Poetry Thursday - re-imagining

Looking for something else in my blog archives I found this and found it relevant to many of my current concerns. It was tempting to follow up the links - but I resisted  (still trying to get a grip on daily life...).
 

05 March 2015

Poetry Thursday - a trail of crumbs

First crumb - a link on the Quiltart list to the work of Michael James, which had fallen off my radar. On his site I was struck by the unusual colours in this, and the way the light seems to come through the work -

The Concept of Qi, 2008, cotton and dyes, 50.5"h x 52"w

It being Thursday, I needed to find a poem for the blog, and this would be a great illustration for such a poem ... so I started looking for a poem about "qi" ... which led to the second crumb - the work of Qi Baishi (1863-1957), purveyor of "poems in a brush stroke", for example (what, after much looking, to choose??) -

Gourds (via)

Third crumb - what is "qi", actually? The ancient Chinese described it as "life force" which permeated everything and linked their surroundings together. Moving into the scientific realm, qi becomes an elemental force: "Fairly early on, some Chinese thinkers began to believe that there were different fractions of qi and that the coarsest and heaviest fractions of qi formed solids, lighter fractions formed liquids, and the most ethereal fractions were the "lifebreath" that animates living beings." But the scientific view is that "Qi is a purely hypothetical concept."

Fourth crumb - the traditional Chinese character for "qi" -

That took me to the Chinese dictionary which still sits centre-front in my field of vision, right next to various thesauruses. (Sidetrack: get camera, take picture, download, tweak, upload ...) -

What looks to us like a short, simple word is manifest in my dictionary in 37 different characters, gathered into four different pronunciations (tones), with a variety of meanings including: a period of time; deceive; seven; wife; strange; ride (eg a bicycle); awaken; get up; abandon; utensil; and, right near the end of the list, "our" qi - whose meanings include air; gas; breath; smell; airs, manner; spirit, morale ... and as a verb: make angry; get angry; bully, insult. Isn't language a wonderful thing?

How many crumbs have we pecked at on this trail? I turn back to go find today's poem - and see that the crumbs that should lead me back have, like Hansel and Gretel's, disappeared.

(Back to the here&now...) Just to add a little something new, based on the mention of Hansel and Gretel ...

Clive Hicks-Jenkins has done wonderful illustrations for a retelling of that folk tale "A nightmare in eight scenes" by Simon Armitage, which has also been a "multi-media spectacle". In Clive's instagram account he shows the evolution of his work, and some of the beloved objects that inspire it, for instance the wind-up toys that he has collected -

Here are some more pages from the book to give you a flavour of it - click on the image to enlarge if you want to read the words -

Hmm, never did find that poem about "qi"....

Poetry Thursday - Melusine by George Trakl

Melusine escaping from Raymond in the form of a dragon, from a manuscript
c.1450 from northern France in the British Library (via)

Melusine

At my windows the night weeps -
The night is mute, the wind probably weeps,
The wind, like a lost child -
What is it that makes him weep so?
O poor Melusine!

Like fire her hair blows in the storm,
Like fire passing clouds, and laments -
There for you, you poor maiden,
My heart speaks a still night prayer!
O poor Melusine! 

Georg Trakl (via)

In Czech and Slovak, the word meluzína refers to wailing wind, usually in the chimney; a reference to the wailing Melusine looking for her children. 

George Trakl (1887-1914), an Austrian poet, suffered frequent bouts of depression and died of a cocaine overdose after being prevented by his comrades from shooting himself after the Battle of Grodek in 1914.

Melusine I (German)

An meinen Fenstern weint die Nacht -
Die Nacht ist stumm, es weint wohl der Wind,
Der Wind, wie ein verlornes Kind -
Was ist's, das ihn so weinen macht?
O arme Melusine!

Wie Feuer ihr Haar im Sturme weht,
Wie Feuer an Wolken vorüber und klagt -
Da spricht für dich, du arme Magd,
Mein Herz ein stilles Nachtgebet!
O arme Melusine!

