Root children!

 

Do you know this lovely story?

The Story of the Root Children by Sibylle von Olfers. It is a tale about Mother Nature waking the little root children under the ground at this very time of year, Candlemastime, and setting them to prepare for spring. Each brown and earthy root child gets to work fashioning a colorful frock to wear, brushing the bees, polishing the beetles, and giving the ladybugs a fresh coat of paint. By the time all the work is done it is time for the root children to spring up from under the ground and parade across the land in their fresh new clothes, each representing some type of flora. The story goes on to follow the children through the seasons...all the way back to dormancy again. It is a sweet and powerful story for this season between Winter and Spring and depicts exactly what it is that my family celebrates at Candlemas...that is, the stirring of life . 

We have little collection of root children dolls in progress right now. (Our former set was eaten up by moths..I've since learned to wrap my wool treasures up and store them in the chest freezer!). 

  

We will make a couple more root children over the next few days. As the weeks progress we will add a colorful garment to each doll transforming each into a blossom of some sort. It is great fun and one of my favorite nature table tableaux of the year. Perhaps I will attempt a tutorial tomorrow?