment (or an antechamber), raise their hands and bend eagerly forward toward the new monarch. But another group, farther from the presence, in a vestibule or under a cloister, are turned away from the throne. They point toward the sky, where blazes a comet, most elaborately represented. From chroniclers we learn that this portent was generally supposed by contemporaries all over Western Europe to be connected with the crisis in England, and to prefigure the misfortunes of that country. Later scientific researches have established the probability that it was Halley's comet which so disturbed our ancestors. In a building, over whose roof the flaming star is shining, we see Harold again. The new king, wearing his crown, but holding a spear in his hand, listens, with bent head and troubled face, to a messenger of bad tidings. In the border below is a rough representation of boats dancing on the waves, the sight which a king of England, fearing invasion, might well see before his troubled eyes.
The realization of Harold's fears is shown in the compartments which follow: An English ship crosses the seas to Normandy. Duke William sits in his palace. He has heard the news and he prepares for war. By his side sits his halfbrother Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. A carpenter, carrying a broadaxe, receives the duke's orders. On the other side of the duke a Norman gentleman gesticulates violently, but receives little attention. We next see the workmen felling trees, shaping planks, and building boats. The tools employed are axes, broadaxes, hatchets, hammers, and a boring instrument with an elaborate but rather awkward handle. The ships are long and low, rising at the bow and stern. Indeed, this type is never departed from in the tapestry, whether for large vessels or small boats. I do not think any of the ships were decked. William's fleet, hastily constructed, was not intended for long or difficult navigation. In fact, he waited for weeks for a fair south wind before embarking his army. We see in the tapestry how the boats are launched and the arms and provisions put aboard — swords, helmets, and coats of armor, shields and spears, casks of wine, and carcasses of pork.
The principal garment worn in battle at this time by both Normans and Englishmen who were rich or powerful (for the ordinary people fought in their everyday clothes) was so shaped as to cover the arms to the elbow and the legs to the knee. It was made of leather or strong cloth, on which were sewed small plates or rings of metal. It was probably also wadded, as an additional protection. Sometimes, instead of the plates or rings, a trelliswork of leather was made and strengthened with studs. The garment had a square opening in the breast, to enable the wearer to struggle into it, first his legs, then one arm, then the other. When he was in, a flap was buckled or buttoned across the opening. A hood, of the same material as this body garment, covered the head and shoulders. On top of the hood was placed a helmet of iron and bronze, conical or nearly so in shape, and fitting round the head like a hat. A piece of iron came down from the rim in front, protecting the nose, and partially masking the face. There was sometimes a similar piece to cover the back of the head and the nape of the neck. These helmets must have been both heavy and uncomfortable, as the whole weight rested on the head, and a perfect fit must have been difficult to obtain. William and one or two of his greatest nobles wore hose protected by plates or rings, like their coats; but most men, noble and simple, relied in battle on an elaborate arrangement of straps reaching from the knee to the ankle, and recalling that worn today by the peasants of the Roman Campagna. On their left arms the warriors carried almondshaped shields, three or four feet long. For these the English sometimes substituted round or oval shields. The shield was probably made of wood, covered with leather, and having a border of metal and a projection, or boss, of metal in the widest part. The studs which held the straps by which the shield was carried also appeared on the outside. The surface, slightly curved and generally of one plain color with a border, was sometimes decorated with colored lines, a cross, or the figure of a dragon. Armorial bearings did not appear on shields until a later date.
The weapons in use were swords, axes, lances, darts, bows and arrows. The swords appear to have been sharp on both edges, and blunt at the point, intended to cut and not to stab; their guards were simple crosspieces. The axe was the national weapon of the English. With it King Harold is said to have been able to strike down horse and man at one blow. It was also considered appropriate for ceremonial occasions; thus, when the crown is first presented to Harold both he and the man who presents it carry axes. It has been noticed that the blades of both these axes are turned toward the newl chosen king. I believe, however, that this is accidental. The designers of the tapestry were not given to allegory, and the attempt to attach hidden meanings to their plain pictures is fanciful. It may be noted that the axe carried in war differs entirely in shape from that used for felling trees. The former has a broad curved edge, and becomes very narrow at the back; the latter approaches our modern shape. In one of the melees of the battle of Hastings, however, a man is seen fighting with a workman's axe. It is known that some of Harold's forces were the hastily armed levies of the neighborhood of the field of battle; but as the man wielding this axe is dressed in armor, the appearance of the common axe in his hands is probably due to carelessness in the embroiderer.
* Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné du Mobilier Français, vol. v., p. 171.The lance was used both by the Nor. mans and the English. It was not held under the shoulder when charging, like the heavier lance of a later date, but carried free in the hand, which was often raised beside the head. When not in use it rested in the stirrup. The wood was about eight or nine feet long; the head varied in form, being oftenest leafshaped or barbed. The principal knights carried a pennon on their lances. The devices on these pennons are interesting as coming singularly near the beginning of the science of heraldry. They consist of stripes and bands of various colors, and in most cases the pennon ends in three points. When any more elaborate device is attempted, it usually takes the form of a cross or of two or more circles. I think that the lance generally passed through the hem of the pennon, but this is sometimes doubtful. One of the banners pictured in the tapestry would, if we could surely recognize it, deserve peculiar attention. It is on record that Pope Alexander II. sent a consecrated banner to Duke William, and a ring containing a hair of St. Peter. The ring is not to be found on the duke's finger in the tapestry, nor can the banner be identified with absolute certainty. A distinguished antiquary, however, has pitched on one particular pennon, which bears a yellow or golden cross on a white ground surrounded by a blue border, as the papal gift;* and it is noticeable that this device is almost identical with that on the flag carried at William's masthead in the ship Mora, which bore him to England.
Only once is a figure more elaborate than a simple cross shown on a Norman banner in the tapestry. This is the representation of a bird on a semicircular banner with nine small streamers. This bird has been thought by some scholars to be the holy Dove, by others to be a raven, the standard of a band of Danish origin. The small size of the figure makes its identification impossible.
Two other standards, more curious than any Norman pennon, even though sent by a pope to encourage an invader, are to be seen in the tapestry. These are dragons, not embroidered on cloth, but made solid, either of metal or wood (for a stuffed dragon is hardly to be supposed), and carried on spears. T h e dragon was the ensign of Wessex, but King Harold's own standard was the "fighting man." This last, which is not shown in the tapestry, would appear to have been an embroidered figure. The dragon, however, made solid, and taking the place of a flag, can hardly have been an invention of the designer of the tapestry, to whom flags of cloth were familiar. It is probable, therefore, that the dragon standard was indeed solid, like the eagle of the Roman legion or the French regiment, and like those figures of dragons which are represented on Trajan's column at Rome.
Duke William spent the summer of 1066 in building and collecting a fleet. His half-brothers, Bishop Odo and Count Robert of Mortain, gave one hundred and one hundred and twenty ships respectively. Other vessels were sent in from all sides, and the builders were kept busy. The whole fleet numbered six hundred and ninety-six sail by the lowest reckoning, while the highest credible figure is above three thousand. But the largest of these vessels, the Mora herself, the gift of the Duchess Matilda, which bore the great duke to the conquest of a kingdom, was but an open boat with one mast, easily unstepped. Into such boats men and horses were crowded. The numbers of the army are variously estimated at from fourteen to sixty thousand.
Long they waited for a fair wind, invoking the saints. At last the relics of St. Valery were brought from their church and laid in a field, on a carpet. The pious warriors crowded around them to pray, and covered the body of the saint with the pile of their offerings. The powers of heaven were appeased, as they believed, and on the 27th of September the south wind blew fair for England. The day was spent in embarking; the night, in sailing over the channel; in the morning they approached the white cliffs of England. We see in the tapestry the long lapstreak hulls, painted in bright lines; the colored sails, that remind us of Venice; the row of bucklers along the gunwale; the heads of men and horses looking out over the rolling water. We see the landing; the horses taken from the ships; the scouts galloping over the country; the foragers bringing in cattle and provisions. A house is burned, and we see the mistress going forth leading a child by the hand. From other sources we learn that the country all about Hastings was so plundered that after twenty years it still showed marks of the Norman pillage. For a time the invading army remained undisturbed. King Harold was away in the north, where, three days before the landing of William, he had defeated another host of invaders under his own brother Tostig and Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. So William was left to land unopposed at Pevensey, to march unhindered to Hastings, and to fortify his camp there. Nor was the time spent without feasting. In one of the most curious scenes of the whole tapestry we see the pot hanging over the fire; we see a head cook taking dainties from a portable oven. He balances a dish on his left hand; in his right he holds a curious double hook, perhaps a hawk's claw on the end of a stick, with which he lifts — can it be a croquette? — and arranges his dish with French taste. We see the chickens on the spits. A sideboard is hastily made of shields laid on a trestle; but the dinnertable, which is very curious, must have been brought among the baggage. It is shaped like a horseshoe, and the guests sit only on the outer side; while on the inner a servant, on one knee and with a napkin over his arm, presents a dish. There is no cloth on the table, but there are dishes, knives, and cups; yet we see fish laid on the bare board. Odo, the bishop, is blessing the food and drink. He holds a bowl in his left hand and stretches three fingers over it. But the hunger of the other guests will hardly be restrained. Two appear to be pledging each other; one seizes a cake; another raises a morsel to his lips.
I had hoped, and at one time believed, that of Odo, at least, the tapestry had preserved a portrait. We see him in the scene above mentioned, and in the next, where he is holding council with his brothers, with a round face, large eyes, and a mouth of the type called cherubic. But I find him in another part of the tapestry with sunken cheeks. In fact, if the artist ever attempted portraiture, which is not impossible,as the size of the heads admits it (a face can be amply covered with a silver dollar), time and winding on windlasses have destroyed the portraits, except as to such obvious features as moustaches and beards. William is usually represented as a tall man, but I do not think that this means much. There is a tendency, even in artistic representations much more advanced than those of the tapestry, to give size to the most important figure. In fact, a great man does look big to those who see him.
After the feast the tapestry is occupied with the preparations for the battle. On the afternoon of the 13th of October, 1066, the English army, advancing from London, was drawn up on a hill called Senlac, about seven miles from Hastings. The position itself was strong and well chosen. Harold fortified it with a ditch and a palisade, and the shields of the warriors themselves, resting with one end upon the ground, formed a wall. All Englishmen at that time fought on foot, using their horses only to carry them to the field, while the chief strength of the Normans was in their cavalry. The hill of Senlac is long and narrow facing the south. On the middle of the hill King Harold took his place, beside the standards of the dragon and the fighting man. Around him were his brothers and his personal followers, the flower of the English army; the men of Kent, and the citizens of London. They were armed with lances, javelins, and swords, and with the terrible axe. On the flanks were the raw levies, mostly without defensive armor, and carrying anything to strike with, from a lance to a pitchfork, and even the stone hatchets of an earlier civilization.
On Saturday, the 14th of October, Duke William led out his army to attack the English position. It was composed of his own subjects of Normandy, and of adventurers from all France. Indeed, it is noticeable that the person who superintended the making of the tapestry, presumably a Norman, calls the invaders Franci, and not Normanni. The duke was mounted on a noble charger, the gift of a Spanish king. Three horses were killed under him that day, says a chronicler.
Near the duke rode his two halfbrothers, Odo and Robert. Neither Odo nor William used their swords that day, but each was armed with a club. On the part of the bishop this was made necessary by a rule of the Church of Rome, which forbade her shepherds to shed the blood of the sheep. The shepherds might, however, knock the sheep on the head. By the duke the club must have been carried from choice. Some later generals have preferred to go into battle armed only with a stick, but in the duke's hands the stick was a formidable weapon.
* The Chanson de Roland has been admirably translated into English verse by John O'Hagan, London, C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1880. The tapestry shows William's army on its march from Hastings. One Vital, a follower of Odo, announces the neighborhood of the English; while at about the same time Harold hears of the approach of the French. The duke exhorts his men to prepare for the battle with manliness and wisdom. The knights flourish their lances, the archers draw their bows. The horsemen charge the British square, and arrows, bolts, and javelins whistle through the air. Which of these gallant gentlemen is Taillefer, the minstrel, who rode first to the battle, throwing his sword into the air and catching it by the handle, while he sang the song of Roland at Roncesvalles?* One Englishman he pierced with his lance; another he struck down with his sword; then he fell beneath an English stroke. If this obscure warrior cannot be recognized in the tapestry, we are more fortunate in the case of the brothers of King Harold. Both of these were killed early in the day, Leofwine struck by a spear under the arm as he swung his mighty axe; Gyrth, the brave and prudent, falling, like him, in single combat with a mounted knight. Some of the old chroniclers attribute his death to the hand of the great duke himself, but the tapestry does not confirm this story.