Melusine appears in folk tales, mainly in northwest Europe, as a woman with the lower body of a serpent.

"The most famous literary version of Melusine tales, that of Jean d'Arras, compiled about 1382–1394, was worked into a collection of "spinning yarns" as told by ladies at their spinning coudrette (coulrette (in French)). He wrote The Romans of Partenay or of Lusignen: Otherwise known as the Tale of Melusine, giving source and historical notes, dates and background of the story. He goes into detail and depth about the relationship of Melusine and Raymondin, their initial meeting and the complete story."

Wikipedia also says:

 "One tale says Melusine herself was the daughter of the fairy Pressyne and king Elinas of Albany (now known as Scotland). Melusine's mother leaves her husband, taking her daughters to the isle of Avalon after he breaks an oath never to look in at her and her daughter in their bath. The same pattern appears in stories where Melusine marries a nobleman only after he makes an oath to give her privacy in her bath; each time, she leaves the nobleman after he breaks that oath. Shapeshifting and flight on wings away from oath-breaking husbands also figure in stories about Melusine."

Raymond walks in on his wife, Melusine, in her bath and discovers
she has the lower body of a serpent. Illustration from the Jean d'Arras
 work, Le livre de Mélusine (The Book of Melusine), 1478 (via)

and:

"The chronicler Gerald of Wales reported that Richard I of England was fond of telling a tale according to which he was a descendant of a countess of Anjou who was in fact the fairy Melusine.The Angevin legend told of an early Count of Anjou who met a beautiful woman when in a far land, where he married her. He had not troubled to find out about her origins. However, after bearing him four sons, the behaviour of his wife began to trouble the count. She attended church infrequently, and always left before the Mass proper. One day he had four of his men forcibly restrain his wife as she rose to leave the church. Melusine evaded the men and clasped the two youngest of her sons and in full view of the congregation carried them up into the air and out of the church through its highest window. Melusine and her two sons were never seen again. One of the remaining sons was the ancestor, it was claimed, of the later Counts of Anjou and the Kings of England." 

My interest in the story and discovery of the poem comes from receiving this postcard -

Sunday, sun-day

What better use of a Sunday morning than to sit lazily having breakfast and reading in a pool of sunshine? I spent longer doing this than planned, on account of getting distracted by instagram, first by the New Yorker cartoons (Laugh Out Loud!) ... and then a few other desirable images came along. So here are screenshots of the highlights of this sunny-morning scrollthrough.

Yet another fascinating photo from Nicky Hirst - what an eye she has -

 Lovely sequence of pix of work by Ruth Asawa posted by Jen Bervin-

From the prolific Hazel Jarvis, witty reinterpretations of some folk tales -

Thus do we "spend" our "free" time....

Myths that inform architecture

The Ziggurat of Belus at Babylon (via)

One of the short talks at "RIBA late" referred to Lethaby's 1891 book on the stories behind elements of architecture. The book is still in print, and also available in e-form, from this site.

The table of contents gives the types of stories Lethaby finds told in architecture:

 1. The world fabric
 2. The microcosmos
 3. Four square
 4. At the centre of the earth
 5. The jewel-bearing tree
 6. The planetary spheres
 7. The labyrinth
 8. The golden gate of the sun
 9. Pavements like the sea
10. Ceilings like the sky
11. The windows of heaven and the 360 days
12. The symbol of creation

The stories behind the ziggurat frontispiece appear on p.127 - in the chapter on the seven planetary spheres. Ziggurats were built by the Chaleans, to "imitate the mythical mountain of the assembly of the stars" and served both as a sanctuary and as an observatory for the stars. Rather than temples, these are "Mounts of Paradise - terraced altars".

This ziggurat was described by Herodotus as an enclosure two furlongs square, with gates of solid brass; the tower was a furlong each way at the base, with a resting place and seats halfway up the path that winds around it.

