The Red Thread : Binding Follkore to the Journey

It’s been another busy weekend at the bench on Nb Loveday. Stewart and I sat side-by-side with a brew on the go, working on pieces for a small commission, but more about that in a later post!

While we worked together in the close warmth of the boat, I began sharing my ongoing research into Italian folklore: specifically Il filo rosso, the red thread. As I explained the old stories and the quiet ritual of La Legatura, I realised Stewart had stopped his work entirely. He listened intently. The stories transfixed him.

Growing up visiting my Piemontese grandparents in Turin, the “kitchen laws” usually dictated what you didn’t do. You didn’t turn the bread upside-down. You didn’t spill the salt. You didn’t waste what had been given.

Ultimately, looking more closely at the traditions of Piemonte and the wider north, did I recognise the deeper meaning behind those small gestures: the ancient idea of binding protection in place.

This was La Legatura.

The Ritual of La Legatura

In northern traditions, a simple twist of red wool or silk fixes protection to a place or object. For instance, ribbon might wrap around a ladle, a bedpost, or a garden gate. It stays hidden at the threshold of the home, not displayed, not explained, simply present.

Similarly, this ritual often felt practical and domestic. A sturdy knot around a wooden spoon or a pair of shears marked the tool as belonging to the hearth. Consequently, it created a quiet boundary: this object belongs to this home’s abundance.

At other times, people tied the thread tied more deliberately as part of Le Segnature, the old “signings” known across Piemonte, Lombardy, and the Veneto. Grandmothers passed these whispered traditions quietly to granddaughters, often on Christmas Eve. Because of this secrecy, these traditions lived in memory rather than on paper.

Within these northern traditions, people fixed protection using three knots. Since three is the sacred number, it carries a specific weight. When someone “signs” a thread for protection, three knots lock the intention in place:

• one for the past
• one for the present
• one for the future

Not decoration, but binding.

Between Water and Woods

I live my life on the shifting waters of a narrowboat. Meanwhile, Stewart’s life is lived in a wagon tucked deep in the woods.

Our hearths are not fixed places. Instead, they move with us.

In that moment, the idea of a binding thread, something small and deliberate to hold protection, felt like exactly the thing we needed, though neither of us knew to look for it.

I couldn’t find a photograph of this ritual in any book, and I don’t recall seeing it in my grandparents’ flat in Turin. However, a private talisman rarely sits on prominent display.

So I sat at the bench, Stewart beside me, and made one myself.

Amongst the many boxes on the boat I found a length of bright red thread. I wrapped it around one of Stewart’s horseshoe nails and tied three knots, just as the old signers did.

One knot for the past,
to honour the ancestry and heritage we carry.

One knot for the present,
for the life Stewart and I are building now between the water and the woods.

One knot for the future,
to seal protection for the journey ahead.

I am not a signatrice. I did not perform a ritual in the old sense. Nevertheless, it was a small and respectful gesture. A way of acknowledging the thread that still runs between my grandmother’s kitchen in Turin and my narrowboat in England.

Fixing Intent into Metal

In Italy, the red thread is sometimes spoken of as the thread of destiny, the invisible connection between people, places, and lives that are meant to meet. It may stretch, it may tangle, but it does not break.

The red thread now hangs at the door of Nb Loveday. Meanwhile, Stewart has taken his nail back to the woods in Dorset, where it will be fixed beside the entrance to his wagon.

They are small things.

A length of red thread.
A horseshoe nail.

Yet they hold something steady between us.

In the days and months ahead, you might notice a flash of red thread tied to a tool at the bench, or travelling quietly with a finished piece of jewellery. We have started fixing these threads to the pieces that leave our workshop. Small anchors of intention for others to carry with them.

Because wherever someone chooses to live, be it in a house, a boat, a van, or a wagon, everyone deserves a little folklore to help bind their luck to their journey.