By the way I really wish a lot of romance writers who writer about Ancient Ireland would read this, marriage in modern Ireland and celtic Ireland were two completely different things. Not exactly a book you would expect to find anything really about yarn and fabric. I mean why would a book about marriage have anything about that sort of thing?
Page 53-54
When it came to the division of wool and the dye-plant (glaisin) which was used, the position was as follows: the woman would take as her own one half of whatever cloth she had woven or of the the wool she had spun while married. She was entitled to one third of the wool which has been combed once and a sixth of the wool which is in locks or sheaves of flax. As to the dye-plant, she received one third of it at a preliminary stage of preparation and one half if it be fully prepared for use.(the author cites Ancient Laws of Ireland Vol II, p 373
Glaisin would appear to be Woad from a quick google, I suppose that's going to be one of the next things to research,
So there was flax, and wool. Nothing is said of knitted fabric of any sort, but then again it's not clear if the cloth is about unused cloth or if it would include used cloth, I may have to take a better look at the laws and my old college text on Early Irish Laws looking at it for mentions of yarn and clothing. I was reading this originally to remind myself about the laws because I read too many books that contradicted what I believed was true. It's an interesting and quite short read. It's interesting to see a different view of marriage and an insight into a different culture. It's just a pity that many authors can't see past their own cultural assumptions.
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