The Faun's veil

One late summers day when I was four, my mother took me and my two older siblings into the forest to pick blueberries. At one point, my mother warned us about a beehive. But I could not see any hive. I just saw trees and heather. It was as if someone had drawn a veil before my eyes. As if I could not focus. I saw absolutely no hive.

It went as it had to: Both my siblings walked around the hive, while I, who saw nothing, went straight on. I just stumbled over the beehive. When the others asked why, all I could reply was "I didn't see it." The next thing I remember is sitting in the kitchen taking off my T-shirt. I was covered in beestings. Every time I think of this memory, I still smell the vinager my mom used to make the stings less painful.

In the movie "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", the little girl Lucy meets the faun Tumnus under the lamp post which marks the outer border of Narnia. He takes her home for afternoon tea, where he plays his flute for her so that she falls into a trance and do not discover that something is wrong. Tumnus actually plan to hand Lucy over to the White Witch, but luckily for Lucy, Tumnus feels guilty and fails to complete his plan.

When I saw the film for the first time, the story about the faun Tumnus made me think of the blueberry trip that ended so dissasterous. It was as if a faun had played his flute for me, so all I could see was trees and blueberry heather. Unluckily for me, my faun had no qualms throwing dust in my eyes, unlike Mr. Tumnus, who failed to betray Lucy in the end.

The pattern in the center of this shawl is called The Faun's eye, and looks like the head of a faun. This is a pattern I found in Barara G. Walker's book series "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns". On the inner border, I have used a pattern of blueberry heather, with nobs for berries, which I have composed myself.

The outer border is also partially self-composed. It consists of two patterns; leaves on a sling and three berries in a pile. The outermost pattern is a modification of a pattern I found in Sharron Miller book "Heirloom Knitting". The leaf pattern in the inner loop of the outer border is self-composed, inspired by a sweater I saw in a newspaper.

At first glance, it looks like this shawl is covered by blueberry heather. But if you look closely, the eyes of the faun emerges. When you have seen the eyes, you discover that there are many of them. The whole center is covered with fauns.

Now, as an adult, I know that the reason I did not see the hive was that I was simply too short to see it over the vegetation. However, at the time, it seemed almost magical. It is funny how we try to find an explanation when we observe something we do not understand.