Celtic inclusions

By Mairead Ramsay

In the following article Mairead explains more about the symbols and their significance.

Slogans in the romantic languages of the Celts, written in beautiful scripts, can add an air of mystery and imagination to your knitted articles, and take your classic fair-isle and Icelandic jumpers into a new dimension. Runes, Ogham script and Gaelic, Welsh or Irish phrases are currently in vogue and combined with the beautiful artistry of Pictish symbols they can bring fair-isle into a different era — modern, but harking back to Viking days. Just right for some new age traveller chic. They allow the artist and designer in you to draw on a vast treasure trove of Celtic patterns now available in books and on CD ROM to spark your own creative styling and pattern making.

There is a tradition of putting words and letters into Sanquhar knitting (Images 1 & 2) and fair-isle but it's more at the level of initial letters included to identify the item to the wearer in case of loss. This loss could be of the owner and not the jumper in the case of fishermen, where the complex patterns of Aran, Guernsey and Jersey could be used to aid identification and the home port of any unfortunate seamen unlucky enough to be washed away and drowned. However these patterns didn't tend to go so far as to put owners names or initials on articles, possibly as these items were intended to last and would have been passed down the family if needed. Clothes were not such a disposable item then as now and were much cherished and repaired.

In the book "Woolcraft" edited by Liz Bloor which has a busy Una Stubbs knitting on the cover, there is a complex pattern by J and J Seaton called the Saints design with a Celtic inscription. The words are illegible but gorgeous in their richness and were an almost divine inspiration for some of my own use of saints' names in Gaelic on my own designs. I used a script developed from the Seatons to write the legend "Dia 's naomh Aindrea" on the coat bottom (See Image Five). Those of you with Gaelic will read it as "God and Saint Andrew."

The illuminated lettering from the book of Kells also makes a great source. I have also incorporated some of the designs from the Pictish symbol stones of Scotland. These are considered to be some of the highest sculptural art in Europe at that time and still are very striking. The Pictish elephant being my favourite; a mythical beast that I like to put on all my Celtic jumpers.

At a modern level, knitwear designers Judith Glue of the Orkneys and Judith Bishop both use runes in their knitwear. Another straight-lined script that would lend itself admirably to knitting design would be Ogham. The earliest Ogham inscriptions date back to between the 4 th and 8 th centuries, and began as a twenty letter alphabet to which a further 5 where added at a later stage. It is a Celtic language consisting of one to five straight lines or notches intersecting a stem line.

When designing a piece with these scripts go for contrasting colourways; dark brown on cream, or black and white are good. Also avoid too many curved shapes in your letters but part of the charm is the rich opulent effect given by the variety of letter shapes and repetition. Count out your design on squared paper first and calculate how many repeats of your phrase you can fit around the body or sleeve. You will have to make sacrifices with long inscriptions being divided up on short stretches. Use ornate full stops and commas to space your words into the number of stitches. These look good too. Don't put your most complex written work on areas with decreases or increases if you can help it, hems and cuffs are the best places to fit them in easily. When you split up a phrase try to do it between words and not in the middle of one — just in case you or someone else ever want to read it!

Also see Mairead's pattern for a Crofter's Hat

You can read more about Mairead's life at www.nocandhu.com

You can also read more about Scottish knitting history and in particular about Sanguhar knitting at www.dumfriesmuseum.demon.co.uk/knithist.html#sanqtol