Lace tells

Lace tells were catchy rhymes chanted to the rhythm of bobbin lace manufacture in lace schools and workshops in Flanders, the English East Midlands, and the Saxon Ore Mountains (German: Erzgebirge). Tells helped lacemakers to count stitches, maintain a steady rhythm, and stay awake and focused. Lace tells were also used in lacemaking schools in order to increase the speed of work and to teach discipline and lace skills to children—including basic numeracy. Lace tells often borrowed content from existing songs and legends, adapting familiar narratives and formulations to metaphors relying on jargon and details of lace manufacture. Aside from lace manufacture, lace tells often concerned death and violence, as well as expressions of resentment and vengefulness against parents, school mistresses, and lace merchants.

The repertoire of surviving lace tells has been studied as a corpus of work songs by women and girls. Parallels between Flemish and English tells may point to a Flemish provenance of the East Midlands lace industry. Common elements found in lace tales from all three regions indicate that lace telling likely began with the establishment of the lace industry in the sixteenth century and was disseminated throughout Europe by migrant lacemakers.