The battle grows more furious. Frenchmen and Englishmen are falling at once, the axe and the sword doing their work. The lower border of the tapestry is full of dead men and horses. We see the English churls on their hill, without armor, fighting manfully. It is reported among the Normans that the duke had fallen; but William and Odo rally the fugitives. We see the Duke of Normandy rising in his stirrups and tilting back his helmet so that the nosepiece may not hide his face from his soldiers' eyes. On the other hand, to translate the quaint Latin of the tapestry, " Here Odo, the bishop, holding a club, comforts the boys." The Normans return to the charge. Meanwhile the French archers are ordered to fire in the air. The storm of arrows falls in the English faces, as when the wind drives the rain. The English lift their shields to cover their heads; the French swords find room to strike. The veterans who, in the centre of the English line, surround the standards and the king fall one by one. An arrow struck Harold in the right eye; and soon afterward he was despatched by a Norman sword. We see him fall, the axe dropping from his nerveless grasp. One standard was taken; another trampled under foot. In the tapestry both are figured as dragons, and the one that is stricken down seems to bite at a Norman horse's hoof. It was twilight when the English churls turned and fled, some of them on foot, some on the horses that had brought their lords to the field of battle. But the men of Kent and the citizens of London, the personal followers of the king, neither asked nor received quarter, nor yet did they fly, while axe could split shield. Of the disciplined soldiers who, on the day before, had accompanied King Harold from London, none escaped alive from the field of battle save those few who, stricken down among the wounded, were revived by the cool night air and wandered away in the darkness. And even those who fled did not lose a chance to deal a last blow
at their conquerors. The eastern end of the hill of Senlac falls off abruptly on the northern side to a marshy ravine. In the ardor of pursuit, and misled by the increasing darkness, many of the Norman riders plunged headlong down the steep bank, and were either smothered in the morass or despatched by the English fugitives. The place long kept the name of the Malfosse. Thus ended the most important battle ever fought on English soil, perhaps the most important battle in its results to all who now speak the English tongue that ever was fought at all. The Bayeux tapestry carries us through the fight, to the last resistance of the English soldiers and the flight of the English peasants. In this account I have followed mainly the order of the tapestry, taking its authority as final on those details concerning which chroniclers and historians have differed, but getting what light I could from other sources. Few histories or chronicles can surpass it in authority; none can have a more heroic theme.
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| Ploughing and Sowing. Scenes from the Border of the Tapestry. |
course of the war; without other letterpress, it is true, than the title of each picture, but complete from the election of Lincoln to the battles about Petersburg; from sketches drawn perhaps by an eyewitness of some of the scenes represented, and certainly by a contemporary. With what care would such pictures be studied by all who were interested in the history of their country.
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| Harold takes leave of King Edward the Confessor. [Beginning of the Tapestry.] |
A little more than eight hundred years ago a series of events took place which have influenced the condition of all men living in Great Britain and Ireland, and of all their descendants from that day to this. If William of Normandy had not conquered England, we who live in America should today speak a different language from that which we now speak, and be governed by different laws and customs from those which we now observe. And, moreover, there are probably few readers of this magazine some of whose direct ancestors did not fight on one side or the other in the great battle near Hastings. Of that battle, and of the events which preceded it, the Bayeux tapestry is the most interesting record, for it tells not only those great events which historians and chroniclers think worthy of their trouble, but a multitude of details concerning the daily life of the two nations whose mixed descendants are Englishmen and Americans.
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| Harold and Guy. |
The term "Bayeux tapestry," although universally adopted, is not strictly correct.The object we are considering is an embroidery on linen cloth. The strip on which it is worked is two hundred and thirty feet, nine and onethird inches long, and nineteen and twothird inches wide. The linen was probably unbleached, and time and dust have brought it to the shade of brown Holland. It is divided by horizontal lines into a centre and two borders, the centre being a little more than thirteen inches wide. It is in this central part that the action of the piece takes place, overrunning at times into the borders. Over the greater part of the tapestry these last are merely ornamental, being cut by diagonal lines into sections only a few inches in length, which are filled with beasts, birds, and fishes, centaurs and dragons. At times, however, little pictures from life are given, or illustrations of Æsop's fables. Men are seen ploughing and harrowing, the fowler uses his sling, the fox flatters the crow who drops her cheese into his mouth. In general the border would seem to be more uneven in merit, both as to imagination and as to execution, than the central part of the tapestry:
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| Aelgyva. |
In the whole composition are represented more than six hundred and twenty persons, one hundred and eighty horses, and five hundred and fifty other animals, besides ships, boats, buildings, trees, weapons, tools, and other objects. These figures are drawn and colored flat, without any attempt at shading, and in their spirited uncouthness remind us of the work of a clever child. The faces, hands, and legs of the human figures, when bare, are merely indicated by a line of stitches. Yet it is an instance of the durability of frail things that these faces and hands have, in many cases, retained for eight hundred years a decided expression. In the colored portions of the embroidery, where the linen ground is covered with long worsted stitches, little attempt is made to imitate the hues of nature. There is nothing improbable, it is true, in the colors of the clothing, but those of the animals are not such as are found in the common varieties. In the absence of shading and perspective, an attempt is made to supply their place by varying the color arbitrarily on the different parts of the same animal. Thus a lightblue horse may have his two legs which are farthest from the spectator colored red, his ears green, and his mane yellow. The hoofs on his blue legs may be red, and those on his red legs green. In spite of this grotesqueness, the general effect is good; and time, which will usually bring colors which lie near each other into harmony, however discordant they may have been at first, has mellowed and softened the whole.
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| The Siege of Dol. |
* An excellent series of colored engravings of the tapestry was published by the Society of Antiquaries, of London, in their Vetusta Monumenta, vol. vi., in 1823; a complete series of photographs, with valuable notes, by Frank Rede Fowke (London, Arundel Society, 1875). In these photographs the reproduction is between four and a half and five inches wide. A set of colored lithographs, reduced from the Vetusta Monumenta, and rather roughly executed, elucidated by Rev. John Collingwood Bruce, LL.D., F.S.A., was published in 1856. They are about two inches wide. (London, John Russell Smith.) Articles on the tapestry are printed in the 17th and 19th volumes of the Archæologia of the Society of Antiquaries of London; a treatise "on the Banners of the Bayeux Tapestry, and some of the earliest heraldic charges, by Gilbert J. French," was reprinted from the Journal of the Archæological Association of Great Britain and Ireland, for July, 1857. (London, T. Richards.) Edward A. Freeman has an appendix on the tapestry in the third volume of his "History of the Norman Conquest," and there are many references to it in the history itself. The Roman de Rou, written by Robert Wace, about a century after the battle, has been much used in the preparation of this article. It was very carefully published by Dr. Hugo Andresen, Heilbronn, 1817. Many works on arms and armor have been consulted, and especially the fifth voltime of the Dictionnaire raisonné du Mobilier Fran¸ais, by Viollet le Doc. Paris, 1874.There has been some controversy as to the maker of the tapestry, and as to its exact date. It is attributed by popular tradition to Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, who is supposed to have worked it, with her ladies, to commemorate the glories of her husband. Some writers suppose it to have been made at a somewhat later date than that of her lifetime. Mr. Freeman, however, probably the best authority on the subject, assigns the work to a period little after that of the conquest, but does not attribute its manufacture to the queen. The tapestry was worked, as he thinks, for Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother to William on the mother's side. There are some reasons to suppose that English workmen were employed. Odo appears at least four timer in the tapestry, and several of his vassals, otherwise almost unknown men, are represented. The tapestry itself was exhibited in the cathedral of Bayeux down to the time of the French Revolution, being stretched round the nave on certain feast days. During the eight centuries which have elapsed since its completion it has escaped many dangers. The church was burned in 1106. It was pillaged by the Calvinists in 1562. In 1792 the tapestry narrowly escaped being cut up into coverings for carts for the French Revolutionary army. In 1803 it was carried to Paris and exhibited in the Musee Napoleon, to fire the French heart for a new conquest of England. On being returned to Bayeux the tapestry was wound on two cylinders or windlasses in the townhall, and rolled from one to the other for the inspection of the curious. By this process it became somewhat frayed, especially near the ends. It was not until 1842 that the priceless relic was displayed to students and the public, under glass, in a special museum of its own. Thence it was again removed, in 1871, on the approach of the Prussian invaders. It was soon brought back, however, and stretched again in its museum, where it has been carefully copied several times.*
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| Harold saves the Normans from the Quicksands. |
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| The Surrender of Dinan. |
The design of the central portion of the tapestry is divided into scenes or compartments, the separation between them being usually made by trees or buildings. But one scene sometimes runs into another in a way to make any count uncertain. A Latin inscription, placed generally near the top of each division, tells its story in a few words. Thus the tapestry is a history of the conquest, told from the Norman side. But more valuable than the record it bears of important events is its testimony concerning the little affairs of daily life — the clothing, armor, and weapons, the food, manners, and fashions — of our ancestors.
In the first compartment King Edward the Confessor is seen, seated on a cushioned throne. His crown is on his head, his sceptre in his hand. He wears the full beard, which was then going out of fashion both in England and France. His long white hands, mentioned by William of Malmesbury, are clearly shown, as he raises a finger in admonition. Beside him stand two figures in short tunics and long hose, with mantles (a distinction of nobility) draped about them. The young men wear moustaches only, as was usual among Englishmen, the Normans being cleanshaven. These men are probably Earl Harold and a companion, taking leave of the king before their journey to France. In the next scene they ride to the seacoast. Harold goes first, with his hawk on his hand and his dogs running before him. Although these dogs are colored blue and green, they are drawn with much life and spirit. Before sailing, Harold goes into a church, and afterward partakes of a banquet. The latter is enjoyed in a hall supported by round arches and covered by a tiled roof. Some of the guests drink from round cups, some from carved oxhorns.
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| William arming Harold. |
When the meal is over they come down a flight of steps to the water, and, having taken off their long hose, wade out to the ship, carrying their dogs under their arms. They then step their mast and push off from the shore. The action of the men shoving with poles is well given.
The ships are long galleys, propelled by sails and by oars. The bows and sterns are high, and in many instances capped with a carved head. The sails hang from a long yard, which keeps a horizontal position, not holding one end much higher than the other, as do the lateen sails of the Lake of Geneva, or the Nile. Along the gunwale of each galley the shields of the warriors are displayed, lapping over each other to form a bulwark.
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| Harold's Oath. |
Soon land is seen from the masthead, and presently the ship is run on a beach and an anchor set out to keep her firm. Here Harold is seized by Wido, or Guy, Count of Ponthieu, and taken off as a prisoner to Beaurain le Château, whence he is finally ransomed by William, Duke of Normandy. The whole incident is characteristic of the manners of the time. Whether it was by mistake or by stress of weather that Harold landed in the count's dominions we do not know. But in either case he became the lawful spoil of the lord of the land. The claim is undisputed, and William, although he is Count Guy's overlord, does not think of demanding the prisoner without ransom. The adventure has its value, moreover, in the story of the conquest of England. Harold, ransomed by William for a great price, is put under a heavy obligation to him.
The Duke of Normandy takes the English earl to Rouen, where he gives him solemn audience in a great hall surmounted by an arcade of seventeen Romanesque arches. Harold, the only Englishman present, seems to expostulate with William. The story at this point presents a mystery. The scene immediately following the interview between the duke and the earl at Rouen represents a woman, against whose face a tonsured man is laying his hand. The inscription, apparently mutilated, or intentionally left incomplete (for there are no stitchmarks), reads, in Latin, " where a clerk and Aelgyva." Mr. Fowke, in his excellent notes accompanying the photograph of the tapestry, has made a guess at the meaning of this picture, which, although incapable of proof, seems to bring it into the general course and story of the work. He surmises that Aelgyva was a noble English lady (as, indeed, is shown by her name); that she was possibly even the sister of Harold; that this lady was insulted or outraged by a member of the clergy; that this may have taken place at the Breton town of Dol; and that Harold entreated William to assist him in obtaining revenge. Thereupon we see, in the next compartment, the expedition into Brittany; the flight of the culprit, who lets himself down from the walls of Dol by a rope and escapes to Dinan; the siege and capitulation of that place. This theory, however, is contradicted by the fact, mentioned by William of Poitiers, that William's expedition to Dol was made for the purpose of raising the siege of the town, which was attacked by Conan, Duke of Brittany. Indeed, the flight of Conan from before the walls of Dol is shown in the tapestry; it is he that surrenders Dinan; and if Aelgyva's clerical lover were of the party, his affair had been lost sight of by the artist. The scandal is eight centuries old, after all, and no one but an archaeologist can be expected to care much about it.
Some incidents of the Breton expedition, however, deserve notice. Passing by Mont St. Michel, the army crossed the great sandy beach which surrounds that picturesque fortress. Here the river Couesnon flows into the sea, through dangerous quicksands. Caught among these we see the Norman army. The men carry their shields above their heads to keep them from the salt water; a horse and his rider are floundering. Harold, by his personal strength, is saving two Normans from the sands. One he carries pickapack, and the other he pulls by the wrist. Below, in the border, are eels and fishes devouring those who have been lost.
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| Completion of Westminster Abbey. |
After chasing Conan from before Dol the Normans lay siege to Dinan. We see them on horseback and in armor advance toward the outer defences of the place. Javelins are thrown from both sides. Meanwhile two knights on foot, leaving their pennoned lances stuck in the ground, and their shields leaning against them, advance boldly to the palisade and set fire to it with torches. On the other side of the picture, Conan gives over the keys of the town. He reaches them, on a lance, from the walls to an officer (probably Duke William), who receives them in the same manner.
