I was delighted to learn this week that medieval scribes believed in a demon called Titivillus, whose job it was to introduce errors into their work. So if you made a mistake copying a manuscript, you could simply blame it on him. (“I say, Brother Eczema, you’ve copied antidisestablishmentarianism wrong again!” “It wasn’t me, Brother Hashbrown, honest, it must have been Titivillus, the wee imp”.) Whereas the Jackson Five didn’t blame it on the sunshine, the moonlight, or the good times, but blamed it on the boogie, we know who was really responsible.
And when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. I used to think my guardian angel was slacking on the job, I make so many silly errors; little did I realise they were Titivillus’s doing. (I’d like to say that Titivillus is the origin of the modern slang phrase for when things go wrong, that they’ve gone “Tit’s up”, but alas that’s not true. The world can be a bit disappointing sometimes.)
Oystercatchers
In his spare time Titivillus also collected idle chat during church services, as well as instances of the minister skipping or mispronouncing words. These he put in a sack and took down to hell, ready to be used in evidence at the day of reckoning; they were, he said, when asked about it one day, “stolen from God” – at which point I think back with a twinge of unease to my schooldays and the larks we young scamps got up to when we should’ve been attending to morning service.
Titivillus was regarded as the patron demon of scribes, but he’s pretty much out of a job now that we’ve migrated to computers and keyboards. Still, the devil finds work for idle hands, and I these days I expect he’s gainfully employed messing around with the autocorrect function on my phone and creating paper jams on the work photocopier.
Blooming grasses
TECHNICAL STUFF
Given the number of mistakes I’ve made in my knitting recently, each of which had to be patiently corrected by Tech Support (i.e., Margaret), I think Titivillus must’ve been perched by my elbow, dropping stitches, turning knits into purls, and casting purls before swine. Still, despite his best endeavours I’m about three-quarters up the back. The gussets were increased by two stitches every four rows until they were 17 stitches wide, or two inches, when they were put on holders and I divided for front and back.
I should finish the back this week, and then we’ll do it all again for the front; unless of course it turns out that the devil, as the saying goes, really is in the detail…
The Trinkie on a bonny day
In spite of Titivilus perching by your elbow recently, the photo of your sweater almost took my breath away for its color and design of the best of gansey designs – and this was the back! I was gobsmacked, Gordon, what else can I say, besides wanting to ask if you get emotionally attached to creations like this?
Hi Annie, I always suffer from Stockholm syndrome when I knit a gansey, though I can’t get too attached to them as most of them are too small to fit me! But it’s also lovely to see how appreciative people are when they receive them. (And by the time I finish one I’ve usually started, or started planning, the next, so I’m always looking forward!)
Titivilus has been paying me a visit this week, moving beads around on my abacus while I’m trying to calculate stitches for pattern placement!
Hi Sally, yes, I’m afraid the wee scamp can multitask and muck up calculations on multiple fronts!
I have long suspected that something was adding typos after I hit “post”, but I didn’t know it had a name.
I gather that Margaret is the Saint of Correction Fluid, with duties now expanded from text to textiles.
Seriously, that is a beautiful gansey.
Hi Tamar, I blame him for that email I sent “reply all” instead of to just one person! Oops.
Without Margaret my ganseys would take a lot longer to knit, as they would involve rather a lot of ripping out and starting again!
Love your posts and photos. I’m so glad to have Titivilus to blame when I find myself tinking back . . .
Hi Betsy, the next time anyone says, “you have no one to blame but yourself”, you can always say, “well, let me tell you about…”
I have a question for you. I have Gladys Thompson’s book of patterns. How do you work with these patterns? Do you chart out the written instructions or do you copy them out in some format to follow – or are you just so familiar with them that you can read them from the book? I’ve hesitated to choose a pattern from this book because it looks complicated to translate it to something I can follow. Thanks for sharing your experience with this!
Hi Betsy, good question, and sorry for the delay in replying. I can’t read a traditional knitting pattern, I’ve only ever worked from graph charts.
So, a gansey is made up of various pattern elements – diamonds and cables, anchors and zigzags, etc. – each of which repeat a certain number of times around the body. So I start by working out how wide the body has to be in inches and multiply that by 8 (my gauge is 8 stitches to the inch). That tells me how many stitches I’ll need. Then I play around with the patterns charts – if I have 4 diamonds and 3 cables, how many stitches under/over is that? How about 4cables and 3 diamonds? How if I make the diamonds a couple of stitches wider or narrower? Etc.
Once I’ve got the patterns and their repeats to match the number of stitches I need I just start knitting, following the chart for each separate pattern (if I need to – things like moss stitch and diamonds really just knit themselves!).
Hello..a mistake is always forgiven and i was instructed..necessary.. to let the devil out….so no need to worry..he is well on his way by the sound of it.xxx
Hi Meg, I like the idea that every activity has a guardian angel/ patron saint, as well a guardian demon. As ever, I’m caught in the no-man’s-land of the battle between good and evil!
Ah-ha! The villein, ‘tho’ to suggest a demon more akin to petulant imp may be stretching it in terms of knitting. So, when my arthritic fingers spasm and cramp as I’m doing a cable or my needle remains in the knitting belt and stitches slip off when I move, it is the Arch Villein, Titivillus! Good to know who to blame now 😈 I am sure those many who have proceeded us esp busy fisher/crofterwives picking up,putting down,picking up in spare moments or knitting by candlelight and fire, even with an oil lantern and trying to remember the pattern, mistakes happen. So be it, ‘tho’ looking at the ornate or heavily patterned ganseys would need good light and time and patience.
Present gansey coming on and looking good (as always, Gordon). Definitely a favourite of yours, even from the first blog entry. Most excellent!
Hi Kevin, great to hear from you and thank you for the kind words, as ever. I’ve seen photos of old ganseys that had mistakes in them, and as you say, the light couldn’t have helped – though if they were knitting in Caithness in summer light wouldn’t be a problem! (Being dark enough to get to sleep is the real challenge.) There have been many times when I thought the devil walked at my elbow – little did I realise, he wasn’t after my soul, he was just there to ruin my knitting!