Lethaby's drawing is based on dimensions found on a tablet; the ziggurat is, he says, a majestic an myserious suggestion of volume and stability.

The seven spheres, belonging to the seven planets, each have their own colour in the Chaldean system - the sun golden, the moon silver, distant Saturn black, Jupiter orange, Mars red, Venus pale yellow, Mercury deep blue. Whereas in "the Mohammedan scheme" the spheres are composed of emerald, white silver, large white pearls, ruby, red gold, yellow jacinth, white shining light.

Another Islamic scheme of the seven spheres (explained here)

At a quick glance, the book is a treasure trove of symbolism and story. It is written in what we now might think of as a fusty Victorian style. No dumbing down for hapless readers; solid research, solidly presented for people wanting to know.

Nine realms of Norse mythology

"Magicking the Norse World to Life: 42 Poets & Artists, 3 Musicians & a Viking boat!"

The campaign, which runs for 28 more days at time of writing, is to fund the commissioning of a boat and lots of poetry, art, and music - and take it on tour, especially to schools. It's got academic as well as artistic credentials - overviews of each realm with be given by a Norse PhD student at Cambridge.

"From today [20 April], for the next 30 days, woodcarver Mark Crowley will be LIVE CARVING a Viking boat made from mahogany and oak, which will act as the focal point and heart of a 5-day Norse-inspired Interactive Combined Arts experience to be held between 11th-15th September 2015 in Hanse House, King's Lynn, Norfolk, UK. Our project is a continuation of the '2015 Year of the Hanse' celebrations and the National Heritage Open Day in Norfolk and England. It is our intention to take the whole experience (and the boat) on tour: locally, nationally and internationally.

"Bringing to life the 9 realms of Norse mythology, The Nine Realms pulls together 45 talented creatives from around the UK and the world who have worked together online for over 9 months celebrating the myths, characters and stories from the 13th century Icelandic Norse Sagas through poetry, writing, art and music."

Photos via the Norse Mythology site

Good stuff, and what gives the campaign that extra touch is the levels of funding, which correspond to the 9 realms, from Asgard at £3 through to Alfheim at £60. How to choose the level of funding? by the perks, or by how much the realm appeals to you? For instance, Alfheim is the home of the Light Elves, beautiful creatures, "guardian angels", minor gods of nature and fertility that can help or hinder humans with their knowledge of magical powers and deliver an inspiration to art and music. 

Or Vanaheim, home of the old gods, masters of sorcery, known for their ability to predict the future?

Or Niflheim, the first of the nine worlds, with its "bubbling, boiling spring" protected by a dragon?

The balls are back

On Thursday 22nd January, 1pm-8pm, I'll be bringing my balls - the memory balls, remember those? - to the Anti-Gallery Gallery Show at Espacio Gallery.

It'll be part of this -

Do "come and play and have fun" if you're near Bethnal Green that day! Perhaps the Big Red Ball will make an appearance... but mostly it will be about taking part in winding up a new ball to mark the occasion --  a chance for reflection and a chance for stories....

Out with a bang

The Lord Mayor's fireworks, seen from the classroom at City Lit, marked - quite serendipitously - the end of the storytelling course I've been attending for the past four weeks. These sessions followed on from two Saturday afternoons in the summer ... and the reason I was there goes back to my first winter in London, a traumatic time, during which I attended quite a different storytelling course that happened to be running in the community centre near my new home.

In that long-ago course we did ... not very much, not a lot of story telling; but we sat in a circle and I was unforgetably self-conscious about my feet sticking out in blue and yellow shoes, adidas trainers, back in the day when trainers were still a relatively new thing.

Fortunately the shoes - and the agony - are things of the past, but for some reason I was still interested in story telling. In the final session of the current course I finally got a glimmer of why.