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| The Death of King Edward the Confessor. |
Immediately after the surrender of Dinan we have a scene with the inscription, "Here William gave arms to Harold." It is probable, however, that something more than a present of the spoils of Dinan is intended. Both warriors are clad in armor. Harold holds a lance with a pennon in his left hand. William's left hand rests on Harold's helmet; his right is raised, as in earnest speech. The scene is perhaps that of conferring knighthood, a ceremony which took place, according to Wace, between the duke and the earl at Avranches. There are difficulties, however, in so considering it. Knighthood was conferred among the Normans by a ceremony on horseback. Among the Saxons it was conferred by a priest and according to a religious ritual. Here it is a layman who gives the honor, and both he and the recipient are on foot.
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| Bad News brought to Harold. |
The campaign was now ended, and the Normans returned to Bayeux. It was here that, before sending Harold back to England, William exacted from him an oath. The nature and extent of the promise is not absolutely certain, but there is nothing positively to contradict the story told by a Norman poet a century later. Harold, he says, first propcIsed to give over the kingdom of England to William on King Edward's death, and to take to wife Ele, William's daughter. This Harold offered to swear to, and William assembled a great council showed Harold what was within and on at Bayeux to hear the oath. The duke what relics he had sworn. Harold was then got together all the relics he could indeed aghast at what he saw. find — the bodies of the saints — and filled a tub with them. Over the tub was thrown a silken cloth, so that Harold neither knew nor saw what it contained. On the cloth was laid a reliquary, the best that could be had and the most precious; it was called the ox-eye. When Harold stretched his hand over it, his hand trembled and his flesh crept. Then he swore and pledged himself, as was dictated to him, to marry Ele, the duke's daughter, and to give up England to the duke, to the best of his power, after Edward's death, if he himself should be alive, so help him God, and the holy relics that were there. And several of those present said, "God grant it!" When Harold had kissed the relics and had risen to his feet, the duke led him to the tub and took off the silken cloth which had covered it, and showed Harold what was within and on what relics he had sworn. Harold was indeed aghast at what he saw.
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| Building the Ships. |
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| Arms and Provisions. |
This story, with its curious primitive notion of cheating your prisoner and taking liberties with the saints, and enlisting the powers of heaven against your enemy by tempting him to offer them an unintended insult, is neither conclusively affirmed nor denied by the evidence of the tapestry. Harold stands between two altars, one apparently permanent and the other movable. The front of each is concealed by drapery, and on each stands an ornamental box, or reliquary, of elaborate architectural design, such as the bones of saints are kept in to this day. On top of one of these boxes is a projection, terminating in a ball or knob, which may well be the "ox-eye" mentioned by the old poet. Toward. each Harold extends a hand. It is clearly the intention of the artist to show that the English earl swore on many relics; else why the two reliquaries. If the story of the pious fraud be true, it may not have suited the bishop, or his patron, to publish it, but rather to intimate that Harold swore with full knowledge of what he was doing. On the other hand, if the story were notorious, the draped altars would suggest the hidden tub. The objection afterward raised to this oath by Harold was not fraud, but duress; he said that he was William's prisoner when he took it. Moreover, the exact nature of the oath taken is as doubtful as the story of the tubful of relics. That some solemn promise was actually made, or some solemn act of fealty performed, there can be little doubt.
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| The Mora. |
After taking the oath Harold returns to England. We see his boat on the channel, which may here well be called "the narrow seas," for while her stern almost overhangs the coast of France her bow is within half a lance's length of England. From the terrace of a castle a watchman, shading his eyes with his hand, looks for the coming sail. Harold and a companion ride to London, and present themselves before King Edward.
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| Norman Cooks. |
* The saddle, helmet, and shield used by Henry V., at the battle of Agincourt, hang in the chapel of King Edward the Confessor.As the best authorities are quite uncertain as to the exact date of the incidents hitherto narrated, it is impossible to say how long an interval of time should be supposed to have elapsed between the scene last mentioned and that which occurs next in the tapestry. We see Westminster Abbey, whose building had been the principal interest of King Edward the Confessor's later years, and whose completion he survived but a few days. The church was consecrated three days after Christmas, 1065, although Edward was too ill to be present, and on the 6th of January, 1066, the king died. He was buried the next day, in his own abbey church, the most interesting spot on English soil. The building has since his time been almost entirely renewed and rebuilt; but in its choir, in the place corresponding to that where the high altar of most cathedrals stands, is the wooden tomb of Edward, the work of a later age; while around this cluster the monuments of kings and heroes, and above hangs the armor of an English monarch who won on French soil a battle as brilliant, if not as important, as that of Hastings.* The original building, in which the body of the Confessor was first laid, was neither small nor mean. A long nave of round arches, a central tower or lantern, an apse, and transepts (the last perhaps unfinished) are shown in the tapestry. On the roof a workman is setting up a weathercock — the cock that crowed to Peter on Saint Peter's Church.
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| The Banquet. |
Toward this stately edifice Edward's funeral is advancing. The bier is borne by eight laymen, and a party of the clergy follows it. One carries a bishop's crook; others have books. Beside the bier two boys are carrying bells, one in each hand. The body is seen wrapped in a shroud and shaded by a canopy.
The artist goes back a step and shows us the last scene in Edward's life. A contemporary chronicler has preserved the names of the group of stiffly drawn but expressive figures that cluster round the bed of the dying man. The cushion that supports his head and shoulders is in the hands of Wymarc, one of the great officers of his household. On the further side of the couch stands Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, easily recognized by his embroidered robe and his tonsure. At the king's feet sits his queen, Eadgyth, and wipes her eyes. Nearest the spectator is a kneeling figure in the cloak of a nobleman. To him the dying man appears to speak, even in this tapestry made for a Norman bishop. For this is Harold, the hero of the great tragedy, the man destined to be the last English king of England until the nation shall have conquered and absorbed its conquerors. Bing Edward named him as his successor, but the nomination was preceded by a prophecy of woe. Two holy monks, known to him in his youth, said the dying monarch, had lately appeared to him in a vision. The great men of the kingdom, they had told him, were not what they seemed. Earls, bishops, abbots, and men in holy orders — they were ministers of the fiend. Within a year and a day the whole land would be a prey to devils. Thus with prophecy and injunction the old king passed away.
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| The First Attack. |
The great council of the nation was at that time assembled at Westminster. Without delay it elected Harold to the royal office. In the tapestry two noblemen are seen offering him the crown. Edward had died childless, and there was no male descendant of the royal house living and grown to manhood.
The crown, moreover, was elective; although it was usual to choose a member of the royal family, if an available member were forthcoming. Harold accepted the crown in spite of his oath to William. The considerations — that it had been taken under duress, and that he had had no right in any case to dispose of the crown of England — were reasons strong enough for his ambition. Yet the oath itself, and the tubful of relics, may well have weighed on his conscience.
In the tapestry the funeral of King Edward and the coronation of King Harold are separated by the compartments representing the death of the former king. But in reality one ceremony followed closely on the other. On the morning of the day following that of his death the body of the Confessor was laid in the tomb, in his new church; and on the same day, and perhaps in the same building, Harold was crowned king in his stead. In times like those, it would not have been safe to run the risks of an interregnum. We see Harold on his throne, with a crown on his head, a sceptre in his right hand, and an orb in his left. On one side of him are two nobles, one of whom carries the sword of state. On the other is Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is some doubt whether Stigand really officiated at the coronation. His position in the church was not unquestioned, and an office performed by him might not have been considered valid. We consequently find Norman accounts, including this one, asserting that it was he who crowned Harold. The English writers, on the other hand, say that the ceremony was performed by Ealdred, the Archbishop of York. The crowd, placed in an adjoin' g compartment (or an antechamber), raise their hands and bend eagerly forward toward the new monarch. But another group, farther from the presence, in a vestibule or under a cloister, are turned away from the throne. They point toward the sky, where blazes a comet, most elaborately represented. From chroniclers we learn that this portent was generally supposed by contemporaries all over Western Europe to be connected with the crisis in England, and to prefigure the misfortunes of that country. Later scientific researches have established the probability that it was Halley's comet which so disturbed our ancestors. In a building, over whose roof the flaming star is shining, we see Harold again. The new king, wearing his crown, but holding a spear in his hand, listens, with bent head and troubled face, to a messenger of bad tidings. In the border below is a rough representation of boats dancing on the waves, the sight which a king of England, fearing invasion, might well see before his troubled eyes.
The realization of Harold's fears is shown in the compartments which follow: An English ship crosses the seas to Normandy. Duke William sits in his palace. He has heard the news and he prepares for war. By his side sits his halfbrother Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. A carpenter, carrying a broadaxe, receives the duke's orders. On the other side of the duke a Norman gentleman gesticulates violently, but receives little attention. We next see the workmen felling trees, shaping planks, and building boats. The tools employed are axes, broadaxes, hatchets, hammers, and a boring instrument with an elaborate but rather awkward handle. The ships are long and low, rising at the bow and stern. Indeed, this type is never departed from in the tapestry, whether for large vessels or small boats. I do not think any of the ships were decked. William's fleet, hastily constructed, was not intended for long or difficult navigation. In fact, he waited for weeks for a fair south wind before embarking his army. We see in the tapestry how the boats are launched and the arms and provisions put aboard — swords, helmets, and coats of armor, shields and spears, casks of wine, and carcasses of pork.
The principal garment worn in battle at this time by both Normans and Englishmen who were rich or powerful (for the ordinary people fought in their everyday clothes) was so shaped as to cover the arms to the elbow and the legs to the knee. It was made of leather or strong cloth, on which were sewed small plates or rings of metal. It was probably also wadded, as an additional protection. Sometimes, instead of the plates or rings, a trelliswork of leather was made and strengthened with studs. The garment had a square opening in the breast, to enable the wearer to struggle into it, first his legs, then one arm, then the other. When he was in, a flap was buckled or buttoned across the opening. A hood, of the same material as this body garment, covered the head and shoulders. On top of the hood was placed a helmet of iron and bronze, conical or nearly so in shape, and fitting round the head like a hat. A piece of iron came down from the rim in front, protecting the nose, and partially masking the face. There was sometimes a similar piece to cover the back of the head and the nape of the neck. These helmets must have been both heavy and uncomfortable, as the whole weight rested on the head, and a perfect fit must have been difficult to obtain. William and one or two of his greatest nobles wore hose protected by plates or rings, like their coats; but most men, noble and simple, relied in battle on an elaborate arrangement of straps reaching from the knee to the ankle, and recalling that worn today by the peasants of the Roman Campagna. On their left arms the warriors carried almondshaped shields, three or four feet long. For these the English sometimes substituted round or oval shields. The shield was probably made of wood, covered with leather, and having a border of metal and a projection, or boss, of metal in the widest part. The studs which held the straps by which the shield was carried also appeared on the outside. The surface, slightly curved and generally of one plain color with a border, was sometimes decorated with colored lines, a cross, or the figure of a dragon. Armorial bearings did not appear on shields until a later date.
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| A Part of the Battle. |
The weapons in use were swords, axes, lances, darts, bows and arrows. The swords appear to have been sharp on both edges, and blunt at the point, intended to cut and not to stab; their guards were simple crosspieces. The axe was the national weapon of the English. With it King Harold is said to have been able to strike down horse and man at one blow. It was also considered appropriate for ceremonial occasions; thus, when the crown is first presented to Harold both he and the man who presents it carry axes. It has been noticed that the blades of both these axes are turned toward the newl chosen king. I believe, however, that this is accidental. The designers of the tapestry were not given to allegory, and the attempt to attach hidden meanings to their plain pictures is fanciful. It may be noted that the axe carried in war differs entirely in shape from that used for felling trees. The former has a broad curved edge, and becomes very narrow at the back; the latter approaches our modern shape. In one of the melees of the battle of Hastings, however, a man is seen fighting with a workman's axe. It is known that some of Harold's forces were the hastily armed levies of the neighborhood of the field of battle; but as the man wielding this axe is dressed in armor, the appearance of the common axe in his hands is probably due to carelessness in the embroiderer.
* Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné du Mobilier Français, vol. v., p. 171.The lance was used both by the Nor. mans and the English. It was not held under the shoulder when charging, like the heavier lance of a later date, but carried free in the hand, which was often raised beside the head. When not in use it rested in the stirrup. The wood was about eight or nine feet long; the head varied in form, being oftenest leafshaped or barbed. The principal knights carried a pennon on their lances. The devices on these pennons are interesting as coming singularly near the beginning of the science of heraldry. They consist of stripes and bands of various colors, and in most cases the pennon ends in three points. When any more elaborate device is attempted, it usually takes the form of a cross or of two or more circles. I think that the lance generally passed through the hem of the pennon, but this is sometimes doubtful. One of the banners pictured in the tapestry would, if we could surely recognize it, deserve peculiar attention. It is on record that Pope Alexander II. sent a consecrated banner to Duke William, and a ring containing a hair of St. Peter. The ring is not to be found on the duke's finger in the tapestry, nor can the banner be identified with absolute certainty. A distinguished antiquary, however, has pitched on one particular pennon, which bears a yellow or golden cross on a white ground surrounded by a blue border, as the papal gift;* and it is noticeable that this device is almost identical with that on the flag carried at William's masthead in the ship Mora, which bore him to England.
