Ithaca Scottish Festival 2009

Saturday J and I went to the second annual Ithaca Scottish Festival. Immediately on arriving we ran into a prof that I know from Cornell, Wayne, who was at the festival representing the Black Sheep Handspinners Guild. Wayne gave us a very interesting demonstration of spinning yarn using an old spinning wheel and explained how the spinning of yarn was done back in the old days. I’ve known Wayne for many years from my work at Cornell but I had no idea that he was into all this handspinning stuff. He seems to know quite a lot about it and about the whole history of yarn-making in general. We got to hear a bit of the pipe band competition. We saw some of the athletic competitions, including the caber-tossing which was pretty impressive. We also saw a demonstration of sheepshearing by a charming fellow who managed to stay cheerful and smiling all the while that he was struggling to hold this reluctant sheep down and shear it (the sheep obviously didn’t like this process) while explaining the process to the crowd gathered around.

We had been expecting a big rainstorm, and when it finally hit we sought shelter under a little tent with a few other folks. Local singer Pamela Goddard was also there under the tent, and to our surprise and delight she did an apparently impromptu performance of several beautiful old English, Irish, and Scottish folksongs. On some of the songs she accompanied herself on the mountain dulcimer. She sang beautifully, performing with grace and aplomb as if she were singing in front of a huge audience, but in fact there were only about 6 of us there listening to her there as the rain poured down all around us.