The Woman Spinning Wool – the Seventeenth (17th) Essential Santon for a Provençal Creche

Posted on July 22, 2014 | 0 Comments

The Woman Spinning Wool - La Fileuse (French) – La Fielarello (Provençaux) is number 17 on the list of the top 20 Essential Santons for a Provençal Creche. It is common for her to be represented in the Santons world as either a young or an old woman. Carbonel has created both.

She is associated historically in Provence with the process of filature, and reeling threads of silk from a cocoon, i.e., as the "Reeling Girl, or Woman."

"In the 18th and 19th centuries Provence experienced a boom in sericulture that would last until the First World War, with much of the silk produced being shipped north to Lyon. Viens and La Bastide-des-Jourdans are two of the communes of Luberon that profited the most from mulberry plantations that have since disappeared.^[34] Working at home under the domestic system, silk spinning and silk treatment employed many people and increased the income of the working class." - Wikipedia

In Provençal tales the Woman Spinning Wool is Marto, one of the three Parcae or Goddesses of Fate.

The Provence of the Santons world, of course, is one in which the Shepherd and his sheep and their wool is of utmost importance. Each Spinner holds a distaff of wool. The pinafore around her waist is folded up to form a pocket to hold the fleece with which she spins. She is available in all four sizes that My Growing Traditions offers.