Moleskin has traditionally been used to smooth out, or wipe, heated lead solder dripped in blobs on to a join between two pieces of lead.
 
Towards the end of the nineteenth century moleskin clothing became the height of fashion. Large numbers of professional mole catchers killed and skinned huge numbers of moles, not only in Britain but across Europe and Russia as well.
 
By 1905 over a million skins a year were traded in London alone and twelve million a year were crossing the Atlantic to the United States.
 
Some say the trade declined because the mole was practically hunted to extinction, while others say it was due to the in- crease in motor cars and the problem that hitherto fashion- able moleskin coats, when sat upon for long periods tend to develop pressure marks that por- tray all too clearly the finer anatomical details of the wearer.
 
It was the fur of the mole that gave it the unique characteristic of all furry animals. All furry animals can be stroked with the grain or nap, so to speak, and against the nap. But every hair on a mole’s pelt is fully articulated and can be stroked in any direction.
 
The mole is the oldest living furry animal, having evolved from the earliest primates, shrew-like creatures of 65m years ago. Incidental, evolutionists believe that humans also evolved from these primates. True moles first emerged in Europe some forty five million years ago and ten million years later, they had shambled across a land bridge from Europe to begin the evolution of the new world species.
 
None of this explains why moleskin was the fabric of choice favoured by plumbers and leadworkers. From the beginning of the 20th century cotton twill steeped in animal fat has been used by plumbers instead of moleskin, and cotton for the sake of purity of taste. pads or wads can still be bought from plumber’s merchants for use by leadworkers.
 
So, we wondered, how far back were moleskins used and why.
 
Ancient moles:
Our first port of call, The In- stitute of Plumbing could not help. Nor could the Worshipful Company of Plumbers whose records go back to the 13th century, although we were in- vited to look through their li- brary. Neither could the Lead Development Association nor the Lead Sheet Association.
 
The Romans traded tin and lead ore from ancient Britain. And more British Romans were buried in lead coffins than any- where else in the Roman empire. So we asked the curator of Roman artefacts at the British Museum, Ralph Jackson. Did he know if moleskin was used to wipe lead joints in lead coffins and cisterns made in Britain during the Roman period? No, he said, but try Vitruvius and Pliny.
 
Vitruvius and Pliny:
Vitruvius Ten Books of Architecture, the Romans’ building regulations, has this information on lead:
 
Clay pipes have the following advantages ... if anything happens to them anyone can repair them ... water from clay pipes is more wholesome than water conducted through lead pipes ... this we can exemplify from plumbers for when lead is cast the fumes from it settle upon their members and day after day burn out and take away all the virtues of the blood from their limbs ... hence water ought by no means to be conducted in lead pipes if we want to have it wholesome. That the taste is better when it comes from clay pipes may be proved by everyday life, for though our tables are loaded with silver vessels, yet everybody uses earthenware for the sake of purity of taste.
 
Vitruvius knew lead was harmful to health. The Egyptians, Hippocrates and Pliny all devised remedies which used lead for the removal of scars, for ulcers and for eye disease.
 
In Pliny’s Natural History, the Roman encyclopedia of the natural world, moles are damned by nature to perpetual darkness and ‘women have in their womb an animal called a mole’.
 
Pliny mentions Druid knowledge, and the Celtic physicians in Gaul in the half century before the Roman conquest, like Crinias and Charmis of Marseilles. James Tierney, a Latin scholar, wrote in 1967, there can be little doubting the medico-magical side of the Druids so prominent in Pliny’s Natural History.
 
So perhaps the use of moleskin was Celtic?
 
Celts v Romans:
The Romans knew and rather disliked the Celts, who had raided both ancient Greece and Rome.
 
Celtic armies plundered the Oracle at Delphi, taking the valuables to Marseilles where they were found centuries later. They later attacked Italy and early ancient Rome, having given the city of Milan its Celtic name en route.
 
The Romans knew of the druid colleges in Britain at- tended by Celts from Assyria to Ireland, where trainee Druids spent 26 years learning their craft.
 
After a 200 year campaign against mainland Celts, the Romans finally attacked Britain in 54AD. Celtic Britain was a major supplier of lead to the Roman Empire and control of the mines of Somerset and North Wales was an important economic reason for the occupation of Britain. The crude lead also contained silver, and separation of silver from the lead was an important stage in the lead making process.
 

Lead ingots and lead pipe with dateable inscriptions have been found at Bath and Chester, lead brine-evaporation pans for making salt have been found at Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich, and numerous deco- rated cisterns and coffins can be found in museums from Scotland to Dover.
 
The Celts were skilled metal workers and although there is little evidence for Celtic lead working, legends of lead and moles do exist.
 
