Making a Shirt of Mail

This is a picture of Granddaddy wearing his chain mail coif. He used to wear it to SCA events. It took three of us to make it.

Jerry used 16 gauge fence wire to make the rings. First he made a little machine with a stick and a handle that turned the stick. He wrapped the wire around the stick and then turned the handle and turned the handle until the whole stick was wrapped in wire.

Then he took his wire cutters and snipped them all off the stick. They fell into a little pile of rings, ready to be woven into mail. Mail was a sort of armor knights of old wore. It was supple, it moved when you moved and wasn’t as constricting as solid metal armor (plate armor). Mail protected the knight pretty well from the weapons of the day.

An SCA friend, Gary Fowler, was our teacher. I did a lot of the weaving of the rings together; I pressed the ends together in a fashion know as “butted mail” as opposed to “riveted mail”. Our tools were needle-nose pliers and my daddy’s electrician’s pliers.

First we made a shirt of mail, using the four-rings-in-one weave. It was like a tunic, straight down the front and back to mid-thigh. It had long loose sleeves. Being made out of metal (the wire is metal, right?) it was a lot heavier than your cloth or leather coats. To help carry the weight, the knight would put a belt around his waist to hold up the bottom part of the mail shirt and take some weight off his shoulders.

I just did the flat weaving; Gary put the pieces together and added a gusset under the arms so they could move freely. Gary also started on the coif, above. He wove the rings together in a circle, bigger and bigger, until time to decrease and weave the sides and back of the coif. Then it came together in front over the chin and was woven in rows around and round, adding rings in each row so it would lay out over his shoulders until it was enough. I added a row of brass rings around the bottom edge and around the face opening, for decoration.

It took us all winter long, working every night.

(As nearly as we can remember, we made this in the late 1970′s)

Railroad Park v East Lake Park

Last Saturday our granddaughter and I had several errands to do.  We had washed, dried and folded two carrier bags full of outgrown, gently-worn clothes, mostly girl’s size 8.  These clothes were to be dropped off at the Salvation Army station on Highway 11.  It’s always open in the daytime and there is always someone on duty to help unload, if necessary, and to list the donations on a receipt.  We always get a receipt for tax purposes.  Our grandchildren are generous with their outgrown clothes, toys and books and know they will find good homes with children less fortunate than themselves.

On the other hand, and this is the much harder lesson to learn, when they are with me, they shop at the Thrift Stores run by these charitable organizations.  The small allowance I give them for helping me around the house goes much farther at a Thrift Store.  Make no mistake, they earn the allowance I give them.  Bending and stooping is hard enough, carrying heavy loads is almost beyond Granddaddy and me, so the work they do for us is real.  They are getting bigger and stronger all the time.

One granddaughter likes to read, and heads straight for the book section.  She always finds a book or two in the Babysitter Club series that she hasn’t read yet.  They cost just a few cents rather than a few dollars.  The other granddaughter likes pretty things… jewelry, a pretty perfume bottle or decorative vase, and she can find the best bargains in blouses!

After our errands, I had to swing back by the house as I had left my cell phone recharging.  Kate ran in and got it, and checked to make sure the crock pot with our dinner in it had been turned down to Low.  We had put a small chuck roast in the crock earlier, and cleaned out the fridge looking for veggies.  Cloves of garlic went in, and carrot pieces (first because they take longer to cook and most of the heat, too), then I cut up and Kate added onion, celery, bell pepper and potato on top.  She sprinkled in the S&P and a half cup of water, and we were off!

With our errands done and dinner taken care of, I wanted to go downtown to see the newly opened Rainroad Park.  I had wondered what kind of park it would be.  Our local park in East Lake has a big lake with fingers of land one could go out on to fish; a long wooden pier and gazebo; a mile-long walkway around the lake for jogging, strolling or ambling.  There are picnic tables scattered under the trees, and a whole flock of ducks and geese who live and nest on an island in the lake.

The waterfowl come to attention whenever someone passes by.  Woe be to the uninitiated who brings a sack of stale bread to feed them.  Word spreads like wildfire and every goose,  gander, gosling, duck, drake and duckling converges like they had not eaten in a week!  It can be scary.  The small children you brought there for a treat have to be put on top of the low lighting structures that line the path around the lake.  Your best defense is to give them all your bread and stand still until their little brains forget what they are there for and they leave.  Honestly, you feel like you have been mugged.

(Image: The public enjoys Railroad Park, by Susan Clayton)