Only once is a figure more elaborate than a simple cross shown on a Norman banner in the tapestry. This is the representation of a bird on a semicircular banner with nine small streamers. This bird has been thought by some scholars to be the holy Dove, by others to be a raven, the standard of a band of Danish origin. The small size of the figure makes its identification impossible.
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| The English Churls. |
Two other standards, more curious than any Norman pennon, even though sent by a pope to encourage an invader, are to be seen in the tapestry. These are dragons, not embroidered on cloth, but made solid, either of metal or wood (for a stuffed dragon is hardly to be supposed), and carried on spears. T h e dragon was the ensign of Wessex, but King Harold's own standard was the "fighting man." This last, which is not shown in the tapestry, would appear to have been an embroidered figure. The dragon, however, made solid, and taking the place of a flag, can hardly have been an invention of the designer of the tapestry, to whom flags of cloth were familiar. It is probable, therefore, that the dragon standard was indeed solid, like the eagle of the Roman legion or the French regiment, and like those figures of dragons which are represented on Trajan's column at Rome.
Duke William spent the summer of 1066 in building and collecting a fleet. His half-brothers, Bishop Odo and Count Robert of Mortain, gave one hundred and one hundred and twenty ships respectively. Other vessels were sent in from all sides, and the builders were kept busy. The whole fleet numbered six hundred and ninety-six sail by the lowest reckoning, while the highest credible figure is above three thousand. But the largest of these vessels, the Mora herself, the gift of the Duchess Matilda, which bore the great duke to the conquest of a kingdom, was but an open boat with one mast, easily unstepped. Into such boats men and horses were crowded. The numbers of the army are variously estimated at from fourteen to sixty thousand.
Long they waited for a fair wind, invoking the saints. At last the relics of St. Valery were brought from their church and laid in a field, on a carpet. The pious warriors crowded around them to pray, and covered the body of the saint with the pile of their offerings. The powers of heaven were appeased, as they believed, and on the 27th of September the south wind blew fair for England. The day was spent in embarking; the night, in sailing over the channel; in the morning they approached the white cliffs of England. We see in the tapestry the long lapstreak hulls, painted in bright lines; the colored sails, that remind us of Venice; the row of bucklers along the gunwale; the heads of men and horses looking out over the rolling water. We see the landing; the horses taken from the ships; the scouts galloping over the country; the foragers bringing in cattle and provisions. A house is burned, and we see the mistress going forth leading a child by the hand. From other sources we learn that the country all about Hastings was so plundered that after twenty years it still showed marks of the Norman pillage. For a time the invading army remained undisturbed. King Harold was away in the north, where, three days before the landing of William, he had defeated another host of invaders under his own brother Tostig and Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. So William was left to land unopposed at Pevensey, to march unhindered to Hastings, and to fortify his camp there. Nor was the time spent without feasting. In one of the most curious scenes of the whole tapestry we see the pot hanging over the fire; we see a head cook taking dainties from a portable oven. He balances a dish on his left hand; in his right he holds a curious double hook, perhaps a hawk's claw on the end of a stick, with which he lifts — can it be a croquette? — and arranges his dish with French taste. We see the chickens on the spits. A sideboard is hastily made of shields laid on a trestle; but the dinnertable, which is very curious, must have been brought among the baggage. It is shaped like a horseshoe, and the guests sit only on the outer side; while on the inner a servant, on one knee and with a napkin over his arm, presents a dish. There is no cloth on the table, but there are dishes, knives, and cups; yet we see fish laid on the bare board. Odo, the bishop, is blessing the food and drink. He holds a bowl in his left hand and stretches three fingers over it. But the hunger of the other guests will hardly be restrained. Two appear to be pledging each other; one seizes a cake; another raises a morsel to his lips.
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| William shows his Face to his Friends. |
I had hoped, and at one time believed, that of Odo, at least, the tapestry had preserved a portrait. We see him in the scene above mentioned, and in the next, where he is holding council with his brothers, with a round face, large eyes, and a mouth of the type called cherubic. But I find him in another part of the tapestry with sunken cheeks. In fact, if the artist ever attempted portraiture, which is not impossible,as the size of the heads admits it (a face can be amply covered with a silver dollar), time and winding on windlasses have destroyed the portraits, except as to such obvious features as moustaches and beards. William is usually represented as a tall man, but I do not think that this means much. There is a tendency, even in artistic representations much more advanced than those of the tapestry, to give size to the most important figure. In fact, a great man does look big to those who see him.
After the feast the tapestry is occupied with the preparations for the battle. On the afternoon of the 13th of October, 1066, the English army, advancing from London, was drawn up on a hill called Senlac, about seven miles from Hastings. The position itself was strong and well chosen. Harold fortified it with a ditch and a palisade, and the shields of the warriors themselves, resting with one end upon the ground, formed a wall. All Englishmen at that time fought on foot, using their horses only to carry them to the field, while the chief strength of the Normans was in their cavalry. The hill of Senlac is long and narrow facing the south. On the middle of the hill King Harold took his place, beside the standards of the dragon and the fighting man. Around him were his brothers and his personal followers, the flower of the English army; the men of Kent, and the citizens of London. They were armed with lances, javelins, and swords, and with the terrible axe. On the flanks were the raw levies, mostly without defensive armor, and carrying anything to strike with, from a lance to a pitchfork, and even the stone hatchets of an earlier civilization.
On Saturday, the 14th of October, Duke William led out his army to attack the English position. It was composed of his own subjects of Normandy, and of adventurers from all France. Indeed, it is noticeable that the person who superintended the making of the tapestry, presumably a Norman, calls the invaders Franci, and not Normanni. The duke was mounted on a noble charger, the gift of a Spanish king. Three horses were killed under him that day, says a chronicler.
Near the duke rode his two halfbrothers, Odo and Robert. Neither Odo nor William used their swords that day, but each was armed with a club. On the part of the bishop this was made necessary by a rule of the Church of Rome, which forbade her shepherds to shed the blood of the sheep. The shepherds might, however, knock the sheep on the head. By the duke the club must have been carried from choice. Some later generals have preferred to go into battle armed only with a stick, but in the duke's hands the stick was a formidable weapon.
* The Chanson de Roland has been admirably translated into English verse by John O'Hagan, London, C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1880. The tapestry shows William's army on its march from Hastings. One Vital, a follower of Odo, announces the neighborhood of the English; while at about the same time Harold hears of the approach of the French. The duke exhorts his men to prepare for the battle with manliness and wisdom. The knights flourish their lances, the archers draw their bows. The horsemen charge the British square, and arrows, bolts, and javelins whistle through the air. Which of these gallant gentlemen is Taillefer, the minstrel, who rode first to the battle, throwing his sword into the air and catching it by the handle, while he sang the song of Roland at Roncesvalles?* One Englishman he pierced with his lance; another he struck down with his sword; then he fell beneath an English stroke. If this obscure warrior cannot be recognized in the tapestry, we are more fortunate in the case of the brothers of King Harold. Both of these were killed early in the day, Leofwine struck by a spear under the arm as he swung his mighty axe; Gyrth, the brave and prudent, falling, like him, in single combat with a mounted knight. Some of the old chroniclers attribute his death to the hand of the great duke himself, but the tapestry does not confirm this story.
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| The Death of Harold. |
The battle grows more furious. Frenchmen and Englishmen are falling at once, the axe and the sword doing their work. The lower border of the tapestry is full of dead men and horses. We see the English churls on their hill, without armor, fighting manfully. It is reported among the Normans that the duke had fallen; but William and Odo rally the fugitives. We see the Duke of Normandy rising in his stirrups and tilting back his helmet so that the nosepiece may not hide his face from his soldiers' eyes. On the other hand, to translate the quaint Latin of the tapestry, " Here Odo, the bishop, holding a club, comforts the boys." The Normans return to the charge. Meanwhile the French archers are ordered to fire in the air. The storm of arrows falls in the English faces, as when the wind drives the rain. The English lift their shields to cover their heads; the French swords find room to strike. The veterans who, in the centre of the English line, surround the standards and the king fall one by one. An arrow struck Harold in the right eye; and soon afterward he was despatched by a Norman sword. We see him fall, the axe dropping from his nerveless grasp. One standard was taken; another trampled under foot. In the tapestry both are figured as dragons, and the one that is stricken down seems to bite at a Norman horse's hoof. It was twilight when the English churls turned and fled, some of them on foot, some on the horses that had brought their lords to the field of battle. But the men of Kent and the citizens of London, the personal followers of the king, neither asked nor received quarter, nor yet did they fly, while axe could split shield. Of the disciplined soldiers who, on the day before, had accompanied King Harold from London, none escaped alive from the field of battle save those few who, stricken down among the wounded, were revived by the cool night air and wandered away in the darkness. And even those who fled did not lose a chance to deal a last blow
at their conquerors. The eastern end of the hill of Senlac falls off abruptly on the northern side to a marshy ravine. In the ardor of pursuit, and misled by the increasing darkness, many of the Norman riders plunged headlong down the steep bank, and were either smothered in the morass or despatched by the English fugitives. The place long kept the name of the Malfosse. Thus ended the most important battle ever fought on English soil, perhaps the most important battle in its results to all who now speak the English tongue that ever was fought at all. The Bayeux tapestry carries us through the fight, to the last resistance of the English soldiers and the flight of the English peasants. In this account I have followed mainly the order of the tapestry, taking its authority as final on those details concerning which chroniclers and historians have differed, but getting what light I could from other sources. Few histories or chronicles can surpass it in authority; none can have a more heroic theme.
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| Mont St. Michel. |
23.2.19
American Madder.
The Scientific American 33, 30.4.1853
"The experiments which have of late been made with home-grown madder," says the "Lowell Journal," "have potential that, when properly treated, American is equal to the best French madder. Like Turkey, Dutch or Alsace madders, the American requires the addition of a little chalk to produce the best effects. During the past winter, the Merrimack Company have used, with great success, some madder grown in Montague, Franklin Co., Mass., and are now about to dye some calico with this Massachusetts madder, to be exhibited aty the New York Crystal Palace. - Within a few days the Merrimack Company have received a small sample of madder grown in Georgia, which proves to be an excellent article - quite equal to that of Massachusetts. We have been informed that there grows wild, in Florida a plant, whose roots, when eaten by hogs, colors their bones red. Such is the effect of madder. Doubtless this is an indigenous species, whose cultivation would richly reward the planter. It is hoped that samples of this 'Pinkroot,' as it is termed in Florida, may be forwarded to Lowell for trial in dyeing. It is very desirable to determine whether it is madder requiring the peculiar treatment of all madders, (except the Avignon,) to produce the fullest, fattest, and most brilliant colors."
"The experiments which have of late been made with home-grown madder," says the "Lowell Journal," "have potential that, when properly treated, American is equal to the best French madder. Like Turkey, Dutch or Alsace madders, the American requires the addition of a little chalk to produce the best effects. During the past winter, the Merrimack Company have used, with great success, some madder grown in Montague, Franklin Co., Mass., and are now about to dye some calico with this Massachusetts madder, to be exhibited aty the New York Crystal Palace. - Within a few days the Merrimack Company have received a small sample of madder grown in Georgia, which proves to be an excellent article - quite equal to that of Massachusetts. We have been informed that there grows wild, in Florida a plant, whose roots, when eaten by hogs, colors their bones red. Such is the effect of madder. Doubtless this is an indigenous species, whose cultivation would richly reward the planter. It is hoped that samples of this 'Pinkroot,' as it is termed in Florida, may be forwarded to Lowell for trial in dyeing. It is very desirable to determine whether it is madder requiring the peculiar treatment of all madders, (except the Avignon,) to produce the fullest, fattest, and most brilliant colors."
22.2.19
Glass Cement.
Manufacturer and Builder 3, 1876
A cement to stop cracks in glass vessels, to resist moisture and heat, is made by dissolving casein in a cold saturated solution of borax. With this solution paste strips of hog's or bullock's bladder, softened in water, on the cracks in the glass, and dry at a gentle heat. If the vessel is to be heated, coat the bladder on the outside, just before it has become quite dry, with a paste of a rather concentrated solution of soda and quicklime or plaster of Paris.
A cement to stop cracks in glass vessels, to resist moisture and heat, is made by dissolving casein in a cold saturated solution of borax. With this solution paste strips of hog's or bullock's bladder, softened in water, on the cracks in the glass, and dry at a gentle heat. If the vessel is to be heated, coat the bladder on the outside, just before it has become quite dry, with a paste of a rather concentrated solution of soda and quicklime or plaster of Paris.
21.2.19
Varnishes for Iron.