The two courses, run by John Eastman, included warm-up exercises and "easy" tasks - like mingling with other students to figure what the order of the single sentences we had been given should be, so that they made a coherent story. John worked with fairy tales, so anything could happen - for instance, we each told of how we got to class - with as many fantastic events (dragons, donkeys, helicopters) as possible in the time allotted. Working with partners and pictures we made up stories on the spot. The class atmosphere was supportive and comfortable - and fun.

For the final session, we brought along a bedtime story to tell. I'd been looking at Grimm's fairy tales that morning, and found my story that way - and also my interest in learning how to tell a good story.

Trying to choose between my favourite (Mother Hulda (Frau Holle); rather long) and one of the short tales I'd found, I vividly remembered my grandmother reading from her "magic" black book, a book I couldn't myself read, not only because I was only just learning to read in English (it was in German) but also because it was printed in blackletter, not roman type.

So my story, pretty much made up at the last minute (ie, as I went along - but I knew the beginning and the end before starting), was about a little girl whose grandmother read stories to her at bedtime, and how magical the stories were. That I could provide the details as I went along, rather than having memorised and rehearsed, shows just how far this course has taken me, not just in use of voice and gesture and eye contact, but also in trusting that "it will be ok".

Two-thirds of the participants did not have English as their first language, and seeing them rise to the occasion is making me consider trying to use German (which we spoke at home during my childhood) to tell the tales I heard from my Oma. First efforts reveal that I need to improve my vocabulary - and to read, and listen to, the tales in German. At the same time, the idea of using autobiographical memory, and the way objects contain stories, are also floating around, waiting to be grabbed and brought down to earth. Perhaps this will feed into a project for the museums course?

Grimm tales

The Ungrateful Son

A man and his wife were once sitting by the door of their house, and they had a roasted chicken set before them, and were about to eat it together. Then the man saw that his aged father was coming, and hastily took the chicken and hid it, for he would not permit him to have any of it.

The old man came, took a drink, and went away. Now the son wanted to put the roasted chicken on the table again, but when he took it up, it had become a great toad, which jumped into his face and sat there and never went away again, and if any one wanted to take it off, it looked venomously at him as if it would jump in his face, so that no one would venture to touch it.

And the ungrateful son was forced to feed the toad every day, or else it fed itself on his face; and thus he went about the world knowing no rest.

(I found this in Jacob and Willhem Grimm: Complete Fairy Tales, Routledge 2002, first published 1944, and you can find it in many places on the internet, including here where there are links to other information about the Grimm brothers and their work, and to an essay on aging and death in folklore. This blog post is about old age and fairy tales, and contains a less "grim" story about a grandfather.)

The Old Grandfather's Corner 

An old grandfather lives with his son and daughter-in-law. He is deaf, can barely walk, and can barely eat without spilling. Eventually his son and daughter-in-law set him in a corner behind a screen, out of their sight. The old man would look mournfully toward the table but say nothing.

One day he accidentally broke his bowl, and the young mother had to buy him a new wooden bowl for a penny. One day, the couple saw their small boy making something out of wood. They asked him what he was doing. "I am making a little bowl for papa and mamma to eat their food in when I grow up," he replied. The parents looked at each other and began to cry. They brought the aged grandfather back to the table with them and never again treated him unkindly.

(A version of Household Tales, first published in 1886 and illustrated by Walter Crane, is available at www.gutenberg.org - the illustrations come from there.)

In Mother Hulda, the industrious girl gets a reward and her lazy, greedy sister gets what she deserves. My grandmother used to read me this and other tales, in German, from the big black book that was printed in blackletter. The book is lost but not my love of these stories.

The Almond Tree is a sanitised version of The Juniper Tree - leaving a slight discontinuity between the "black broth" and the gathering of the bones from under the table once the dreadful meal was over. In the end, justice is done, just as it should be.

Every object has a story

The "small collection of objects of personal significance or interest" we took to the first session of the "Developing practice for makers through museums" course, has led to lots of thinking about the significance of objects, their role as receptacles for memory.

