A story about a story
The story of Sägen
Sägen is the Swedish word for a very specific kind of folk story: one that is set in a past remembered by elders, neighbours, acquaintances or travellers, and that tells of frightening or chilling events often including supernatural creatures or entities. It’s short and part of the old, oral storytelling tradition, and unlike sagas or fairy tales, it has some claims of truth, placing it in the liminal space between myth and history.
In the Swedish sägen, things are never quite what they seem. They tell of encounters with trolls, giants, ghosts, fairies and other creates, and quite often it’s not easy to sport the difference between natural and super natural. A common way of dispelling the supernatural was to say its true name out loud, but just as often, the creatures were neither benevolent nor malignant. If you treated them with respect and made small offerings, they could help you. But if you didn’t believe in them, if you were careless with their home in the natural world or somehow offended them, you would soon regret it.
Even though a Sägen is tied to a specific place, they are often retold with small variations in many different places. They were meant to uphold a certain kind of structure and enforce some behaviours while discouraging others: don’t get lost on the mire, stay away from deep water, move with respect through nature. Be kind, not greedy. They were also, no doubt, a way to pass the time when the night was really dark and the winters cold and long.
Onto a story of stitches.
Folk tales and myths have been a source of inspiration in my work for many years, and my hope is that the yarn, the colours and the names I give them, will be passed on to those of you who pick up a skein or five. Because what is knitting, or crocheting, embroidery, weaving, needlebinding or any textile craft based on fine threads, if not the creation of a story? All the hours we spend with yarn and needle in hand, knitting our worries out from our minds, knitting our joys into the fabric we create. It’s my story, inspired by so many old stories without authors, and then it becomes yours. It might not always turn out exactly to what we expected, but the magic twist in this whole craft is that we can unravel - undo what we did, and then use the very same thread to create something completely different.
All Sägen yarns are natural fibres: wool, silk, alpaca, cashmere… They have not been treated to withstand machine washing but have their wonderful, natural properties left - a mitten that turned out too big can be felted to just the right size, a steek can be secured by needle felting the raw edges. I simply love wool because it is wool, behaves like wool, feels alive and has character, and removing this takes away some of the fun.
The first release will be all about semi solid shades. I’ve worked hard to come up with a palette where all colours work together and that can be combined in numerous ways, even if there aren’t tons of shades available. As the seasons change, I will add more colours. Some colours are more solid and some more variegated - there are stories even here, and I love to pick out that spot of dark colour where the pigment for some reason was more concentrated, think about how it will look in a knitted fabric, give the surface depth. Some shades may vary over time, as I have moved from one dye studio to another and my recipes need adjusting to the different composition of the water. It’s not an exact science and neither do I strive to produce batches that are exactly alike - part of the story is that it’s hand made, and that is allowed to show. Just as your finished sweater won’t look like it’s been bought in a store. There’s a freedom in letting that pointless and unobtainable perfectionism go, and I look forward to exploring it more.
From Febryari 1st, 2023, Sägen will be sold in my yarn shop, www.elkmarketyarn.com. Let’s make stories.