Celtic legend:
Fionn Mac Cumhail, or Finn Mac Cool, was a legendary Celtic warrior who lived in Ireland sometime after 200BC.
 
During his quest for a bag made from crane skin (the Irish holy grail) Fionn met up with Fiacail Mac Conchinn who carried twelve balls of lead around his neck. The Irish for mole is caochán, not unlike conchinn. Uncanny, but there is more. Fiacail told Fionn to sit down between two giant molehills (the Paps of Anu) on Hallowe’ en, which he did, and secrets of the underworld were revealed to him.
 
Another Druidic mnemonic, of the journey quest of Art to find Delbchaem, includes a reference to lead:
 
Across an ocean of sea-monsters. Through a wood of spear points. Across an icy mountain. 
Through a glen of poisonous toads. Across a mountain of lions.
Across an icy river. Over a narrow bridge guarded by a giant to a dark house in wood where seven hags and a bath of molten lead await him.
 
The Celts, and probably Romans, believed that moles were in some way magical, being in touch with the underworld. The Celts believed that at Beltane and Halloween, faery doors opened in molehills and it was possible to see the little people.
 
Could it be that Celtic fascination for mounds grew from molehills, especially places like Silbury and Glastonbury in England? The word ‘sil’ is Celtic for threshold - could Silbury could mean the threshold between the temporal and spirit worlds?
 
The Latin phrase, E RIVO FLUMINA MAGNA FACERE, ARCEM FACERE E CLOACA translates as making a mountain out of a molehill but this could have come from the Celts who may have used the expression more literally.
 
Mull means a snout or it can mean a tonsure, the haircut used by Celts and early Christians which left their pate bald with a ring of hair around their heads, like a mole’s snout. Iona, the holy island located just off the snout of the island of Mull in Scotland means very small. Could mull and mole be words from the same Celtic root?
 
Incidentally, the ancient country of Ionia, from which Ionic columns came, in 1000BC had twelve cities, one of which was Miletus, from where, according to Celtic legend, invaders came who conquered and settled Ireland.
 
Here is a Romagnola charm from the northern (Celtic) region of Italy for bewitching or injuring the victim:
La Terra dei Mucchi delle Tarpe (Talpi)
 
While putting earth from three molehills into a red bag say:
 
O terra che di terra vi racatto, Sopra tre mucchi che dalle tarpe siete stati ammuchiati,
E come avete ammuchiato questa terra
Ammuchiate i dispiacere di quella famiglia
Che non abbiano bene e ni pace
E tutte le sfortune piombino sopra al suo capo!
Earth, O Earth, who long hast laid On the hills which moles have made,
As they heaped thee, may there be Evil heaped on this family
And disaster fall like lead Evermore upon its head!
 
The Romagna believed that the mole lives in darkness under the footprints of the stregone, or wizards, which give it power for good or evil. The mole has a chthonic, demonic reputation, hostile to man, found in such old Roman beliefs as, ‘If you throw a mole into a house the grandmother will die.’
 
According to Pliny, ‘He who will swallow the heart of a mole, still quivering, will receive the gift of prophecy; a mole, tooth pulled from the liv- ing animal cures toothache, its blood cures weakly persons.’
 
In Ancient Greece the mole was sacrificed to Poseidon, the god of the sea upon which the earth rested. Both the mole and Poseidon were capable of shaking, undermining, or otherwise disturbing anything built upon land.
 
It is associated with the Greek Ascelpius and the Indian Rudra, both gods of healing. French children once wore various parts of these animals in little bags to ward off intestinal worms and convulsions. Moles are symbols of those who have tunnelled through the earth and discovered its mysteries. This journey may be understood as a symbolic death leading the initiate to another spiritual plane or to the place of the dead.
 
Druidic lore taught that a human soul had to pass through many incarnations in Abred, the circle of necessity, before it could reach Gwynedd, the circle of blessedness. Abred is earthly life; once the lessons are learned, the soul does not return. The Druids taught that three things could hinder progress: ego or pride, lies, and unnecessary cruelty.
 
Shrewstrike:
There was a folk belief that moles were regular as clockwork, and only made molehills at 6am and 12pm.
 
While molehills were deemed lucky, the presence of molehills near to a house were an ill omen, and near a kitchen meant death for the wife of the house.
 
Moles also have secret mole castles, like giant molehills, weighing half a ton or more, where they breed. These are rarely found, and despite being a fact, they are also the stuff of legend.
 
There are a number of old names for the mole, including moldewarp, shrew, taupe and want. The Wanter was a molecatcher. Molecatcher is a folk euphemism for a man who sleeps around - perhaps a reference to Pliny’s earlier statement about moles and wombs? Since shrew and mole were to some extent interchangeable, could this put a second meaning on the title of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew?
 
Taken from SALVO magazine 44 ~ September 2003