Manufacturer and Builder 5, 1869
The London Chemical News, which is reprinted in this city by Messrs. Townsend & Adams, gives a valuable report by Dr. Lunge on "The Preparation of Varnishes for Iron as Secondary Products in the Distillation of Coal-Tar," which we copy, as it must prove interesting and valuable to many of our readers:
"Varnishes f this description are very easily prepared by melting pitch with different matters obtained in the distillation. No substances other than those obtained in the distillation of tar are required, and all that is necessary in the manufacture is an iron vessel in a covered building. The form of vessel most convenient is a vertical cylinder, slightly concave at the bottom. About as much pitch as would be contained in a three-quart vessel is thrown in at a time, and a small quantity of oil added to facilitate the fusion of the pitch and to prevent its solidifying on cooling. Considerable heat i s then applied, and small quantities of oil added from time to time; before adding the whole of the oil, it is important that the melted mass should be allowed to cool so that the oil will not enter into ebullition. exact proportions can be of no service, as different degrees of consistence are required for different purposes. Samples are withdrawn from time to time, and allowed to become quite cold, to judge of the consistence of the material. The oil employed is the heavy oil of tar; and for ordinary kinds of paint for metal, pitch is melted with it as previously described. But for many purposes a simpler process still may be employed, especially in the manufacture of large quantities. Tar is placed in small retorts, the ordinary retorts are too large for the purpose,) and heated until the heavy oil commences t odistill over; then the fire is diminished, and the retort allowed to cool somewhat: the retort is then opened, a certain quantity of heavy oil added, and the mixture well stirred; all that remains to be done is to pour the mixture out, and the operation is finished. Varnish made in this way is preferable to tar, and dries sooner; according to the state of t he atmosphere, it dries in twenty-four or forty eight hours. By incorporating naphtha of the lowest quality - to do which the mass must still be warm - with the material made with light oil instead of heavy oil, a varnish may be obtained which will dry in an hour or less."
The London Chemical News, which is reprinted in this city by Messrs. Townsend & Adams, gives a valuable report by Dr. Lunge on "The Preparation of Varnishes for Iron as Secondary Products in the Distillation of Coal-Tar," which we copy, as it must prove interesting and valuable to many of our readers:
"Varnishes f this description are very easily prepared by melting pitch with different matters obtained in the distillation. No substances other than those obtained in the distillation of tar are required, and all that is necessary in the manufacture is an iron vessel in a covered building. The form of vessel most convenient is a vertical cylinder, slightly concave at the bottom. About as much pitch as would be contained in a three-quart vessel is thrown in at a time, and a small quantity of oil added to facilitate the fusion of the pitch and to prevent its solidifying on cooling. Considerable heat i s then applied, and small quantities of oil added from time to time; before adding the whole of the oil, it is important that the melted mass should be allowed to cool so that the oil will not enter into ebullition. exact proportions can be of no service, as different degrees of consistence are required for different purposes. Samples are withdrawn from time to time, and allowed to become quite cold, to judge of the consistence of the material. The oil employed is the heavy oil of tar; and for ordinary kinds of paint for metal, pitch is melted with it as previously described. But for many purposes a simpler process still may be employed, especially in the manufacture of large quantities. Tar is placed in small retorts, the ordinary retorts are too large for the purpose,) and heated until the heavy oil commences t odistill over; then the fire is diminished, and the retort allowed to cool somewhat: the retort is then opened, a certain quantity of heavy oil added, and the mixture well stirred; all that remains to be done is to pour the mixture out, and the operation is finished. Varnish made in this way is preferable to tar, and dries sooner; according to the state of t he atmosphere, it dries in twenty-four or forty eight hours. By incorporating naphtha of the lowest quality - to do which the mass must still be warm - with the material made with light oil instead of heavy oil, a varnish may be obtained which will dry in an hour or less."
20.2.19
19.2.19
Ruthenium Red.
The Manufacturer and Builder 8, 1893
The color discovered by M. Joly in his researches on the ruthenium ammoniacal compounds rivals the most brilliant coal-tar pigments by its tinctorial intensity. The author has observed that ruthenium red is the best reagent for the pectic compounds, which are always associated with cellulose in young tissues and old tissued which have not been modified by foreign matters. It is the only reagent for the transformation products of the pectic compounds, i. e., the majority of gums and mucilages.
The color discovered by M. Joly in his researches on the ruthenium ammoniacal compounds rivals the most brilliant coal-tar pigments by its tinctorial intensity. The author has observed that ruthenium red is the best reagent for the pectic compounds, which are always associated with cellulose in young tissues and old tissued which have not been modified by foreign matters. It is the only reagent for the transformation products of the pectic compounds, i. e., the majority of gums and mucilages.
18.2.19
Pigments and Dyes Used by the Ancients.
Harper's new monthly magazine 265, 1872
From a memoir by M. Rousset upon the pigments and dyes used by the ancients it would appear that the variety was very considerable. Among the white colors, they were acquainted with white-lead; and for the blacks, various kinds of charcoal and soot were used. Animal skins were dyed black with nut-galls and sulphate of iron. Brown pigments they made by mixing together different kinds of ochre. Under the name of Alexadria blue the ancients - Egyptians, as well as Greeks and Romans - used a pigment containing oxide of copper, and also one containing cobalt. Fabrics were dyed blue by means of pastel-wood (Isatis tinctoria). Yellow pigments were principally derived from saffron and other native plants. Vermilion, red ochres, and minium were known from a remote antiquity, although the artificial preparation of vermilion was a secret possessed only by the Chinese. Kermes was used in Egypt in the time of Moses. Among green paints the ancients knew only certain green-colored compounds of copper with the acetate of that metal. The celebrated Tyrian purple was obtained from a mollusk known as the Janthina prolongata, a shell abundant in the Mediterranean and very common near Narbonne, where Tyrian purple dye-works were in operation at least six hundred years before Christ.
From a memoir by M. Rousset upon the pigments and dyes used by the ancients it would appear that the variety was very considerable. Among the white colors, they were acquainted with white-lead; and for the blacks, various kinds of charcoal and soot were used. Animal skins were dyed black with nut-galls and sulphate of iron. Brown pigments they made by mixing together different kinds of ochre. Under the name of Alexadria blue the ancients - Egyptians, as well as Greeks and Romans - used a pigment containing oxide of copper, and also one containing cobalt. Fabrics were dyed blue by means of pastel-wood (Isatis tinctoria). Yellow pigments were principally derived from saffron and other native plants. Vermilion, red ochres, and minium were known from a remote antiquity, although the artificial preparation of vermilion was a secret possessed only by the Chinese. Kermes was used in Egypt in the time of Moses. Among green paints the ancients knew only certain green-colored compounds of copper with the acetate of that metal. The celebrated Tyrian purple was obtained from a mollusk known as the Janthina prolongata, a shell abundant in the Mediterranean and very common near Narbonne, where Tyrian purple dye-works were in operation at least six hundred years before Christ.
17.2.19
Kaswiwärjäyksestä.
Savo 73, 9.7.1912
Kotiteollisuus-yhdistyksen kiertäwillä naiskäsityökouluilla oli aijottu tänä kewännä pitää lyhyet kaswiwärjäyskurssit, wain jonkun päiwän kestäwät, mutta kun ei ollut ennestään koottuja wäriwarastoja (kasweja), eikä uusia wielä saatawissa, täytyi yritys raueta toistaiseksi. Niissä paikoin missä mainitut koulut syksyllä alkawat, sopisi parhaiten pitää nämä kurssit alussa, jos joka paikassa kerättäisiin kaswit kesäilä, täysin kehittyneinä, jolloin ne sisältämät runsaammin wäriainetta. Kaswit, joita kootaan wärjäämistä warten, myöhempien aikojen tarpeiksi, owat kuiwattawat nopeasti, warjoisilla ja ilmawilla paikoilla, jossa ikkunat pidetään auki. Kaswit lewitellään ohuwiin kerroksiin ja liikutellaan jonkun kerran etteiwät homehdu. Ei milloinkaan saa kuiwattaa auringon paisteessa. On pidettäwä huolta etteiwät kaswit pääse kellastumaan.
Puun kuoret otetaan siihen aikaan wuotta, jolloin ne helposti irtaantuwat. Lehdet kerätään, kun owat täysin
kehittyneet. Mainitsen muutamia yleisemmin käytettyjä kasweja: koiwun kuoria, lehtiä ja naawaa. Näillä saa monenlaisia wärejä.
Pajun kuorilla saadaan kellertäwän harmaata.
Paatsamen (Rhamnus frangula) kuorilla saa pronssikeltaisen wärin, tuomen kuorilla punasen-keltaista, harmaa- ja terwalepän kuorilla kellertäwän harmaata, siis eri wiwahdus kuin pajun kuorilla.
Nokkosilla, polttiainen (Urtica dioiea) saa tuoreena wihertäwän keltasta, kuiwattuna harmaan keltasta.
Kanerwa (Calluna wulgaris), käytetään monenlaisiin wihreihin wäreihin y. m.
Sianpuolalla (Arctapthylos uwa ursi) wärjätään harmaata.
Puolukan warsilla wihertäwän harmaata.
Kelta (Lycopodium alpiuum) käytetään usein sinisen pohjawäriksi.
Kuusen naawaa,
partajäkälää (Usena [Usnea] barbata plieata),
seinäjäkälää (Parmelia saxatilis), joka irtaantuu kiwistä parhaiten sateen jälkeen.
Kuusenkäwyt otetaan sellaiset, jotka owat pudonneet puusta edellisenä wuotena, olleet talwen maassa kosteilla paikoilla, mutta sentään säilyneet kowina; niillä saa pnnasen harnmata. Katajan hawut ja marjat, kuusen hawut; männynkerkät y. m.
Ylipäänsä koko kaswikunualla woi wärjätä, sillä ne kaikki sisältäwät wähän eri wiivahduksiin käypiä kellertäwiä nesteitä tai ruskeaa, kuten naawat ja knoret. Värjätessä, kun käytetään kemiallisia aineita ja ulkolaista kaswiwärejä, joko erikseen tai yhdistettyuä aina sen mukaan millaista wäriä milloinkin tahdotaan, woi samalla kaswilajilla saada monta eri wäriä.
Wärien kirkkauteen waikuttaa myöskin se, wärjätäänkö rauta- wai kuparipadassa.
Näin ollen saa niitä pehmeimpiä ja kauneimpia wärejä, jottei ei ollenkaan saata werratakaan räikeisiin aniliinilla wärjättyihin wäreihin, ei näössä eikä kestäwyydessä.
Jos katselee waatekappaleita, joiden ikä lähentelee paria sataa wuotta ja waikka ne monasti on hywin repaleisiakin, niin wärit owat pysyneet eheinä, jokseenkin muuttumattomina. Tämäkin taito kuuluu meille kiinteään perintöön. Taito, joka on läpi aikojen kulkenut sukupolwesta toiseen, on muodostunut kansalliseksi pääomaksi. Sitä emme saa ajattelemattomasti warjostaa kaikellaisilla roskawäreillä, mitä milloinkin keinottelujen tuotteina kaupaksi ilmestyy. Jo on aika purkaa sitä lastia, minkä wieraiden taitojen ja tapojen omaksumisella olemme niin painawaksi niskoillemme lastanneet.
Sentakia ettei osaa wärjätä kauniita ja kestäwiä wärejä, waihettaa monikin willansa tehdaslankoihin, joihinkin rumiin lumppulankoihin y. m.
Poistaaksemme tällaistakin asiaintilaa, joka koituu suoranaisesti taloudelliseksi tappioksi, on etenkin maalaisnaisten otettawa tämäkin asia harkinnan alaiseksi. Eikö olisi syytä ruweta käyttämään entisajan wärjäystapoja kotoisissa langoissa ja kankaissa, jossa wielä piilee kaswattawakin woima, kehittämässä tekijän wärimakua sekä laajentaa kauneusaistia, mikä on warsin tarpeen nyt, niin hulluuteen asti koreilewalla aikakaudella. Naisillehan on kauneusaisti suuresta merkityksestä, osata käyttää wapaata kaunista, niin puwuissa kuin ympäristössäänkin, eikä olla turmeltuneiden muotien puitteisiin pimitetty; missä epätoiwoisina huokaillaan yhden tai toisen puwun epäkäytännöllisyydestä y. m. Osata järjestää huoneiden sisustus niin, etteiwät wärit räikeydellään kilpaile ja wiimein uppoa surkeaan sekamelskaan, se on taitoa.
Pois kaikki ulkolainen ja todellisesti wapaa suomalaisuus tilalle.
Kasweilla wärjäys on todellista isänmaallisuutta.
