Local Craftspeople Recreate Important Lost Items From Shetland's Past
A selection of fascinating everyday items peculiar to Shetland, and lost over time, have been recreated by highly-skilled craftspeople for the soon-to-be-opened Shetland Museum and Archives. All of the items are authentic pieces and can be used for the task for which they were originally created.
Renowned fiddle-maker Alan Leask has recreated a gju, a two-stringed instrument played before fiddles were introduced, which disappeared 200 years ago. Shetland is rightfully famous for its fiddle tradition, but this is only 250 years old. All that is left of the original Scandinavian musical tradition are a few tunes, called springs, which are played on only two strings. To enable a recreation, information on other types of two-stringed instruments from medieval Northern Europe was compared to see what were most common, and especially which types were used in Scandinavia, where Shetland’s closest links lay. Mr Leask took on the novel challenge of producing an instrument from Shetland’s indigenous tradition, rather than his usual classic polished violin. The finished product has been played by Mr Leask and, most recently, at the 2006 Folk Festival by visiting Finnish musicians - in a fitting tribute to their own 2 string fiddle - the jouhikko - on which this reconstructed gju was originally based. After the work was done, Mr Leask very generously donated the instrument to the museum.
Bess Jamieson of Walls has recreated traditional knitted socks following a design recalled by the late Joanne Garriock, who died recently, aged 100. Socks were a very important bartering item during the 17th and 18th centuries for Shetlanders trading with the Dutch fishermen who dominated commercial fishing in Shetland waters from around 1600. The crews lived onboard their ships and had supplies to last for the summer. However, they also got fresh food from Shetlanders, and most important was the bartering of socks. In return the Dutchmen gave the Shetlanders tobacco, gin and cash.
Because socks were everyday garments none from two centuries ago survive. There is plenty of evidence though, to reconstruct socks made before mechanisation changed traditions in the 20th century. Various photos from before 1900 show them, sock-stretching boards from the 19th century exist, and the recollections of elderly people who remembered the way garments were shaped were most useful. Most socks were plain, all in natural colours, and any patterns were simple.
Ewan Balfour of Brae was commissioned to create a skekler’s outfit, bringing back one of Shetland’s most distinctive traditions - and one which is almost within living memory. Every year in the wintertime Shetlanders practised the Medieval tradition of skeklin, where young people disguised themselves in straw costumes and went from house to house seeking gifts of food, disguising their voices and telling rhymes, and doing a dance while holding long staffs. The outfits comprised a cape, skirt, and hat that was bedecked with ribbons. Similar customs were known in Faroe and Norway.
Elements of skeklin survived into the early 20th century, such as the making of the hats. Because it was a picturesque custom, historic descriptions survive, written by those who saw it. A few photographs from before 1910 exist showing children in skeklin costume. Researchers have also recorded people’s memories of what the outfits looked like, and there are two original old hats in existence.
Dr Ian Tait, Curator of Collections at Shetland Museum, said: “During the display design process we identified several gaps in our collection which we had to fill to fully tell Shetland’s story. These three items were commissioned as we felt they were an important part of the story from which no artefacts survived but reconstructions could be made using local skill and past recollections and pictures. The fact that local craftspeople could authentically recreate these items shows that, although they may not have been made or seen for several years, the basic techniques used are still alive today. These reconstructions add an extra dimension to the Museum collection as they show the items as they would have been newly made centuries ago.”