This tableau is full of such objects, things used every day to the point where they don't get noticed any more. It's only when one of these useful, commonplace things breaks, when someone "injures" them, or if it inexplicably disappears that we become aware of them. [Is this a metaphor for our relations with the people in our lives? Scary thought.]

Unpicking the associations, the stories -

- plates bought, unexpectedly, at the Natural History Museum one Sunday after we'd been to see an exhibition of huge photos in the outdoor space - there were five plates left, and I wish I'd bought the fifth, in case of breakage ... the birds also remind me of flocks of birds circling the train station in Amsterdam, seen with my young son on one easter holiday, and of the "sky birds" piece I made for the exhibition in Slough

-pepper mill from Ikea, tedious to fill, but grinds well - and how difficult is it to find a decent pepper grinder!

-salt bowl was made in pottery class during foundation art course (I'll spare you the technical details)

-tablecloth brought back from Tanzania by Thomas and Sarah ... that would be three years ago, or four?  It fits perfectly on the table, and the turmeric I spilt on it disappeared almost completely after a few washings

-chairs from Ikea are very comfortable but the "strings" came untied quickly - visiting friend made short work of tying them up again and the ones she fixed have stayed fixed for some years! These chairs are good for drying laundry, too

-salad servers were bought with my first John Lewis reward points - they came in a wooden box, cost £20 [extravagant!] and I love the one red, one orange handle

-cutlery was a present from Aunt Else in Germany, for my "hope chest" (in an age when ordinary girls had such a thing); I polish it on new year's eve, usually. My mother had quite a few pieces as well, so that's in a cupboard somewhere. Polishing silver is something I like to do.

-brown bowl came from a Goodwill shop in Calgary, so that would be 1977, and cost 75 cents. It's not mass produced and has been with me in Halifax, NS, and Oxford, as well as London, so it's taken part in many meals and seen many people

-white bowl is a recent charity shop find ... I've having a little obsession with odd-shaped, solid coloured crockery

- blue chinese bowl is a replacement in 2003 by the Pollard family of a broken bowl that I loved at the time but now cannot recall - but I think fondly of the donors every time I use the new bowl

- little red colander is a companion for the big green colander, which was one of my first purchases for this "new" flat in 1994

Pictures are objects too - after the hall was painted, we had a rehang. To you, they would be interesting or boring, pleasant or negligible - to me they are more than their surface: they represent different times in my life, different situations in which they were acquired, different reasons for being there. Going past them several times in a day, I don't notice them - but I'm not ready to part with them.

Art I like - Joe Cunningham's quilts

Via the useful SAQA Art Quilt News, which comes to my inbox on Fridays, I found the work of Joe Cunningham -

Patchwork Quilt, 2012, is part of Northern Star Quilters' "A World of Quilts XXXIV" exhibition,
Somers, New York, 4-5 May

I was struck by the exuberant confidence of this quilt - using colours and combinations of patterns I'd never dreamt of combining, myself - it not only opened my eyes but sent me scurrying to find out more.

On his website (joethequilter.com) Joe has a slide show and gallery of his quilts, of which these are a few -

See them all, and see them larger, at joethequilter.com

After watching the slideshow several times, getting a sense of the body of work, I nominate these as my current favourites, though it was hard to choose. The quilts seem to have such stories in them, or behind them. Perhaps I've been reading too much Tim Ingold lately, but they seem to me to be "places" where various journeys cross - and as Ingold says, "every place, as a gathering of things, is a knot of stories." Part of the craft (or art) of the storyteller is knowing what to leave out, and these quilts embody that - leaving in just what is necessary to give the viewer enough "information" for speculation, drawing their own conclusions, and perhaps coming back to rethink their interpretation.

