A waulking song is a traditional song that was sung for a group to keep in sync while rhythmically beating newly-woven fabric on a surface. This motion shrinks the fibers of the fabric, which makes it better at repelling water.

“There would often be 24 of them at one table, singing songs for four to five hours at a time, during which 300-400 yards of cloth would be waulked.” Audio Recording Transcript: “WAULKING THE CLOTH, ” Track ID: 65191, Date: 1961. Source: tobarandualchais.co.uk

This could be done sitting around a table and moving the fabric with your hands, but in some places the fabric was waulked using feet. As they sing, they both beat and move the fabric in a clockwise direction. There is a video you can watch here.

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Writing @sh.itjust.works

Blair @sh.itjust.works

5mo ago

Writing Resources

I am a bit of a cataloger when it comes to writing resources, so here are some of them. I haven't tried all of these myself, so please let me know if I get anything wrong. If people find this helpful, I have world building and editing related ones I can share too.

🆓yWriter: It is not the most sleek looking program, but it works.
🆓Google Docs
🆓Slugline
🆓Highland
🆓 Wavemaker
🆓 Joplin: The cloud hosting does cost money. Open source alternative to Evernote.
🆓 Only Office: This one is good for people who want a private cloud-hosted alternative to Google Docs. It is open-source.
🆓 Obsidian: I have started using this for world building, but many authors use it for writing. Within it, you can crea