R. K.
Kotiteollisuus-yhdistyksen kiertäwillä naiskäsityökouluilla oli aijottu tänä kewännä pitää lyhyet kaswiwärjäyskurssit, wain jonkun päiwän kestäwät, mutta kun ei ollut ennestään koottuja wäriwarastoja (kasweja), eikä uusia wielä saatawissa, täytyi yritys raueta toistaiseksi. Niissä paikoin missä mainitut koulut syksyllä alkawat, sopisi parhaiten pitää nämä kurssit alussa, jos joka paikassa kerättäisiin kaswit kesäilä, täysin kehittyneinä, jolloin ne sisältämät runsaammin wäriainetta. Kaswit, joita kootaan wärjäämistä warten, myöhempien aikojen tarpeiksi, owat kuiwattawat nopeasti, warjoisilla ja ilmawilla paikoilla, jossa ikkunat pidetään auki. Kaswit lewitellään ohuwiin kerroksiin ja liikutellaan jonkun kerran etteiwät homehdu. Ei milloinkaan saa kuiwattaa auringon paisteessa. On pidettäwä huolta etteiwät kaswit pääse kellastumaan.
Puun kuoret otetaan siihen aikaan wuotta, jolloin ne helposti irtaantuwat. Lehdet kerätään, kun owat täysin
kehittyneet. Mainitsen muutamia yleisemmin käytettyjä kasweja: koiwun kuoria, lehtiä ja naawaa. Näillä saa monenlaisia wärejä.
Pajun kuorilla saadaan kellertäwän harmaata.
Paatsamen (Rhamnus frangula) kuorilla saa pronssikeltaisen wärin, tuomen kuorilla punasen-keltaista, harmaa- ja terwalepän kuorilla kellertäwän harmaata, siis eri wiwahdus kuin pajun kuorilla.
Nokkosilla, polttiainen (Urtica dioiea) saa tuoreena wihertäwän keltasta, kuiwattuna harmaan keltasta.
Kanerwa (Calluna wulgaris), käytetään monenlaisiin wihreihin wäreihin y. m.
Sianpuolalla (Arctapthylos uwa ursi) wärjätään harmaata.
Puolukan warsilla wihertäwän harmaata.
Kelta (Lycopodium alpiuum) käytetään usein sinisen pohjawäriksi.
Kuusen naawaa,
partajäkälää (Usena [Usnea] barbata plieata),
seinäjäkälää (Parmelia saxatilis), joka irtaantuu kiwistä parhaiten sateen jälkeen.
Kuusenkäwyt otetaan sellaiset, jotka owat pudonneet puusta edellisenä wuotena, olleet talwen maassa kosteilla paikoilla, mutta sentään säilyneet kowina; niillä saa pnnasen harnmata. Katajan hawut ja marjat, kuusen hawut; männynkerkät y. m.
Ylipäänsä koko kaswikunualla woi wärjätä, sillä ne kaikki sisältäwät wähän eri wiivahduksiin käypiä kellertäwiä nesteitä tai ruskeaa, kuten naawat ja knoret. Värjätessä, kun käytetään kemiallisia aineita ja ulkolaista kaswiwärejä, joko erikseen tai yhdistettyuä aina sen mukaan millaista wäriä milloinkin tahdotaan, woi samalla kaswilajilla saada monta eri wäriä.
Wärien kirkkauteen waikuttaa myöskin se, wärjätäänkö rauta- wai kuparipadassa.
Näin ollen saa niitä pehmeimpiä ja kauneimpia wärejä, jottei ei ollenkaan saata werratakaan räikeisiin aniliinilla wärjättyihin wäreihin, ei näössä eikä kestäwyydessä.
Jos katselee waatekappaleita, joiden ikä lähentelee paria sataa wuotta ja waikka ne monasti on hywin repaleisiakin, niin wärit owat pysyneet eheinä, jokseenkin muuttumattomina. Tämäkin taito kuuluu meille kiinteään perintöön. Taito, joka on läpi aikojen kulkenut sukupolwesta toiseen, on muodostunut kansalliseksi pääomaksi. Sitä emme saa ajattelemattomasti warjostaa kaikellaisilla roskawäreillä, mitä milloinkin keinottelujen tuotteina kaupaksi ilmestyy. Jo on aika purkaa sitä lastia, minkä wieraiden taitojen ja tapojen omaksumisella olemme niin painawaksi niskoillemme lastanneet.
Sentakia ettei osaa wärjätä kauniita ja kestäwiä wärejä, waihettaa monikin willansa tehdaslankoihin, joihinkin rumiin lumppulankoihin y. m.
Poistaaksemme tällaistakin asiaintilaa, joka koituu suoranaisesti taloudelliseksi tappioksi, on etenkin maalaisnaisten otettawa tämäkin asia harkinnan alaiseksi. Eikö olisi syytä ruweta käyttämään entisajan wärjäystapoja kotoisissa langoissa ja kankaissa, jossa wielä piilee kaswattawakin woima, kehittämässä tekijän wärimakua sekä laajentaa kauneusaistia, mikä on warsin tarpeen nyt, niin hulluuteen asti koreilewalla aikakaudella. Naisillehan on kauneusaisti suuresta merkityksestä, osata käyttää wapaata kaunista, niin puwuissa kuin ympäristössäänkin, eikä olla turmeltuneiden muotien puitteisiin pimitetty; missä epätoiwoisina huokaillaan yhden tai toisen puwun epäkäytännöllisyydestä y. m. Osata järjestää huoneiden sisustus niin, etteiwät wärit räikeydellään kilpaile ja wiimein uppoa surkeaan sekamelskaan, se on taitoa.
Pois kaikki ulkolainen ja todellisesti wapaa suomalaisuus tilalle.
Kasweilla wärjäys on todellista isänmaallisuutta.
R. K.
16.2.19
Preventive of the Decay of Wood.
Manufacturer and Builder 1, 1869
Experiments have been carried on in Paris for a long time in the intent of finding out a means of preserving palings, posts, etc., from decay. As the result of a five years' experience, a paint is recommended which at the same time possesses the advantage of being impervious to water. It is composed of fifty parts of tar, forty parts of finely-cryshed chalk, five hundred parts of fine, white, hard sand, four parts of linseed oil, one part of the red oxide of copper in its native state, and finally, one part of sulphuric acid. In order to manufacture the paint from this multiplicity of materials, teh tar, chalk, sand and oil are first heated in an iron kettle; the oxide and sulphuric acid are then added with a good deal of precaution. The mass is then very carefully mixed. It is now ready for use, and must be applied while hot. In coating the timber, a stiff brush is used. If it is found upon using that the mixture is not liquid enough, a little more linseed oil should be used. After this paint has cooled and dried, t forms a coating or varnish as hard as stone.
Experiments have been carried on in Paris for a long time in the intent of finding out a means of preserving palings, posts, etc., from decay. As the result of a five years' experience, a paint is recommended which at the same time possesses the advantage of being impervious to water. It is composed of fifty parts of tar, forty parts of finely-cryshed chalk, five hundred parts of fine, white, hard sand, four parts of linseed oil, one part of the red oxide of copper in its native state, and finally, one part of sulphuric acid. In order to manufacture the paint from this multiplicity of materials, teh tar, chalk, sand and oil are first heated in an iron kettle; the oxide and sulphuric acid are then added with a good deal of precaution. The mass is then very carefully mixed. It is now ready for use, and must be applied while hot. In coating the timber, a stiff brush is used. If it is found upon using that the mixture is not liquid enough, a little more linseed oil should be used. After this paint has cooled and dried, t forms a coating or varnish as hard as stone.
15.2.19
Om färgning i hemmet
Pellervo 5, 1909
(Se detta års februarihäfte).
Gula färger fås af:
1) Björklöf. 250 gram alun finstötes och upplöses i ljumt vatten. I alunlösningen nedlägges 1 kg garn; så mycket vatten tillsättes, att det täcker garnet, som nu kokas i 1 timme. Härefter upptages garnet ur vätskan, klämmes torrt och lagges att torka på skuggigt ställe. I en stor kittel nedlägges nu ett tjockt []ager björklöf, på dem utbredes en del af garnet, därpå åter ett tjockt lager löf, ånyo garn och sist löf. I kitteln öses så mycket vatten, att gamen däraf täckas, hvarpå den ställes öfver elden att koka en half timme, hvarunder garnet flitigt måste omröras. Kokkärlet lyftes från elden, täckes med lock och får kallna till följande dag, då garnet tages ur kärlet, omsorgsfullt sköljes och torkas. För att få en vacker, guldgul färg behöfves c. 30 liter färskt löf per garnkilo. Bäst är vid midsommar plockadt löf. Äfven torrt löf kan användas, men mängden måste då vara större än om färskt tages.
2) Gärdsgårdsmossa. Mossa, som växer t. ex. på gamla gärdegårdar och gamla granar samlas. Ett tjockt lager sådan mossa utbredes på bottnen af kokkärlet; därpå garn och så vidare hvarftals. Öfverst mossa. I kitteln öses så mycket vatten, att garnet däraf täckes. Får koka 2 timmar. Garnet sköljes omsorgsfullt, vrides torrt, härfvorna slås raka och uppsättas till torkning.
3) Lummer (Lycopodium complanatum). Denna växer på torra ställen i skogen. Garnet väges. Färsk eller torkad lummer tages dubbelt upp emot garnets vikt. Växterna utbredas i kitteln hvarfvis under, ofvan och mellan garnet, med så mycket vatten, som ofvan redan blifvit sagdt. Kitteln kokas 2—3 timmar, hvarefter garnet urvrides och torkas. Först därefter sköljes det. På så sätt erhålles en hållbar, rödgul färg.
- H K.
(Se detta års februarihäfte).
Gula färger fås af:
1) Björklöf. 250 gram alun finstötes och upplöses i ljumt vatten. I alunlösningen nedlägges 1 kg garn; så mycket vatten tillsättes, att det täcker garnet, som nu kokas i 1 timme. Härefter upptages garnet ur vätskan, klämmes torrt och lagges att torka på skuggigt ställe. I en stor kittel nedlägges nu ett tjockt []ager björklöf, på dem utbredes en del af garnet, därpå åter ett tjockt lager löf, ånyo garn och sist löf. I kitteln öses så mycket vatten, att gamen däraf täckas, hvarpå den ställes öfver elden att koka en half timme, hvarunder garnet flitigt måste omröras. Kokkärlet lyftes från elden, täckes med lock och får kallna till följande dag, då garnet tages ur kärlet, omsorgsfullt sköljes och torkas. För att få en vacker, guldgul färg behöfves c. 30 liter färskt löf per garnkilo. Bäst är vid midsommar plockadt löf. Äfven torrt löf kan användas, men mängden måste då vara större än om färskt tages.
2) Gärdsgårdsmossa. Mossa, som växer t. ex. på gamla gärdegårdar och gamla granar samlas. Ett tjockt lager sådan mossa utbredes på bottnen af kokkärlet; därpå garn och så vidare hvarftals. Öfverst mossa. I kitteln öses så mycket vatten, att garnet däraf täckes. Får koka 2 timmar. Garnet sköljes omsorgsfullt, vrides torrt, härfvorna slås raka och uppsättas till torkning.
3) Lummer (Lycopodium complanatum). Denna växer på torra ställen i skogen. Garnet väges. Färsk eller torkad lummer tages dubbelt upp emot garnets vikt. Växterna utbredas i kitteln hvarfvis under, ofvan och mellan garnet, med så mycket vatten, som ofvan redan blifvit sagdt. Kitteln kokas 2—3 timmar, hvarefter garnet urvrides och torkas. Först därefter sköljes det. På så sätt erhålles en hållbar, rödgul färg.
- H K.
14.2.19
Diseases of Workers among Lead and Paint.
The Manufacturer and Builder 9, 1869
In the sixth of a series of reports "On the Preventible Diseases of the Industrial Classes," the British Medical Journal says: "Owing to the impossibility of keeping paint from coming into contact with the skin while they are at work; owing to the almost universal practice among them of touching their food with unwashed hands, and to the habit of some of them of wearing corduroy, fustian, and other clothes difficult to cleanse, painters absorb large quantities of the hurtful metal, and suffer gravely in consequence. An attack of colic may occur now and again, and the painter will recover; but if he continue to follow his trade, the more serious diseases, such as paralysis or kidney deseases, are almost certain to attack him at last, and to render him, if not entirely unable to work, at least so weak and prostrated that, in mental as well as in physical power, he will be but as the ghost of his former self. It is seldom that such workers are killed in early life; they lose power early, and soon become unable to perform a good day's work; but they drag through their labor for many years, suffering always from general weakness. From the time htta lead has contamined their bodies, their lives are wearisome and joyless. Since lead is such a dangerous metal to work with, it is most desirable that all efforts to obtain a substitute should meet with attentive consideration. Different substances have been used instead of lead in the manudacture of paint, and with an encouraging amount of success. Zinc has been employed, and we have had favorable reports of it; the silicate of iron has also been used. The zinc is thinner than other paint, and workmen do not like it on this acocunt; but in all other respects it is, we are told, as useful as leaden paint.
Our medical co[n]temporary suggests that all workers among lead should, before commencing or resuming work, wash their hands, not once but many times a day, in a strong decoction of oak-bark, the tannin of which would not only harden the skin, but would protect it against the action of lead. The hair of the workmen should be kept short. All painters should, during their work, wear clean cloth caps. All their clothes should be made of materials that can be easily and frequently washed. Their hands should be washed before touching food, and, if stained with paint, should be dipped into a decoction of oak-bark. The mouth should be well rinsed with cold water before partaking fo food. A weak decoction of oak-bark should be used as a wash several times a week. The body should be sponged night and morning with cold or tepid water, and the hair thoroughly washed every evening after work. The food should contain a large proportion of fatty substances, and milk should be taken in large quantities.
