Connecting threads

Abstract

The paper is about symbolic meanings of spinning, the material (fibres - un-spun wool) for spinning and the results of this activity (thread, yarn). On the basis of comparison of the records of beliefs from different sources - ancient poetry and treatises, European folklore and ethnological data, and iconographic material - the author argues that in European traditional folk conceptions, spinning and the material and products associated with it refer to basic aspects of human existence, birth, fate and death. While un-spun wool is related to the otherworld, spinning and thread refer to the world of the living, link this world and the otherworld, and allow the transition between the world of the living and that of the dead.