Reminds me of my "journey lines"; and in the first video here
Joe describes the technicalities of making this kind of quilt

This one has the viewer making up a story about the islands

If the title brings to mind the story of Rumpelstiltzken, the viewer's job is
to match up the visual components with elements of the story

A professional quilt artist since 1979, Joe is also a travelling lecturer - with a musical presentation, “Joe, the Quilter,” a true story about English quilter Joe Hedley (1750-1830), which inspired Joe Cunningham to become a quilter.

Snapshot in time - desks

International Desk Day - is there such a thing? The pictures submitted to Jackie Morris's blog suggest that there could well be. She has subtitled the post "Nosing around in other people's spaces" and yes, this is a fascinating pastime...

"Don't tidy up first" she says. OK, I didn't -

My studio desk is the door taken from the adjacent cupboard, and the radiator under the window gives it the greatest of luxuries, under-table heating. It's set up for my daily(?) stitching, with a box of embroider floss, and the "scroll" itself kept tidily in a shoebox, keeping the newspaper in the dar as much as possible.

The newspaper lying on the left is for (a) reading (an article on Ian Sansom's book on the history of paper) and (b) inking (possible use in "the memory quilt"). The silk velvet patchwork was found in a bag recently - made about 20 years ago, intended for a cushion cover, and found to be raddled with moth holes . Now, it might become an ipad cover. 

Behind the jars of paintbrushes and pens is a clock. Also on the windowsil, a shoebox of inks. The mirror reflects the open door at my back (very feng shui!).

Somehow there is always a heap of boxes and papers at either end.

The items on the pinboards never seem to change.

The large window gives good light - bright above and warm below, those are two important things!

My computer desk, in a corner of the livingroom/kitchen, was also not tidied up.

Under it is my Road Rug - the radiator is under the window, so warmth and light are close at hand. The desk was raised with blocks of wood when the family computer sat on it and my 6'5" son used it ... that central drawer made it hard to get long legs under the desk. In the end it was easier to move the big screen etc into his room. I seem to be spending more time at this desk than the studio desk, at the moment anyway...

The desk chair comes from my old workplace - they squished everyone into a smaller space and changed the colour of the furniture, and I filled a taxi with some of the old chairs. It continues to squeak a little, just like it did in the office all those years ago.

The black notebook is on its way back into my handbag - it goes everywhere with me, and I try to write in it, or draw in it, every day. Between it and the computer is a bag of wool and a half-finished crochet teacosy - it's good to have something to hand for watching the iplayer or other stuff on screen.

The painting on the bookshelf is by Jean Davey Winter, and the calendar on the wall is where I keep track of things. It's a bit small and in the wrong place, but came free with the newspaper and has some great photos.

Also on the shelves are my collection of Persephone Books, a place to put leaflets collected at exhibitions, and the remains of my 150+ cookbooks, few of which I use nowadays.

The side table is a sort of magazine holder, found in an antiques barn somewhere in the Scottish Borders when we stopped the car to stretch our legs. It's where the bills etc get filed, and the bowl on it collects "stuff" that is temporarily(?) without a home. The lamp in the foreground needs the bulb replacing. Having the top of that table clear is a joyous thing.

The desk drawers hold a multitude of sins!

Every item has its story, its meaning in our lives. If you have your desk on your blog, or stories of the items in your life, do leave a comment with the link.

Why do we have Christmas trees?

The ornaments on Tony's tree have different memories for him and for me - some are from his childhood and marriage, and a few we have acquired together. Putting them onto the tree is quite a thoughtful time, often involving the telling of stories.

This year we wondered why people put up Christmas trees at all. Wikipedia sprang to help out, of course. Apart from pre-Christian references to winter greenery and eternal life, the custom dates back to the 15th century, when guilds in north Germany and Livonia put up trees in guildhalls, decorated with sweets, sometimes taking them outside to be danced around and then burnt. About the 18th century trees found their way into family homes, and the decorations were edibles - apples, nuts, dates. Wax candles to light the tree were expensive, and in its early years having a Christmas tree was a custom confined to the upper classes.