In the sixth of a series of reports "On the Preventible Diseases of the Industrial Classes," the British Medical Journal says: "Owing to the impossibility of keeping paint from coming into contact with the skin while they are at work; owing to the almost universal practice among them of touching their food with unwashed hands, and to the habit of some of them of wearing corduroy, fustian, and other clothes difficult to cleanse, painters absorb large quantities of the hurtful metal, and suffer gravely in consequence. An attack of colic may occur now and again, and the painter will recover; but if he continue to follow his trade, the more serious diseases, such as paralysis or kidney deseases, are almost certain to attack him at last, and to render him, if not entirely unable to work, at least so weak and prostrated that, in mental as well as in physical power, he will be but as the ghost of his former self. It is seldom that such workers are killed in early life; they lose power early, and soon become unable to perform a good day's work; but they drag through their labor for many years, suffering always from general weakness. From the time htta lead has contamined their bodies, their lives are wearisome and joyless. Since lead is such a dangerous metal to work with, it is most desirable that all efforts to obtain a substitute should meet with attentive consideration. Different substances have been used instead of lead in the manudacture of paint, and with an encouraging amount of success. Zinc has been employed, and we have had favorable reports of it; the silicate of iron has also been used. The zinc is thinner than other paint, and workmen do not like it on this acocunt; but in all other respects it is, we are told, as useful as leaden paint.
Our medical co[n]temporary suggests that all workers among lead should, before commencing or resuming work, wash their hands, not once but many times a day, in a strong decoction of oak-bark, the tannin of which would not only harden the skin, but would protect it against the action of lead. The hair of the workmen should be kept short. All painters should, during their work, wear clean cloth caps. All their clothes should be made of materials that can be easily and frequently washed. Their hands should be washed before touching food, and, if stained with paint, should be dipped into a decoction of oak-bark. The mouth should be well rinsed with cold water before partaking fo food. A weak decoction of oak-bark should be used as a wash several times a week. The body should be sponged night and morning with cold or tepid water, and the hair thoroughly washed every evening after work. The food should contain a large proportion of fatty substances, and milk should be taken in large quantities.
13.2.19
Värinmuunnokset lintumaailmassa.
Helsingin Sanomat 63, 5.3.1926
Kirj. Ivar Hortling.
Tutkimalla lintujen höyhenten erilaisia pigmenttejä ja rakenteita, on viimeisimpinä aikoina menty suurin askelin eteenpäin eri värin muunnosten arvostelemisessa ja nimityksessä. Tähän saakka on enimmäkseen toimittu opillisilla, näköopillisillä, aisteilla ja kutsuttu muunnoksia värinimillä.
On varsin pettävää päätellä kussakin erikoistapauksessa muunnoksen lajia. Useinkin ovat muunnokset aivan satunnaisia, esiintyen vain kahden, toinen toistaan seuraavan sulkasadon välillä. Sellainen "fenotyyppinen heterochrosis" saattaa esiintyä esim. lintujen sairaustapauksissa, höyhenten irti nyhtämisessä ja muissa sellaisissa tapauksissa, jolloin pigmentin eli tumman väriaineen esiintulo ehkäistyy ja n. s. osittainen-albinismi syntyy. Jotkut tutkijat ovat verranneet tätä ilmiöt imettäväisten ja ihmisten vanhentuessa harmaantuviin kasvoihin ja hiuksiin.
Fenotyypillisiksi aberratioiksi katsotaan edelleen kaikki luonnottoman ravintoaineen aiheuttamat värinmuunnokset, kuten melanismi eli mustuminen, ilmeten erinäisissä siemensyöjissä seurauksena öljypitoisten siementen nauttimisesta. Ei kuulu harvinaisuuksiin nähdä mustia häkkilintuja, esim. punatulkkuja.
Aivan erikoisluokan muodostavat ne värinmuunnokset, joiden höyhenpuku saa erilaisia värivivahduksia suorastaan ulkonaisista vaikuttimista, niinkuin esim. parkkihaposta, ruosteesta j. m. s. Ne eivät ole niinkään harvinaisia kuin luulisi. Allekirjoittanut on saanut monta lintua, joiden luonnollinen valkea vatsapuoli on ollut vahvasti ruosteen värinen. Sellaisia lintuja on tukkanarsku, kaakkuri ja alli, kaikilla ruosteenkarvainen vatsa. Pitkät ajat olen luullut tällaista väriä oikeaksi; kävipä niinkin, että kokeet poistaa ruosteen väri alkohoolilla epäonnistuivat. Mutta uudet kokeilut, keittämällä vedensekaisessa suolahapossa osoittivat, että ruosteenväri tyystin katosi; ja nesteen saadessa lisäkettä rodankaliumista, syntyi reaktio, joka selvästi ilmaisi rautaa löytyvän valmisteessa. Ja lisäys keltaista merisuolaa antoi ferrisuolan kera reaktion, joka todisti että ruosteenväri oli rautaa.
Miksi juuri vesilinnut verrattain usein esiintyvät tässä ruostevärissä johtuu siitä, että ne etsivät pienempiä vesistöjä, lätäkköjä, lampia j. n. e., joissa ruostetta toisinaan on näkyvissä siinä määrin, että sen voi noistaa kuorimalla.
Paljon suurempi merkitys on sellaisilla värinmuunnoksilla, jotka siirtyvät perintönä jälkeläisiin ("genotyyppinen heterochrosis"). Sellaiset ilmiöt voidaan selittää joko pigmentin epäsuhtaisesta liikemäärästä taikka sen puutteesta johtuvaksi. Jälkimmäiseen lajiin kuuluvat n. s. täysalbinismit. Albinolinnuilta puuttuu tumma väriaine sekä epidermali (marras-) muodostuksissa (höyhenet, nokka, kynnet) että silmissä ynnä itse marraskedissä. Albinoilla on punainen silmäterä ja rusottava terän kehä. Albinismin eli valkovärimuunnoksen syntyä ei ole muutoin voitu selittää, kuin siten että tumman värin ainevaikutin on surkastunut. Fysiologiselta kannalta katsottuna on albinismi seurauksena pigmenttiä kuljettavan käytteen puutteesta. Valkovärimuunnoksia pidetään suvun huonontumisilmiöinä ja niitä seuraa usein patologiset (tautiopilliset) valinnaisuudet (epäsäännöllinen nokka, uimakalvon puuttuminen, huono laulu j. n. e.).
Mutta myöskin osittainen albinismi voi olla perinnöllinen, vaikkakin se saattaa esiintyä eri laajuudessa eri sulkasadon aikajaksoina. Puhutaan kahdenlaisista pigmenteistä, melaniinista ja lipochroomista. Näistä edellinen taasen on joko eumelaniini (tummahkoa) tai phaeomelaniini (makailtavaa). Lipochroomiksi kutsutaan kirkasväristä pigmenttiä, puhutaanpa zoonerythriinistä, zoofulviinista ja cotinginista aina sitä mukaa kuin on kyseessä punainen, keltainen tai violetti lipochroomi. Osittaisissa albinismeissa häviää aina melaniini ensiksi. Luonnon mustat ja ruskeat osat muuttuvat niinmuodoin valkeiksi, kun taas keltaiset, punaiset ja violetti osat pysyvät normaalitilassaan. Yliopiston eläintieteellisessä museossa löytyy esimerkkejä sellaisista osittais-albinoista, m. m. on siellä tilhiä, joissa tumma leukatäplä on muuttunut valkeaksi. Osittaiset albinot eivät milloinkaan esiinny täysin symmetrisesti järjestyneissä valko-osissa. Mainitussa museossa on olemassa varis, jolla on valkeankirjava naama, kumpikin puoli eri väriä, on toisia osittain valkoisine siipineen y. m. s.
Jos ainoastaan yksi pigmenttilaji katoaa toisen jäädessä muuttumattomaksi, niin tätä vaihdosta nimitetään schizochroismiksi. On esim. isotikkoja, joilla kaikki osat ovat valkeita, ainoastaan päälaki ja pyrstön alapeitinhöyhenet ovat luonnollisen punaiset.
Täys-albinismista eroaa n. s. leucismi siinä, että marraskesi pysyy pigmenttisoituna: Leucistisilla linnuilla on siis luonnonmukaiset silmät, nokka ja jalat. Se ei ole mikään vaillinainen ilmiö, tiedämmehän että useat linnut saavat talveksi valkean puvun.
Paitsi yllämainittuja muunnoksia esiintyy vielä n. s. chlorochroismi, joka merkitsee kaikkien värien yhdenmukaista vaalistumista. Tämä ilmiö saapi selityksensä siitä, että silloin on ylituotanto hapettavasta fermentistä,(kokeilu vetysuperoxidilla eumelaniiniin on antanut tulokseksi phaeomelaniinia). On tarjolla kaksi tietä albinismiin: joko häviää pigmentti paikoitellen tahi myös väriaine vaalenee. Edellisessä tapauksessa on höyhenpuku vapaa pigmentistä, jälkimmäisessä se sisältää pigmenttiä värittömissä hapatusasteissa. Ensinmainittu laji albinismia on muuttumattoman valkeaa, toinen saattaa sulkasadon jälkeen taas saada himmeän ruskean värivivahduksen.
Pigmenttien epäsääntöisessä lisäytymisessä muodostuu melanismeja. Ne esiintyvät linnuissa, joiden puku jo säännöllisessä tilassa on tumma (petolinnut, leivoset), jotavastoin ei esim. tikoissa, pääskysissä. Puhutaan erikseen eu- ja phaeomelanismista. Usein on melanismi yhteydessä osittaisalbinismiin. Samoin kuin albinuslinnuissa, esiintyy melanismeissakin epäsääntöisyyksiä kuten sarviaineen epätasainen jakautuminen y. m. s.
Näihin mainittuihin epäsääntöisyyksiin tulevat lisäksi aberratiot, joille on tunnusmerkillistä niiden ilmeneminen symmetrisessä järjestyksessä. Tässä ei tule kysymykseen vain värien muuttuminen vaan myöskin ulko-asu. Nämä mutatiot eivät johda lajin muuttumiseen samalla tavoin kuin koon ja muodon perinnölliset muutokset, fysiologiset ja psykilliset muutokset. Mutta värinmutatiot osoittavat meille, miten kehitys tapahtuu harppaamalla. Siten selitetään esim. musta varis muunnokseksi normaalisesta harmaavariksesta. Toiset tutkijat pitävät, kuten tietty, mustaa ja harmaata varista kahtena eri lajina. Usein ovat tuollaiset vaihtelut "epämukavia" luokittelevalle lintutieteilijälle.
Värinmuunnoksen alaisen vaihdelajin (mutation) ei tarvitse aina edustaa päälajiansa koko levenemisalueella, mutta se voipi esiintyä rinnakkain säännöllisen kanssa. Toista on n. s. subspecieksen tai conspecieksen laita, jotka muodostavat maantieteellisen rodun ja "vikarieeraavat" toisiaan maantieteellisesti rajoitettujen alueiden sisäpuolella.
Yliopiston eläintiet. museossa löytyy runsaasti väriaberratioita. Muutamissa osittais-albinismeissa tavataan tyypilliset tuntomerkit: melaniini puuttuu, kuten eräässä härkäpeipposessa, jossa on jäljellä ainoastaan vähän keltaista, samoin taviokuurnassa. Valkeassa västäräkissä on jäljellä hiukan ruskeaa väriä rinnassa ja sen yläpuolella, lievä jäännös mustia pigmenttitäpliä on muuttunut phaeomelaniiniksi. Äsken sain Lauttakylästä uros sorsan värin vaihdetilassaan, jossa ilmenee sairaalloinen, albinotillinen täplä kaulassa. Eräällä västäräkillä on pyrstö osoittautunut eniten vastustusvoimaiseksi: lintu on muutoin valkea. Nousiaisista saatu närhi on sinertäväsiipinen, sen yläosa sekä pyrstö ovat likaisen valkeat. Pari tilheä on täysin vaalistunut väriltään, sitäpaitsi osittain albinotisia. Harakoita on niinikään pari, joilla on pää ja kaula ruskeat, siivet himmeän kellanruskeat, selkä hiukan kirkkaamman keltainen. Toisen kohdalle on merkitty: "Juvan Nääminki, jossa tällaiset kappaleet eivät ole harvinaisia". Kenties nämä ovat genotyyppisiä aberratioita. Mainittuihin värin muunnoksiin tulee vielä runsas kokoelma epäsääntöisesti värittyneitä kanalintuja.
Kysymys värin muunnoksista ja rinnakkaislajeista on jokseenkin vaikea ja monella tapaa ymmärrettävä kysymys. Se vaatii suurta huomiota semminkin, kun värin muunnoksia el enää suinkaan saa ottaa yksinomaan eriskummaisuuden kannalta, vaan ne ansaitsevat tutkimustyötä.
