2000/25

Ose,

The ‘ose’ is a poultry basket in use since circa 1300 and said to be for carrying broody hens. Oses were also traditionally used to hold doves at the Presentation of the Infant Christ in the Temple. It is an unusual type of frame basket, in which two oval hoops form the handle and the top lip of the basket. This example is made of buff willow with skeined lapping on the holiday. After one of these baskets appeared in the ‘Living Traditions’ exhibition in Edinburgh in 1951 they became popular as a shopping basket. This one, however, is probably too small to be a shopping basket.

1 basket: willow

MERL ‘Stakeholders’ recording form, December 2013 – Object number: 2000/25 // Name of recorder: Hilary Burns and Sarah Le Breton // General construction method: Frame // Overall shape: Oval// Materials: Buff willow and skeined lapping on handle. // Base: – // Sides: –// Border: – // Handles: – // Lid: – // Dimensions: 28cm (height), 14cm (width), 15cm (width at base). // Anything else to note about this particular basket: Frame construction. Main 2 oval hoops form handle and top lip of basket [see diagrams]. 8 short ribs of varying lengths make the form of the basket. When constructed this basket looks to be made by beginning with the handle and then working from both sides, adding ribs as you go and finishing in the centre of the body of the basket. The maker has used occasional packing on the ribs, as and when needed to create evenness. A really nice feature of this basket is that once all the ribs are in, a system of grading the weaving rods is used, always starting with a butt end on the longest rib inside and finishing with tips also on the same rib. This particular ose basket is a variation of a type, as different numbers of complete hoops and shorter ribs can be used. // Anything else to note about this type of basket: –, MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Museum of English Rural Life) – 'Standard museum name: BASKET // Accession number: 2000/25 // … // Recorder: JMB // Date: 10.1.01 // Description: Small example of a ‘rocking’ basket or ose made of brown willow in traditional style. // Dimensions: Height: 28.0 cm // Width: 14.0 cm // Width at base: 15.0 cm // Associated information: Baskets of this type (although the design is very old and they were used originally for other purposes) were made more recently to be used as shopping baskets. This one is rather small for that.’, Source unknown, p.119 – ‘Ose or hen basket. This is one of the most widely known as well as one of the most interesting baskets of the world. Most people believe that its origins are Scottish and there is a body of evidence to support this theory. For instance it went across the Atlantic with the Ulster-Scots immigrants who finally settled in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia in the eighteenth century. It has been made there of local materials ever since, very well on the whole and with no alterations. // A modern example appeared at the ‘Living Traditions’ exhibition in Edinburgh in 1951, made by basketmakers at Kilmuir in Skye. It was said to have been made originally to carry a broody hen from one croft to another, but others said that it came from Scandinavia where, incidentally, it is called a Scotch basket. // After the Edinburgh exhibition it immediately became high fashion and was made in tremendous numbers all over Britain, some masters training one man to make it and mothering else, and not only did the craze hit Britain; it was copied in bulk in China, Japan, Poland and Jugoslavia [sic]. By the end of the 1950s it fell out of fashion. // Herr Christoph Will, formerly director of the National School of Basketry at Lichtenfels in Germany, tells me that for eight years every girl had to have her Schiffsswingen – her rocking boat. The design had been known there for a long time, being only one of a group, made in much the same way, in the basket museum in nearby Michelau. The name was given to it at some time because it looked like an old ship. And certainly it does resemble the ship looking like an heraldic crescent moon in very early manuscripts. // I believes its origins are very old but probably not Scottish, though they may be Celtic. It appears much earlier than the eighteenth century in connection with birds, for I have found it in fourteen illuminated manuscripts dated from the twelfth century onwards, shown as the basket in which St Joachim carried the sacrificial doves at the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. It appears in the same role on Opus Anglicanum embroideries of 1315 and in a stained-glass window of York Minster. Sometimes the basket is wider and flatter but the unique structure is the same. Another use, when it was probably larger and heavier, was as a builder’s basket. In this guise I have nine manuscript references also from the twelfth century onwards. It must be stated regretfully that at this time our Scottish neighbours were not very much engaged in painting and embroidery and it is very doubtful if a basket of their invention would have come to the knowledge of the artist monks of Canterbury. I would suggest that it was indeed known outside Scotland as a hen basket even in those days. // There seems no trace of it in pictures after the fifteenth century and it was perhaps forgotten in the south of England. But of course it has never been ‘lost’ and there has always been someone able to make it. The borders between England and Scotland were never closed and at some time it went over – with gypsies, with itinerant basketmakers, who knows? // As we know it now, the standard English or Scottish pattern is made of which willow 15in (38cm) high to the top of the handle and 7in (18cm) across the circular openings; it is 18in (46cm) wide at the widest part and 11in (28cm) across the bottom. It has 5 complete hoops and 14 shorter ribs put in after the weaving of the top is begun (CoSIRA)’

Basket, bird, Basket, shopping

Betts, Jill (Agent)
Burns, Hilary (Recorder)
Le Breton, Sarah (Recorder)