The Tale of Sockfried’s
Once upon a time in Southern Germany, there lived a guy named Siegfried the sack sewer - Yes, his job was sewing sacks - and let me tell you, he was a rather scandalous guy. Of course, he was a good worker, we’ll give him that but once off the job, he turned into quite a wag. Spending his evenings in South German taverns, drinking the Bavarian beer in masses and never missing to prove to the ladies how incredibly funny he was. The women liked the cheeky young guy.
But one night – you might have guessed it – our good Siegfried took it too far. He broke into the sack factory, accompanied by his two ladies of the night, to cover all the machines with toilet paper he stole from the storage room. Upon seeing the mess at his factory the next morning, Siegfried’s boss knew at once that it was our Siegfried who had played him a prank. Unfortunately, the boss was quite an ill-tempered man, who didn’t appreciate fun – especially Siegfried’s understanding of fun - and without hesitation, our Siegfried was sent on his way.
Sad, but also a little bit proud of his – arguably – great prank, our good Siegfried was jobless and had no plan what to do with his time. So, he packed his bags and travelled as far and wide as he could. Visiting the most beautiful places, celebrating life and making many new friends in the process. For months, he lived as if the world was his oyster, but then his pockets slowly but surely got empty. Around this time, his socks got all holey – unfortunately, it was Siegfried’s very last pair. On top of it all, he had no money left for buying new socks. But as we all know, Siegfried was clever – he said to himself: „I need socks for my travels, socks that keep me warm when it’s cold and socks that keep me cool when it’s hot. I need socks that don’t stink and socks that stay clean“ So, he set out to accomplish this seemingly impossible quest.
With a little bit of background knowledge from his days as a sack sewer, Siegfried had some idea of how to weave socks. „Basically“ he thought „socks are just sacks for the feet.“ His very last ducat, he spent on specialty yarn and all the pieces he needed for a sock-weaving device. It took him a while, but he managed to assemble his funny, novel machine. Unsurprisingly, his technique was unlike any of the other sock weavers at the time. But exactly this fact, and a good choice of yarn, was what made his socks better than most. They kept his feet warm, kept his feet cold, didn’t start stinking, and stayed nicely clean.
Soon after this, his traveling friends noticed his socks and wanted a pair. Thrilled of their features, they told their friends and they again told their friends. Siegfried got famous incredibly fast. Within a short time, our good old Siegfried needed a team to meet the demand. He needed more space, more machines and more yarn.
Today, many decades after he walked this planet, our good old Siegfried is commonly known as Mister Sockfried. His weaving technique has remained a well guarded secret - to this narrator’s knowledge, there is only one more fine manufactory that knows how to weave like Sockfried did at his time. And the mysterious masters at that fine manufactory, who still know about the secrets of Sockfried’s technique, these masters, my dear readers, are the ones who will weave your pair of Sockfried’s today.
