Oh oh oh oh this is my subject on Viking reenactment gigs, I’m the group’s Vala and I also fill in for the weavers and spinners because IT’S THE SAME SHIT let me tell you about it :D :D :D
SPINNING with a drop spindle, none of your fancy high-tech spinning wheels here my friend, SPINNING OMG is literally taking undifferentiated fluff and turning it into the most useful and life-essential item in your whole civilisation with little more than a click of your fingers–without thread you have no sails, no clothes, no blankets, it’s literally power of life-or-death shit here, it is magic AS FUCK. That’s without doubt why the Norns were spinners and weavers.
There was laws about not saying people’s names or talking about people when you’re spinning, because you’re basically bringing something into being out of nothing, and with that kind of power you could just as easily bring events into being. So folks probably look the other way when you’re spinning thread for your son’s shirt and you want him to be victorious and honourable, but if you’re spinning away and bitching out about that ho Ingvar (see below) and how she stole your man and deserves the same to happen to her, that’s a crime. You’d be in better legal standing if you just punched her, because enchantment against a person was seen as sneaky and underhanded, with all connotations of forethought and antisocial intention, while punching someone could be an understandable lapse of self-control.
It was also forbidden to spin “against the sun” (ie: counterclockwise) because ok we also know there’s a mechanical aspect to that as well, it’s very useful to have the twist going in the same direction at all times so it doesn’t cancel itself out, but it was believed that an item made from backwards-spun thread could literally kill a person, there’s an account of a Vala spinning a shirt to murder a priest and it’s inferred that it was spun backwards. Because like, the sun is the source of all life, and to go against the sun goes against life, and much as the anti-twist cancels out the twist, it cancels out life. Brutal.
And you couldn’t talk about people when weaving, either, because weaving is an extension of the whole something-from-nothing power, but presumably people did anyway because there’s an actual find of a weaving tablet with a curse carved on it “Sigvor’s Ingvar shall have my misfortune” so basically every time the card was turned, it would strengthen the curse, and literally spin and weave it into being. HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT. There’s also a find of a weaving sword with a “love poem” carved on it, note the quotemarks because this “poem” goes “Think of me, I think of you; Love me, I love you” THAT AIN’T NO POEM FAM THAT A SPELL. She probably making him (or her) a shirt.
And that’s three times I’ve mentioned shirts, so I should tell you that making a shirt for someone was a Big Deal, in a way it was sort of the period equivalent of the boyfriend sweater, with the sheer amount of labour that goes into making a shirt you have to really give a whole lot of shits about that person. There’s an account of a woman making a shirt for her brother-in-law while her husband was away, and it’s OMG DRAMA BOMB. The Vala I mentioned above really gave a lot of shits about murdering that priest. Hence, the most-likely-a-woman who owned the inscribed weaving sword could very well have been making a shirt for her crush, who may OR MAY NOT have been her husband. You know, she could’ve been like “hope my nice hubby thinks about me while he’s away” or she could’ve been like “damn, brother-in-law too hot” or she could’ve been like “damn, Ingvar too hot” (wlw aren’t attested at all but you gotta assume it happened because humans) but in any event she knew what was up. And making a shirt for someone wasn’t thought of as *overtly* magical, mostly, but there’s kind of a subtext to it that presupposes any shirt could be enchanted and probably was to some extent.
And this is just scratching the surface of the academically well established stuff, with none of my own hypotheses and observations. I can go on for hours.
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