[Regia-NA] Straw hats

[rmhowe]

VIKING@inthedanelaw.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
> I would very much doubt straw hats...although I have irritiating 
> "back-of-the-mind" thought that I saw something familiar in a manuscript 
> picture at sometime.  We do have saga references to big floppy hats.  
> But I don't know of any physical evidence.  Anyone else?

This is more than a bit odd but in the four big books I have
in Russian on the Novgorod excavations there is a boater
hat like from the 1920's - exactly the same shape - that
is included in the illustrations. Unfortunately I don't
read Russian and it's not in the English language summary
book Thompson wrote on the four reports. It looked to me
like it was woven from birch bark or root. Would have
looked correct walking around an English or American college.
Go figure.

We have a russian immigrant pair that comes to most of the
gem shows here and sell birch bark boxes that are quite
wonderful. Some of it is carved and scraped, sewn together
with bark thongs. Some of it is impressed. Usually there
are laminations to form the things. For example the hinges
go down between the birch bark walls and are also formed
of bark. Some are semicircular, circular, or oval. Most
have Romanesque designs on them, sometimes the phoenix
or various animals. Not cheap but quite beautiful. I bought
the wife a semicircular one she uses for a rings box that
has russian squirrels on it. Her SCA device uses Russian
Chipmunks (or had to so it would pass our heralds). They
have jagged ears and look a lot like a stylized Red Squirrel.

Incidentally, Kim, there are different squirrel species on
the two alternate rims of the Grand Canyon.

Now that you have American Grey Squirrels in England, to the
detriment of the poor reds, you can share my battle over my
fruit trees. Nothing short of shooting them seems to work.
Scent repellents, noise repellents, huge rubber snakes in
the trees, various other things....
If I could pay the proper attention I'd have a hawk myself.
After the passing of the last hurricane fringe they are
probably desperately rebuilding their nests. The hawks
tear them apart during the winters if the wind doesn't.

In the NC mountains we have, or had, white ones, that were
mutants in Brevard in the 60's-70's and I have heard of a
few on the UNC Campus, and I think somewhere else. With the
resurgence of the hawks here they've probably become lunch
or bred out by now.

Magnus

> Bill
> 
> 
> 
>     Message date : Sep 30 2003, 10:36 PM
>      From : Tracie Brown
>     To : list-regia-na@lig.net
>     Copy to :
>     Subject : [Regia-NA] Straw hats
>     I can get around without glasses, but I really miss
>     sunglasses. I have straw hats that are correct for later
>     periods, but I haven't found any styles earlier than these
>     from the Maciejowski Bible, which is a bit late for Anglo-
>     Saxon:
>     http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/maciejowski/leaf
>     17/otm17va&bdetail7.gif
> 
>     Anyone got some earlier hats?
> 
>     Thanks.
> 
>     -- Tracie