Edible decorations had a religious association: apples (the forbidden fruit of Adam and Eve) and wafers (the Eucharist). Christmas trees came to (Catholic) south Germany rather later, as they were regarded as "Protestant", and the Vatican got its Christmas tree only in 1982,  instigated by Pope John Paul.

Christmas trees were brought to Britain by George III's German wife in the 1760s, but it took nearly a century for the custom to spread beyond the royal family. North America had a few Christmas trees by the beginning of the 19th century, and in 1850 this print appeared -

a reprint, without tiara and moustache, of Victoria and Albert's 1848 family Christmas.

Times of putting up the tree - and customs regarding taking it down - vary from country to country. Our family traditions mean we put it up very late. As a child in Germany, I remember not only the disappearance of my dolls at the start of Advent (to be returned, with new clothing, by the Christkind) but the first sight of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, lit with candles, as the door to the room was opened by the actual Christkind - in white robes, looking rather like an angel - at age 2 or 3, it was magical.

After the October Revolution, Russia banned Christmas trees, but they were reintroduced in 1935 as a  New Year custom, entirely secular (getting back to the pagan relation to greenery) - the star of Bethlehem at the top became the Red Star. The other common ornament for the top of the tree is an angel. Our tree has an angel, of considerable emotional value, at the top -

Ornaments are stories unto themselves. I like the idea that the red balls are descendants of the apples put on early trees to represent the forbidden fruit.

Halcyon

... the kingfisher - who knew!

We still use the phrase "halcyon days" - usually it connotes "the sunny days of youth" but its origin is a Greek myth in which Alcyone threw herself into the sea after her husband drowned. She was carried to him by the wind, and the gods turned them both into kingfishers. It was believed that kingfishers build their nest on the water around the winter solstice, and are able to calm the waters, and these are the original "halcyon days".

Later, indeed in Shakespeare's time, it was believed that the beak of the dried carcass of a kingfisher would always turn into the wind (autre temps, autres mores) - which explains this bit of King Lear -
     Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
     Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
     With every gale and vary of their masters

Pins

Photos from last year's CQ summer school - workshop with Karina Thompson on "how to do horrible things to (horrible) fabrics to make them beautiful" -




Some superstitions about pins (pins could be about either good luck or bad luck):

"See a pin and pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck; see a pin and let it lie, sure to rue it by and by" -- this is said to come from the frugal days when pins were manufactured by hand and thus weren't the disposable, trifling commodity they are today.

Never lend a pin to a friend lest it prick the friendship. ("Nadeln verstechen die Freundschaft" - as my mother used to say.)

A couple that are new to me:

A bent or crooked pin is thrown into a wishing well for good luck.

Remove a needle or pin from the packet and prick the recipient before giving it to them.

Other manifestations are the practice of sticking pins in wax effigies of enemies, and putting pins in church gates or stiles over which a body has passed.

"Pin money" was very important to women in centuries past, before buttons and zips fastened clothes and instead clothes were pinned together. Queen Elizabeth I went through 60,000 pins a year! Nowadays the term refers to money a woman could spend without reference to her husband.

Pin-making began in England in the 1570s. Pins were made by sharpening a straight piece of wire and winding a thinner-gauge wire around the other end, which was hammered on to make the head. Solid pins were invented in 1824.

Finally, two stories of people with a bizarre fascination for pins:

Pin Tommy walked the streets of Derby in the 1830s. Every pin he found or was given was added to his clothing until it was like a suit of armour. It was said that he would rather go hungry than swop one of his pins for food.

Kitty Hudson (also called the human pincushion) was born in Arnold, near Nottingham, in 1765. She developed a habit of swallowing pins, and in fact could not get to sleep without pins in her mouth. She was finally admitted to hospital and over a long period of time, pins, needles, and pieces of bone were removed from all over her body. On being discharged she married, had nineteen children who all died, was widowed, remarried and eventually settled in South Wingfield, Derbyshire. For the rest of her life, pins would occasionally erupt from her skin.