Up: [[Place]] Related: [[How Reindeer Run]] Created: 2026-02-19 Waulking is a practice from the Scottish highlands centuries ago. It’s communal working of woollen cloth to make it softer and thicker, accompanied in the highlands by Gaelic songs. Eight to twelve women would take a length of newly woven tweed up to 70’ long that had been soaked in stale urine to set the dyes and start the softening process. The length of tweed would be sewn together to make a long loop and then the women, working in tandem, would rhythmically beat the tweed against a table as they moved it clockwise from hand to hand, woman to woman. In contrast to [[How Reindeer Run]], counter-clockwise was considered bad luck. The women sang to keep the rhythm of the work, but their singing also let them share their feelings and local news. Typically, one woman would sing short verses of a line or two, perhaps sharing a humorous moment or a hardship from daily life, and the others would either join in on the chorus or it would be a call and response style of singing. The responses in the oldest songs were nonsense syllables, called vocables. In some of the slightly more recent songs, there might be a distinguishable word or two in the chorus. The speed of the song would change with the process, so slower at the beginning of the work and then increasing in speed as the cloth dried and the women warmed up to the day’s work. In some areas of Scotland, after being waulked, the cloth was rolled up and patted smooth to the accompaniment of a fast and fun clapping song, sometimes playfully pairing off the women present with the names of local men. Waulking died out in the mid 20th century when machines took over, but there are[ re-enactments of the process](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8HKJ94v2xM) on YouTube and a number of the better known waulking songs have been preserved.