Scottish Ell

["laurel" <laurel@spiritone.com>]

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I have read that all the measurements in the Newport Tower were according to
the Scottish "ell".  I assumed that the word "Scottish" was put there to
make it clear that the ell was used exclusively by the Scotts and thus
proved a link with Prince Henry.  But now I wonder whether there were
different "ells", Scottish, Icelandic, etc.?

I am reading a book ICELAND, LAND OF THE SAGAS by Jon Krakauer and on pg. 33
it says:
 "an exquisite little church, dating from 1859, stands on the very site
where the first church in Iceland was built in 1018.  Before it lies the
boulder on which, according to tradition, the ells of cloth were measured
out a thousand years ago.

If this ell and the Scottish ell are the same, then it leaves the Newport
tower open to other builders than Henry.

Note ...life in rural Iceland before the twentieth centry.
On a sunny day, the small, earthen-smelling rooms seem snug, and the whole
building has a vernacular beauty, both inside and out, that instantly
strikes the eye.  Life here, however, as in every turf farm, was often
miserable.  If the roof were not pitched at exactly the right angle, it
would crack or leak.  When rain got inside, the floor turned to mud.  The
turf grew cobwebbed and mildewy; disease was common.  Smoke from oil lamps
fogged the close air.  In the single house slept as many as 25 people, two
to a bed.  Old hay or seaweed served for the mattress.  Even in winter, body
heat was the only source of warmth.
 Baring-Gold, who stayed in many turf farms in 1862, complained about the
lice that "teem in the unwholesome recesses of the house....
'unlike the Icelanders of the genus homo, these horrible parasites are
endowed with a predilection for novelty, and in a moment scent out the blood
of an Englishman (isn't that phrase in Jack in the Beanstalk?), and come in
eager hordes, from which he finds no escape till he reaches a boiling spring
in which he can plunge his clothes and annihilate his tormentors wholesale.
Curiously enough, the natives have a supersititious dread of killing one of
these constant companions, and they will remove one which is particularly
obnoxious, and lay it gently on the table, without for a moment thinking of
depriving it of life.'"
Laurel
Portland, OR

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