When a kemp is about to be held, the matter soon becomes generally known
in the neighborhood. Sometimes the young women are asked, but in
most instances, so eager are they to attend it that invitations are
unnecessary. In the whiter months, and in mountain districts, it is
often as picturesque as it is pleasant. The young women usually begin
to assemble about four o'clock in the morning; and, as they always go in
groups, accompanied besides by their sweethearts or some male relatives,
each of the latter bearing a large torch of well-dried bogfir, their
voices, and songs, and loud laughter break upon the stillness of
night with a holiday feeling, made ten times more delightful by the
surrounding darkness and the hour. When they have not the torches the
spinning-wheels are carried by the males, amidst an agreeable din of
fun, banter, repartee, and jest, such as scarcely any other rustic
amusement with which we are acquainted ever occasions. On arriving at
the house where the kemp is to be held, they are placed in the barn or
some clean outhouse; but indeed the numbers are usually such as to crowd
every available place that can be procured for their accommodation. From
the moment they arrive the lively din is incessant. Nothing is heard but
laughter, conversation, songs, and anecdotes, all rising in a loud key,
among the louder humming of the spinning-wheels and the stridulous noise
of the reeds, as they incessantly crack the cuts in the hands of the
reelers, who are perpetually turning them from morning to night, in
order to ascertain the quantity which every competitor has spun; and
she, of course, who has spun most wins the kemp, and is the queen for
the night.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121