Description

This scarf is inspired by the timeless beauty of winged spinning distaffs. With totemic symbolism and carrying messages of eternal love, these distaffs were once crafted by shepherds who journeyed to the mountains with the Feast of Saints Constantine and Helen and returned at Saint Demetrius’ Day. Their motivation? Love. These distaffs were gifts for their sweethearts or fiancées. The young women would either choose to keep the received distaff or refuse it, often by breaking it—a decisive gesture of rejecting the shepherd’s affection.

If the shepherds knew how to write, the distaffs would often bear engravings of the year, the name of their beloved, and sometimes verses of love. Typically, these gifts were presented during gatherings known as “șezători,” symbolic and affectionate gestures steeped in tradition.

The distaff engraved with the name Alice is inspired by an exhibit at the “Ioan Raica” Municipal Museum in Sebeș, originating from the village of Șugag. The remaining distaffs are based on old designs of broken distaffs collected from Mărginimea Sibiului by Octavian Goga in the village of Tilișca and published in Luceafărul, no. 4, February 15, 1906.

The symbolism of the spinning distaff extends beyond the romantic realm; they narrate an ancient story, as old as humanity itself: “a fundamental narrative of primordial cosmogony, where the mountain—cosmic tree and altar alike—served by Venus and guarded by Mars, protects the Universal Spirit, which ‘has made its dwelling in the Sun,’ as David wrote in Psalm 18” (Ion Drăgușanul).