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Encyclopaedia of the North East

W - Weaver to witch stone

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A large printed capital letter W with scrimshaw, a harpoon, small charms, fabric and weaving equipment.

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weaver n 
A person who turns yarn into fabric 

There are two wool mills... for weaving woollen cloth... which manufacture on their own adventure, considerable quantities of the coarser sorts of woollen cloth, and of yarn for stockings. The number of hands... employed is about 30...
Rev John Morison 1840 Parish of Old Dee.

Bobbins. Two large wooden bobbins.

Bobbins for holding yarn, from the hand loom weavers at Glenernan, Aberdeenshire (early 19th cent.)

ABDUA:18442, 18443

Shuttles. Two wooden loom shuttles, rectangular with pointed ends and wheels.

Loom shuttles, Glenernan, Aberdeenshire (19th cent.)

ABDUA:18878, 18862

Plaid. A folded pieced of cloth, green with vertical white, brown, blue and red bands and horizontal white and brown bands.

Length of woven woollen cloth showing the usual width of the cloth woven in the area, Moray (early 19th cent.)

ABDUA:17648

Gartane leem. An open wooden box about the size of a shoebox, with a panel with a row of alternating long vertical gaps and holes projecting upwards from inside. On one end of the box is a crank which turns a bobbin wound with thread.

'Gartane leem', a small portable loom used for weaving narrow bands of cloth, Aberdeenshire (early - mid 19th cent.)

ABDUA:18991

Lamp. A small metal lamp with a spout on either side.

Weaver's naptha lamp: the twin wicks enable the weaver to see the shuttle moving across the loom, Strathdon (mid 19th cent.)

ABDUA:18610

Yarnet. A rectangular wooden box about a foot and a half lonf with a handle.

Yarnet, a container for holding the prepared yarn prior to knitting or weaving, Strathdon (early 19th cent.)

ABDUA:18881

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whale
n a cetaceous sea mammal.
v to catch whales.
-r n a whale boat, a whale man
-harpoon n a barbed dart used for killing whales.
-oil n oil obtained from the blubber of a whale.

The commencement of the Whaling industry at Aberdeen dates from 1752, when a company was formed, which fitted out and sent to Greenland... two vessels of 500 tons.
V.E. Clark 1921. The Port of Aberdeen. 

Scrimshaw. Two whale teeth with drawings on them, one with plants and birds, the other has a sail ship with two masts.

Scrimshaw engraving on sperm whale teeth (19th cent.)

ABDUA:36919, 36920

Harpoon head. A large flat iron point with barbs, with a long shaft ending in a wide socket. The harpoon head is about two feet long.

Harpoon head, Aberdeen (early 19th cent.)

ABDUA:18578

Harpoon head. A large, smooth iron point about nine inches long with barbs and a shaft with BON ACCORD inscribed on it.

Harpoon head used on the Aberdeen whaler BON ACCORD (1817).

ABDUA:18107

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witch-stone n 
A type of amulet, an object with occult power, usually a perforated stone.

I ask anyone who has been in an air raid or series of air raids to answer honestly whether he or she didn't conjure up some image of luck to help him through: some object to touch or wear, some corner to be in, things of the utmost irrationality but yet they worked - that is to say the survivors who are the only people who can tell about them... but they won't so much as see a genuine fairy walking within a yard of them!
Naomi Mitchison 1947. The Bull Calves

Panel. A wooden panel about twenty centimetres wide, carved with the face of a horned devil with pointy ears and teeth, with flowers and stems on either side.

Wooden panel showing the 'face of corruption' from St. Nicholas Kirk, Aberdeen (probably 16th cent.)

ABDUA:18393

Cruik. A piece of iron about a foot long, with a wide flat hook on one end a small pointed hook on the other from which it hangs on a chain of large flat iron rings.

Cruik marked XXX to protect food from witchcraft, Rayne, Aberdeenshire (late 18th cent.)

ABDUA:18786

Axe head. A dark polished stone axe head about ten centimetres long, one end pointed and the other sharpened.

Jadeite axe (thunner stane), Aberdeenshire (c3500BC).

ABDUA:18960

Cup and ammonite. A small pottery cup with decorative zig zag lines cut into it, next to a piece of a fossilised ammonite.

Cup and ammonite fossil from Skene, Aberdeenshire (c1800BC).

ABDUA:19721, 14845

Stone charms. Four charms, left to right: a polished brown and blue oval pebble, a round stone mace head, a flat disc, a miniature stone axe head.

Stone charms. Left to right:

'Lucky stone' kept by a family at Inverurie until c1900.

ABDUA:16155

Neolithic mace head hung in byre to protect cattle at Stonehaven until 1876.

ABDUA:15593

Charm, Aberdeenshire (19th cent.)

ABDUA:16159

Sandstone 'charm' axe from a burial at Upper Boyndlie, Tyrie (c2000BC)

ABDUA:14777

Charms. Four charms, clockwise from top left: a piece of stone containing a mould for a spindle whorl, a bone cross, a ring shaped spindle whorl decorated with carved foliage, a flint arrowhead.

Objects kept as charms. Clockwise from top left:

Whorl mould kept at Tarfat, Fyvie (20th cent.)

ABDUA:15677

Bone cross worn as a charm, Old Deer.

ABDUA:18311

Flint 'faery dairt' (Neolithic arrow head), Fyvie.

ABDUA:16742

Spindle whorl, Forest of Birse (possibly 17th cent.)

ABDUA:19157

Four stones with natural holes through them, one beige and rectangular, two orange and grey, and a large grey stone with a cord through the hole.

'Witch stones'. Left to right:

Buchan (1887), Ellon (19th cent.), Fourdoun (early 19th cent.), Orkney.

ABDUA:18916, 18915, 18912, 18917

Axe heads. Two flat bronze axe heads, covered in green rust.

Bronze axe heads buried at the Pass of Ballater (c2000BC).

ABDUA:15653, 15654

W - Weaver to witch stone