I’ve been inspired by how the Crannog people on Loch Tay lived what seemed like quite a decent life 2,500 years ago, even in what was often a tough and isolated place, relatively poor in materials like metals or clay. They were farmers so they had domestic animals and grain crops for food and they did have some iron tools that were probably made elsewhere but they had to build their houses and make most of their domestic and farming utensils and tools themselves with what they could find locally, mostly from plants. One of the most basic things they needed was string and rope. The Crannog roof is lashed together with miles of twine and it must have been a big job to make enough, though I’m sure they did it themselves, there was no B & Q to buy it from then. And I was reading Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s wonderful book ‘Women’s Work: the first 20,000 years’ about the development of textiles in prehistoric societies and the role played by women who made them. She pointed out the importance of string, even saying there was a ‘string revolution’ when people discovered how to make strong, long twine out of plants (and I guess animal sinew too). All you need are longish fibres, like those in leaves of grass leaves, in two or more bundles, that are twisted in opposite directions and then twisted together. That’s it. So I’ve been making grass string, and string from nettles and willow and lime bast. It’s easy and addictive. I made a metre or so of grass string when I was walking the dog and I even managed to make a grass string bag. It took quite a while and probably isn’t the strongest but it shows what you can do with almost nothing but plants. Just like people who lived on the Crannog.
