Three Icelandic Mittens.

By Ásfríðr Ulfvíðardóttir/ Rebecca Lucas.

As usual, my curiousity was spurred by a single sentence. In this case, the comment by Margarethe Hald (buried in a chapter on naalbinding), that there was a Viking Age mitten made from 'woven cloth' in Iceland (1980; 302-3).
How could I pass over such a tantalizing footnote? Especially given the attention that naalbinded and knitted mittens receive, here was a much more humble item made of fabric. I had to investigate further!

Pálmi Pálsson wrote about a mitten, discovered in 1881, from the Garðar site in Akranes, Iceland (1895; 30). The mitten appears to have been found within the original structure, built during the landnám period -- ca. 874-930 CE. -- by Jörundur the Christian who gave Garðar its' original name of Jörundarholt. (Lehmann-Filhés 1896; 29)

What remains of the mitten is 28cm long and 11 cm wide (Pálsson, 1895; 35) and left-handed, although it is believed it was originally longer and worn over the sleeve, as the wrist is quite wide and there is no hem or selvedge remaining (Lehmann-Filhés 1896; 30). A thumb and gore were inset into the mitten, the latter adding extra width to the cuff (ibid.). In 2005, Christina Krupp travelled to Reykjavík and the National Museum of Iceland (Þjóðminjasafn Íslands). She described this mitten as having a seperate front and back, and an inset thumb (Krupp, 2005).

The fabric of the mitten is overall a red-brown coloured vaðmál, and woven in a 2/2 twill with approximately 7.2 warp threads per cm, but only 4 weft threads (Guðjónsson, 1962; 21). The weft, therefore, is very thick (Lehmann-Filhés 1896; 29) but with very little twist with s-spun thread in a golden hue (Guðjónsson, 1962; 21). The warp is finer (Lehmann-Filhés 1896; 29), but darker brown in colour and tightly z-spun (Guðjónsson, 1962; 21).
It appears that the inside of the mitten was originally lined with a woollen pile (Guðjónsson, 1962; 68)-- almost like a fake fur -- of unspun or weakly z-spun red-brown wool firmly attached to the fabric (Guðjónsson, 1962; 22) 'through sewing' (Guðjónsson, 1962; 68), before being trimmed to create a short, hairy surface (Guðjónsson, 1962; 22).

Akranes Mitten
Left: Drawing of Akranes mitten (Lehmann-Filhés, 1896).
Right: Photograph of Akranes mitten (Pálsson, 1895).  

Another two fabric mittens, belonging to a child, were discovered in Heynes, Iceland, by Halldór Kristjánsson in 1960 (Guðjónsson, 1962; 16). Also made from vaðmál, they appear to be connected together with a band (Guðjónsson, 1962; 16, 19), and although they were not specifically dated, they were found near some fragments of shaggy fabric, that are believed to have originated between 900 and 1100 CE (Guðjónsson, 1962; 66). Guðjónsson theorises that the mittens were made from recycled fabric, that originally had another purpose (1962; 30).

Christina Krupp described these mittens, from what she could see in the display, as appearing to have "a piece for the front, a piece for the back (sewn together all around the sides) then a hole or slit cut out near the seam on one side, and a separate piece added for the thumb..... the thumb piece had a single seam going across the top and down one side, as if a wider rectangle had been folded narrow and sewn into a closed-ended tube. The seam at the base of the thumb was partly hidden but it looked like it went completely around the base" (Krupp, 2005).

Heynes Mittens
Drawing of the childrens' mittens from Heynes. After Guðjónsson (1962; 19).  

Bibliography