Free The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin Page A

whole reconstruction. How were we to cover the wooden hull with oxhides? What should we use for thread? How did we join the hides together? What method ofstitching was best? How far apart should we make each stitch hole? There was a host of questions, and if we made one error, the consequences would be disastrous. For example, if we stitched too closely, the leather might rip between stitches. On the other hand, if we stitched too widely, the leather would buckle between them and water would pour in through the joints.
    The Irish National Museum in Dublin had a superb collection of early Christian artifacts, and I spent hours examining the skills of the craftsmen from Saint Brendan’s day. What exquisite skills they had displayed! These were men who had worked metal and wood and leather so cunningly that their craftsmanship stood comparison with the very best modern examples, and their decorative metalwork and jewelry was still unsurpassed. Naturally, I was more interested in their everyday objects. These items, too, were sometimes so well made that I realized we would not be limiting our own techniques to conform with medieval practices, but rather we would be hard put to it to rise to their level of skill. In metalwork, for example, the early Christian craftsmen had cast fish-hooks in bronze as robust and sharp and well-designed as anything we could obtain today. They had hammered rivets so delicately and accurately that it was virtually impossible to duplicate the effect. And as for their leather work, the museum displayed a rare example of early leather—an early Christian book satchel made to carry a Bible. To stitch this satchel, the medieval craftsman, who may well have been a monk himself, had worked with his hand inside the satchel, running his needle down the length of the leather so that the stitches actually stayed within the thickness of the skin and were totally invisible. No less an authority than John Waterer had declared that few modern leather-workers would have cared to try to duplicate this meticulous craftsmanship.
    A master saddler also came across from England with his best apprentice to advise George and me on possible leather-working techniques for the boat. We numbered every oxhide and heaped them under piles of weights to flatten out the wrinkles as much as possible. We trimmed the hides with sharp knives, and hung them on the wooden boat frame, turning them this way and that to try to make them fit the compound curves of the hull. We warmed oxhides to try to mold them; we soaked them in water; and we beat them with great hammers to try to shape them. We tried every technique I had seen inthe museum, and we tested the traditional methods of the master saddlemaker, methods with splendid-sounding names like back-stitching, two-hand stitching, blind stitching, and the furriers’ stitch.
    Occasionally the results were disastrous. For example, when we tried lacing the hides together with finely cut leather thong, the lacing popped apart like rotten string. “If only we could get fine thong made from horsehide; it’s so much stronger,” bemoaned the master saddler. Another hide we tried dipping in water that was too warm, and the leather turned brittle and lifeless. It cracked and split like a neglected shoe, and George and I looked at one another, wondering what would happen if we made a similar mistake but failed to spot it before we put to sea in the Atlantic. At last we worked out a technique that seemed simple and effective. We overlapped the oxhides by a margin of one to two inches, and then stitched a strong double line of thread along the joint. It took care and patience, but the workmanship was at least within our capabilities, and the joints showed a crude strength. Just before he left to go back to the firm who had kindly loaned him to us, the master saddler looked at the long, gleaming, naked frame of the boat, then at the stack of hides lying waiting, and then at George and me.