Kirjallisuutta: Bernhard Rensch: "Die Farbaberrationen der Vogel": Journal für Omithologie 1925 s. 514—539; Erwin Stresemann: "Mutationsstudien" aikakauskirjassa Journal für Omithologie 1924, s. 73-89 y. ra., Ornithologische Monatsberichte 1923, s. 78—85 y. m., 1924, s. 132—135, ja Verhandlungen der Ornithol. Gesellschaft in Bayern 1924, s. 184.
Kirj. Ivar Hortling.
Tutkimalla lintujen höyhenten erilaisia pigmenttejä ja rakenteita, on viimeisimpinä aikoina menty suurin askelin eteenpäin eri värin muunnosten arvostelemisessa ja nimityksessä. Tähän saakka on enimmäkseen toimittu opillisilla, näköopillisillä, aisteilla ja kutsuttu muunnoksia värinimillä.
On varsin pettävää päätellä kussakin erikoistapauksessa muunnoksen lajia. Useinkin ovat muunnokset aivan satunnaisia, esiintyen vain kahden, toinen toistaan seuraavan sulkasadon välillä. Sellainen "fenotyyppinen heterochrosis" saattaa esiintyä esim. lintujen sairaustapauksissa, höyhenten irti nyhtämisessä ja muissa sellaisissa tapauksissa, jolloin pigmentin eli tumman väriaineen esiintulo ehkäistyy ja n. s. osittainen-albinismi syntyy. Jotkut tutkijat ovat verranneet tätä ilmiöt imettäväisten ja ihmisten vanhentuessa harmaantuviin kasvoihin ja hiuksiin.
Fenotyypillisiksi aberratioiksi katsotaan edelleen kaikki luonnottoman ravintoaineen aiheuttamat värinmuunnokset, kuten melanismi eli mustuminen, ilmeten erinäisissä siemensyöjissä seurauksena öljypitoisten siementen nauttimisesta. Ei kuulu harvinaisuuksiin nähdä mustia häkkilintuja, esim. punatulkkuja.
Aivan erikoisluokan muodostavat ne värinmuunnokset, joiden höyhenpuku saa erilaisia värivivahduksia suorastaan ulkonaisista vaikuttimista, niinkuin esim. parkkihaposta, ruosteesta j. m. s. Ne eivät ole niinkään harvinaisia kuin luulisi. Allekirjoittanut on saanut monta lintua, joiden luonnollinen valkea vatsapuoli on ollut vahvasti ruosteen värinen. Sellaisia lintuja on tukkanarsku, kaakkuri ja alli, kaikilla ruosteenkarvainen vatsa. Pitkät ajat olen luullut tällaista väriä oikeaksi; kävipä niinkin, että kokeet poistaa ruosteen väri alkohoolilla epäonnistuivat. Mutta uudet kokeilut, keittämällä vedensekaisessa suolahapossa osoittivat, että ruosteenväri tyystin katosi; ja nesteen saadessa lisäkettä rodankaliumista, syntyi reaktio, joka selvästi ilmaisi rautaa löytyvän valmisteessa. Ja lisäys keltaista merisuolaa antoi ferrisuolan kera reaktion, joka todisti että ruosteenväri oli rautaa.
Miksi juuri vesilinnut verrattain usein esiintyvät tässä ruostevärissä johtuu siitä, että ne etsivät pienempiä vesistöjä, lätäkköjä, lampia j. n. e., joissa ruostetta toisinaan on näkyvissä siinä määrin, että sen voi noistaa kuorimalla.
Paljon suurempi merkitys on sellaisilla värinmuunnoksilla, jotka siirtyvät perintönä jälkeläisiin ("genotyyppinen heterochrosis"). Sellaiset ilmiöt voidaan selittää joko pigmentin epäsuhtaisesta liikemäärästä taikka sen puutteesta johtuvaksi. Jälkimmäiseen lajiin kuuluvat n. s. täysalbinismit. Albinolinnuilta puuttuu tumma väriaine sekä epidermali (marras-) muodostuksissa (höyhenet, nokka, kynnet) että silmissä ynnä itse marraskedissä. Albinoilla on punainen silmäterä ja rusottava terän kehä. Albinismin eli valkovärimuunnoksen syntyä ei ole muutoin voitu selittää, kuin siten että tumman värin ainevaikutin on surkastunut. Fysiologiselta kannalta katsottuna on albinismi seurauksena pigmenttiä kuljettavan käytteen puutteesta. Valkovärimuunnoksia pidetään suvun huonontumisilmiöinä ja niitä seuraa usein patologiset (tautiopilliset) valinnaisuudet (epäsäännöllinen nokka, uimakalvon puuttuminen, huono laulu j. n. e.).
Mutta myöskin osittainen albinismi voi olla perinnöllinen, vaikkakin se saattaa esiintyä eri laajuudessa eri sulkasadon aikajaksoina. Puhutaan kahdenlaisista pigmenteistä, melaniinista ja lipochroomista. Näistä edellinen taasen on joko eumelaniini (tummahkoa) tai phaeomelaniini (makailtavaa). Lipochroomiksi kutsutaan kirkasväristä pigmenttiä, puhutaanpa zoonerythriinistä, zoofulviinista ja cotinginista aina sitä mukaa kuin on kyseessä punainen, keltainen tai violetti lipochroomi. Osittaisissa albinismeissa häviää aina melaniini ensiksi. Luonnon mustat ja ruskeat osat muuttuvat niinmuodoin valkeiksi, kun taas keltaiset, punaiset ja violetti osat pysyvät normaalitilassaan. Yliopiston eläintieteellisessä museossa löytyy esimerkkejä sellaisista osittais-albinoista, m. m. on siellä tilhiä, joissa tumma leukatäplä on muuttunut valkeaksi. Osittaiset albinot eivät milloinkaan esiinny täysin symmetrisesti järjestyneissä valko-osissa. Mainitussa museossa on olemassa varis, jolla on valkeankirjava naama, kumpikin puoli eri väriä, on toisia osittain valkoisine siipineen y. m. s.
Jos ainoastaan yksi pigmenttilaji katoaa toisen jäädessä muuttumattomaksi, niin tätä vaihdosta nimitetään schizochroismiksi. On esim. isotikkoja, joilla kaikki osat ovat valkeita, ainoastaan päälaki ja pyrstön alapeitinhöyhenet ovat luonnollisen punaiset.
Täys-albinismista eroaa n. s. leucismi siinä, että marraskesi pysyy pigmenttisoituna: Leucistisilla linnuilla on siis luonnonmukaiset silmät, nokka ja jalat. Se ei ole mikään vaillinainen ilmiö, tiedämmehän että useat linnut saavat talveksi valkean puvun.
Paitsi yllämainittuja muunnoksia esiintyy vielä n. s. chlorochroismi, joka merkitsee kaikkien värien yhdenmukaista vaalistumista. Tämä ilmiö saapi selityksensä siitä, että silloin on ylituotanto hapettavasta fermentistä,(kokeilu vetysuperoxidilla eumelaniiniin on antanut tulokseksi phaeomelaniinia). On tarjolla kaksi tietä albinismiin: joko häviää pigmentti paikoitellen tahi myös väriaine vaalenee. Edellisessä tapauksessa on höyhenpuku vapaa pigmentistä, jälkimmäisessä se sisältää pigmenttiä värittömissä hapatusasteissa. Ensinmainittu laji albinismia on muuttumattoman valkeaa, toinen saattaa sulkasadon jälkeen taas saada himmeän ruskean värivivahduksen.
Pigmenttien epäsääntöisessä lisäytymisessä muodostuu melanismeja. Ne esiintyvät linnuissa, joiden puku jo säännöllisessä tilassa on tumma (petolinnut, leivoset), jotavastoin ei esim. tikoissa, pääskysissä. Puhutaan erikseen eu- ja phaeomelanismista. Usein on melanismi yhteydessä osittaisalbinismiin. Samoin kuin albinuslinnuissa, esiintyy melanismeissakin epäsääntöisyyksiä kuten sarviaineen epätasainen jakautuminen y. m. s.
Näihin mainittuihin epäsääntöisyyksiin tulevat lisäksi aberratiot, joille on tunnusmerkillistä niiden ilmeneminen symmetrisessä järjestyksessä. Tässä ei tule kysymykseen vain värien muuttuminen vaan myöskin ulko-asu. Nämä mutatiot eivät johda lajin muuttumiseen samalla tavoin kuin koon ja muodon perinnölliset muutokset, fysiologiset ja psykilliset muutokset. Mutta värinmutatiot osoittavat meille, miten kehitys tapahtuu harppaamalla. Siten selitetään esim. musta varis muunnokseksi normaalisesta harmaavariksesta. Toiset tutkijat pitävät, kuten tietty, mustaa ja harmaata varista kahtena eri lajina. Usein ovat tuollaiset vaihtelut "epämukavia" luokittelevalle lintutieteilijälle.
Värinmuunnoksen alaisen vaihdelajin (mutation) ei tarvitse aina edustaa päälajiansa koko levenemisalueella, mutta se voipi esiintyä rinnakkain säännöllisen kanssa. Toista on n. s. subspecieksen tai conspecieksen laita, jotka muodostavat maantieteellisen rodun ja "vikarieeraavat" toisiaan maantieteellisesti rajoitettujen alueiden sisäpuolella.
Yliopiston eläintiet. museossa löytyy runsaasti väriaberratioita. Muutamissa osittais-albinismeissa tavataan tyypilliset tuntomerkit: melaniini puuttuu, kuten eräässä härkäpeipposessa, jossa on jäljellä ainoastaan vähän keltaista, samoin taviokuurnassa. Valkeassa västäräkissä on jäljellä hiukan ruskeaa väriä rinnassa ja sen yläpuolella, lievä jäännös mustia pigmenttitäpliä on muuttunut phaeomelaniiniksi. Äsken sain Lauttakylästä uros sorsan värin vaihdetilassaan, jossa ilmenee sairaalloinen, albinotillinen täplä kaulassa. Eräällä västäräkillä on pyrstö osoittautunut eniten vastustusvoimaiseksi: lintu on muutoin valkea. Nousiaisista saatu närhi on sinertäväsiipinen, sen yläosa sekä pyrstö ovat likaisen valkeat. Pari tilheä on täysin vaalistunut väriltään, sitäpaitsi osittain albinotisia. Harakoita on niinikään pari, joilla on pää ja kaula ruskeat, siivet himmeän kellanruskeat, selkä hiukan kirkkaamman keltainen. Toisen kohdalle on merkitty: "Juvan Nääminki, jossa tällaiset kappaleet eivät ole harvinaisia". Kenties nämä ovat genotyyppisiä aberratioita. Mainittuihin värin muunnoksiin tulee vielä runsas kokoelma epäsääntöisesti värittyneitä kanalintuja.
Kysymys värin muunnoksista ja rinnakkaislajeista on jokseenkin vaikea ja monella tapaa ymmärrettävä kysymys. Se vaatii suurta huomiota semminkin, kun värin muunnoksia el enää suinkaan saa ottaa yksinomaan eriskummaisuuden kannalta, vaan ne ansaitsevat tutkimustyötä.
Kirjallisuutta: Bernhard Rensch: "Die Farbaberrationen der Vogel": Journal für Omithologie 1925 s. 514—539; Erwin Stresemann: "Mutationsstudien" aikakauskirjassa Journal für Omithologie 1924, s. 73-89 y. ra., Ornithologische Monatsberichte 1923, s. 78—85 y. m., 1924, s. 132—135, ja Verhandlungen der Ornithol. Gesellschaft in Bayern 1924, s. 184.
12.2.19
Wall Coloring.
Scientific American 19, 11.5.1867
A new wash, said to be almost as durable as paint and well suited to plaster, wood, metal or brick, has been invented by Dr. Jacobsen of Hamburg. He disssolves 50 parts of glue in 150 parts hot water, with 2 parts of a solution of caustic soda, of specific gravity 1,34, and boils. After cooling, he adds 50 parts of commercial water glass solution, and then stirs in enough oxide of zinc to give a proper consistency for painting. Grind smooth in a paint mill, if necessary. after the last coat has perfectly dried, a solution containing 10 per cent of chloride of zinc should be applied. This will given beautiful gloss, and great durability. Earthy pigments not affected by alkalies may be used for color. The mixture must be applied quickly, as it will not keep.
A new wash, said to be almost as durable as paint and well suited to plaster, wood, metal or brick, has been invented by Dr. Jacobsen of Hamburg. He disssolves 50 parts of glue in 150 parts hot water, with 2 parts of a solution of caustic soda, of specific gravity 1,34, and boils. After cooling, he adds 50 parts of commercial water glass solution, and then stirs in enough oxide of zinc to give a proper consistency for painting. Grind smooth in a paint mill, if necessary. after the last coat has perfectly dried, a solution containing 10 per cent of chloride of zinc should be applied. This will given beautiful gloss, and great durability. Earthy pigments not affected by alkalies may be used for color. The mixture must be applied quickly, as it will not keep.