20 January: Pins

Today is the feast day of St Sebastian, patron of pin makers. 10 things you might not know about pins:

1. Saint Sebastian is the patron of pin makers because he was sentenced by Diocletian to die by being tied to a stake and shot with arrows. He’s also the patron saint of archers, as it happens. Although he was shot full of arrows and left for dead, the arrows didn’t kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She took him home and nursed him back to health.

2. Pins have been used since Paleolithic times. Pins made of thorns and bone have been discovered dating back to this time. The Sumerians used pins made from iron and bone, not only to pin clothes but also to hold the pages of books together.

3. A pinners guild was first established in London in 1356.

4. John Ireland Howe of Derby, Connecticut invented a pin making machine in 1832. The factory he set up could produce 72,000 pins per day by 1839.

5. A pin is usually just over an inch long.

6. There are 3 predominant pin head finishes: T shape, ball head, and flat head.

7. The maxim, 'See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck' isn’t really about pins at all, but pennies. The rhyme was to extol the virtues of thrift, and the lesser known second line is ‘see a pin and let it lie, bad luck you'll have all day.’

8. Pincushions first appeared in the middle ages. Up until then, pins and needles would be stored in containers made of bone, ivory or Silver. A common shape for a pincushion is that of a Tomato. This arose because putting a ripe tomato on the mantle of a new home ensured prosperity and warded off evil spirits. Which was a potential bummer for a superstitious person who moved house outside of tomato season. Hence they made fabric tomatoes and stuffed them with sawdust. It wasn’t long before the women of such households discovered they were great for sticking pins into.

9. The infamous Pendle witch trials in 1612 started over a row about pins. A young woman named Alizon Device had need of some pins but no money to buy any, so she found an elderly pin seller called John Law, and asked if he’d give her some pins for free. He refused, so she cursed him. It just so happened that Law collapsed soon after from an apparent stroke. Whether it was stress from the argument, or the nocebo effect (if someone believes in a curse, it works, the opposite of the placebo effect) we’ll never know but it was the trigger for a whole lot of women being accused of witchcraft and executed.

10. While on the subject of witchcraft, sticking pins in a poppet or voodoo doll in order to cause harm to another person is a common spell. It wasn’t the only use a witch might put pins to, however. She (or he, let’s not be sexist here) might put them in a witch bottle, along with other sharp objects like thorns, Needles and broken Glass and fill the bottle up with urine. If cursed by another witch, they could “fire” the bottle and send the curse back at its sender.